Children's First Language as a Model for Second Language Learning1

Abstract

THE most difficult learning task in school is the attempt to achieve fluency in a foreign language. For instance, after two years of stressful study in high school trying to achieve skill in French, German or Spanish, the results from standard achievement tests show .. that students do not learn a satisfactory amount . (Carroll, 1960). It may even be realistic to say that most students will not only have almost zero fluency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but antilearning has taken place because many students react to this kind of a task as a noxious experience to be avoided if at all possible. In intensive training programs for adults in military schools, foreign missionary organizations, and business corporations in foreign countries, only about Y to 2 of the candidates can be expected to achieve success. Carroll (1960) speculates that this high rate of failure is a function of low aptitude for a second language learning. While the aptitude hypothesis may indeed be correct, another possibility is that the learning strategies in contemporary school and training situations make fluency in a second language an unlearnable task for many people. I would like to present the case for a learning strategy that not only makes a second language learnable for most people, but enjoyable. This strategy is a model of how children learn their first language. For example, there are three critical elements in the way children learn their first language. Each of these elements is a clue for creating a powerful strategy to learn a second language. The first element is that listening skill is far in advance of speaking. For instance, it is common to observe young children who are not yet able to produce more than one-word utterances, yet they demonstrate perfect understanding when an adult says, pick up your red truck and bring it to me! As far back as 1935, teams of investigators as Gesell and Thompson or Biihler and Hetzer have reported that when children learn their first language, listening comprehension of many complex utterances is demonstrated before these children