What’s the Story on Children Learning English?

Written by Dr. David E. Shaffer

Learning English is a big thing in Korea. And for the past two decades it has been a big thing for young learners as compulsory English education has moved to the elementary schools. Korea has 180,000 elementary school teachers who, among other subjects, teach English. English is also taught at a considerable number of Korea’s 45,000 kindergartens, and a substantial number of the expat English teachers in Korea are involved in teaching young learners. That is a lot of people. And there is a lot of “talk” out there, much of it propagated by laypeople, about how children learn English, or any second language. Let us take a look at some of these notions, or shall we call them “fake facts” (a.k.a. myths), as related to the Korean context.

Fake Fact 1: Children learn additional languages faster and more easily than others.
We have heard so much about the “critical period” and that second languages become much harder to learn after the onset of adolescence. But research is showing that the “critical period” is not so critical. To the layman’s eye, it seems that children learn languages effortlessly because they are not sweating over coursebooks or memorizing long lists of vocabulary words.

Young learners learn differently than older learners. They learn because they are motivated to learn – they want to understand or convey a message – not because they have to do well on some high-stakes test. Their method of learning is different: because their analytical skills are not yet fully developed, they do not have that aspect to rely on. Instead, they rely on the trial and error of using the language communicatively. Actually, research shows that under similar conditions, it takes children longer to learn the same thing than it does for older English learners.

Fake Fact 2: The younger the children, the more skilled they are at learning a second language.
We have said above that the so-called critical period is not so critical. Chomsky even posited that children are born with an innate language acquisition device (LAD) that disappeared with age. That whole theory has now disappeared. However, it is true that the young child has tons of synapses available for learning purposes and that many disappear in childhood if not used. What must be remembered, though, is that those synapses that remain are more than enough to learn all of the languages of the world and then some. Children have fewer skills available to them for language learning than to older learners. Young learners’ analytical skills are still developing, so they cannot rely heavy on these skills as older learners do. So, children are not more skilled at language learning, and they do not learn more easily. What they often do do, though, is put a lot more time and effort into the language learning process than older learners are willing to do.

Fake Fact 3: The more time learners spend in a second language environment, the quicker they learn.

For many of us, our first thought is that this is surely true. However, research has shown that students in English-only programs did not progress in proficiency faster than students in bilingual instruction classes. While time spent in a second language environment is a factor, the quality of that time is even more important. Is the methodology of the classroom instruction efficient? Is the learner interacting in English outside of class? As an aside, I remember one student telling me that he had gone to Canada for six months to learn English. After a couple of weeks at a language school, he decided that he would quit his classes and learn “real” English instead by talking with native English speakers every evening – in a bar. His conclusion was that his six months were “wasted.” (And my guess is that many nights he was, too!)

It must be said, though, that tme well spent in a country or community where the inhabitants speak the language that the learner is learning can be highly beneficial. A combination of classroom instruction with after-class practice that includes interaction with native speakers can be immensely rewarding.

Fake Fact 4: If children can speak the language, they have acquired that language.
We often say that the goal of learning a language is learning to speak it. However, we need to be careful of what we mean by being able to speak a language well. Speakers usually speak only what they know well – what they have not learned is left unsaid. Also, the hearer most often focuses on the message, not the grammar it is conveyed in, giving a false impression of accuracy. It can be surprising how much poorer a learner’s written English appears to be than his or her spoken English. A learner’s apparent skill at spoken English does not reveal what may be a large amount of English grammar, vocabulary, and expressions yet to be learned to function well in an L2 setting.

Fake Fact 5: All children learn a second language in the same way.
While a considerable number of teachers may say that this statement is false, ironically, their one-size-fits-all classroom instruction might suggest the opposite. Even in an EFL environment like Korea, where all the students in a class may have the same L1, there can be differences in their manner of learning. Social class may foster different learning methods. Children in a lower social class with less-educated families may be more used to learning by observation, while children in more-educated families may be more used to learning through explanation. Children of culturally diverse families are entering Korean classrooms in larger numbers and may bring with them additional ways of learning. As teachers, it is important for our classes to contain a good mix of oral, aural, and tactile instruction.

And there you have it: five points in the ongoing story of children learning English.

The Author
David E. Shaffer is vice-president of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of Korea TESOL (KOTESOL). On behalf of the chapter, he invites you to participate in the teacher development workshops at their monthly meetings (always on a Saturday). For many years, Dr. Shaffer has been a professor of English Language at Chosun University. He is a long-time member of KOTESOL and a holder of various KOTESOL positions; at present he is national president. Dr. Shaffer credits KOTESOL for much of his professional development in English language teaching, scholarship, and leadership. He is chairman of the board at the GIC and also editor-in-chief of the Gwangju News.