Early Versus Late Start in Foreign Language Education: Documenting Achievements

Abstract

This study compares 27 sixth grade students who have been learning Spanish since kindergarten with 5 who have had Spanish for only 1 year using a battery of Spanish oral and written tests. The students who started early outperformed the new students in listening, speaking, and writing Spanish. Those who started early also displayed a positive attitude toward speaking Spanish in the classroom, a high level of confidence in their Spanish oral and literacy skills, and the use of sophisticated language structures in writing. These findings provide additional evidence supporting the case for early foreign language learning. Key words: content-based instruction, early versus late second language learning, foreign language in the elementary schools (FLES) Language: Spanish Early Versus Late Foreign Language Education: Why Start Early?Even though Krashen, Long, and Scarcella (1979) concluded that early foreign language learners show better results than older ones in the long run, later studies of the early-late distinction have provided conflicting findings. In many cases, these studies focused on a particular skill or task (e.g., reading comprehension), thus making it difficult to conclude anything substantial about an early start. The present study presents findings that support foreign language learning for early learners based on results from a battery of oral and written tests comparing the academic and nonacademic language skills of two groups of children. In addition, this study includes students' perceptions of their language learning skills.Singleton (2001) provided a recent review of research on the impact of age on second language acquisition (SLA) and discussed various trends in this area. Harley (1986) concluded that an early start may lead to greater oral proficiency and confidence in using the target language. Furthermore, Harley and Wang (1997) found that early learners outperformed older ones not only in pronunciation, but also in morphology and syntax. Regarding the achievements of late beginners, studies show that some learners whose exposure to a second language (L2) begins after age 12 can nevertheless acquire nativelike pronunciation (Bongaerts, Mennen, & Van der Slik, 2000; Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, & Schils, 1997;Palmen, Bongaerts, & Schils, 1997). These studies are consistent with the results of Scovel (1988) and Flege (1999), who found that children can attain nativelike pronunciation in their L2. Researchers have begun to identify other factors that are intrinsically related to age of learning and that may affect SLA. For example, DeKeyser (2000) found that the few adult beginners in his study whose scores were identical to those of child beginners had high levels of verbal analytical ability. According to DeKeyser, these results suggest that maturational constraints apply only to implicit language learning mechanisms.Harley and Hart (1997) indicated that differences of instructional styles associated with primary and secondarylevel education may be a factor related to L2 ag...

Benefits of foreign language learning and bilingualism: An analysis of published empirical research 2005–2011

“…The findings of these studies revealed that (a) dual‐language competence is associated with emotional, social, and behavioral well‐being, particularly in Latino children of immigrants (Collins, Toppelberg, Suárez‐Orozco, O'Connor, & Nieto‐Castañon, ); (b) the advantages of early FL/WL learning supports the development of students’ oral skills and their confidence in using the target language (Domínguez & Pessoa, ); and (c) multilingualism has its affordances when the language learner has at least an intermediate level of proficiency, particularly when navigating challenging communicative situations (Dewaele, ). Mikolic's () study concluded that language use was impacted more by the number of opportunities to use an FL/WL than by one's level of communicative competence.…”

Middle School Foreign Language Instruction: A Missed Opportunity?

“…The reported benefits of early‐start foreign language instruction in the study by Bolster et al () were supported in a later study by Dominguez and Pessoa () that compared the Spanish language skills of American students in sixth grade, who began their instruction in kindergarten, with their peers in the same grade, who did not start learning Spanish until fifth grade. In this study, the early‐start students outperformed their late‐start peers on oral communication tasks: Proficiency scores for the early‐start group ranged from Novice Low to Intermediate High.…”

How does time-on-task affect the achievement of early and late starters of Indonesian in schools?

“…Other studies have explored affective aspects of language learning in describing achievement. In their study of young learners of Spanish in the United States, for example, Dominguez and Pessoa (2005) tested a number of skills as well as students' perceptions of their language learning. They compared two groups of year 6 students, 27 who had studied Spanish from kindergarten and five late start students with only one year of Spanish.…”

“…Given the varied findings on the early or late start question, recent work has called for greater rigor surrounding the research methodology and sensitivity to contextual variables in interpreting research findings (Munoz, 2008). For example, given the inconsistent findings in their study, Dominguez and Pessoa (2005) indicate their intention to explore the possible impact of test familiarity and students' sense of control of the test items on performance. The authors argue for the need to value other aspects of learning such as student disposition.…”