Myths about Language

Introduction
Language acquisition is a subject about which most people have opinions. After all, everyone has
learned a language, many people have watched their own children learn their native language,
and many have engaged in second language learning – whether successfully or not. So, language
acquisition is unlike, say, law or nuclear physics or computer technology. If those topics come up,
non-experts concede to experts, recognizing their lack of knowledge. With language acquisition,
it’s different. Many people believe that they know more about language acquisition than they
actually do, and hence there are many popularly held misconceptions about how people learn
languages.

Myth #1: Children learn languages more easily and quickly than adults.

The very simplistic nature of this statement regarding language acquisition, an extremely complex
endeavor, should alert us to the fact that it cannot be unequivocally true. While it is undeniable
that young children often seem to “pick up” languages in ways that adults may not, we need to
look more closely at where this perception comes from, and what it really means. Children do
have a distinct advantage where pronunciation is concerned. They can often more easily hear and
copy foreign sounds, perhaps with little effort. However, pronunciation is only one, rather small,
aspect of language.
Archibald (2005) states “it is much more difficult to predict knowledge or ability in any of the
other areas of communicative competence (syntax, cohesion, sociolinguistics, etc.) based on age
of acquisition” (p. 420). Because pronunciation is one of the first characteristics of language use
that we notice, good pronunciation can result in the perception that language skills are higher than
they actually are. And poor pronunciation can mask significant knowledge of words and structures.

For example, imagine that a family emigrates to the U.S. from Thailand. The family includes a 34-
year- old father who is a businessman with a university degree, and a four-year-old boy. The father
enrolls in a full-time program to learn English, while the boy is sent to a typical American
preschool. After a year, the father has probably learned at least 3,000 English words and many
structures. He can probably communicate well in the supermarket and with neighbors at a
community gathering. However, his pronunciation may sometimes be difficult to understand, and
his written language may still have many spelling and grammar errors, as he has come from a
native language with a totally different writing system. The son, on the other hand, has probably
picked up about 1,000 words over the course of the year, not a lot less than his native-English-
speaking playmates know, and may have native-like pronunciation. Due to his age, he has no
written language to learn. He chats easily with his preschool friends, and everyone says “He has
picked up English so quickly!” In reality, the father has learned much more than the son. He has
learned three times as many words, not to mention the whole English alphabet and writing system.
But when he talks with his peers, native speaking educated Americans, he only has perhaps one
tenth the vocabulary that they have, and is sometimes misunderstood due to his
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heavy accent. Many people could look at the father and the son and come to the conclusion that
“children pick up languages much more easily than adults”. But our closer inspection reveals
that the adult has learned much more language than the child over the same time period.

Many studies have disproved a simple correlation between young age and facility in language
acquisition. For example, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle (1982) conducted research with native
English speakers of all ages who were learning Dutch as a second language. In their study,
children 3 to 5 years old scored the lowest on language tests, in all categories. In other words,
older children, teens and adults all outperformed the youngest group of children. A significant
additional discovery was that the 12- to 15-year-old showed the fastest language acquisition in
all skill areas. More recent studies have confirmed that the early teen years may be an
exceptionally opportune time for additional language acquisition – superior to earlier years
(Taylor, 2013).

But the point to remember is that there is not a simple correlation between age and language
acquisition in any area other than pronunciation. Even where pronunciation is concerned, some
adult learners do achieve impressive native-like pronunciation. Languages can be learned at all
ages. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Myth #2: All people acquire languages in the same way.

You may read this myth and immediately think “Ah… here’s one that I didn’t believe.” If so, good
for you! We have made great strides in education, in understanding learner differences. However,
if we could glimpse inside language learning classrooms around the world, we would quickly come
to the conclusion that many teachers teach as if everyone did learn in the same way. Most of the
time students are doing the same things, and more often than not, what they are doing involves a
talking teacher, silent students, and a textbook.

How do language learners differ? Some investigations into this question have led researchers to
propose ideal language learner qualities, such as the following:

• Tolerance of ambiguity: the ability not to fixate on unknown language, but attempt to
get the gist of something that is read or heard.

• Willingness to communicate: the effort to engage in communication even when lacking

some of the words and structures that are needed.

• Search for patterns: looking at language as a puzzle, and seeing patterns and connections.

However, language learners do not necessarily exhibit all these qualities, and others similar to
them, all the time. So, the first way in which language learners may differ is in the degree to which
they possess

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these “ideal” language learner characteristics, and the degree to which they can develop in these
ways if provided teaching towards these goals.

Learners also differ, of course, in personality. It is often thought that personality characteristics
such as extroversion enhance language learning potential. In reality, this is unproven. Extroverts
certainly have some qualities which may aid their language learning, but they may also listen less
than would be ideal for optimal language acquisition, and they may be inclined to develop fluency
at the expense of accuracy. Still, introversion and extroversion, and other personality differences,
undoubtedly do play a role in the types of classroom activities which are likely to be motivating
and stimulating for learners.

Another line of thinking about learner differences has to do with multiple intelligences (MI).
Popularized by Howard Gardner (1993), this is the idea that learners vary in eight different types
of intelligence: linguistic, mathematic, visual/spatial, body/kinesthetic, naturalistic, musical,
interpersonal and intrapersonal. MI theory has been applied to language acquisition in various
ways, from the emphasis on kinesthetic activities, to the inclusion of music, to support for
relationship-building within the classroom.

Probably the most well-known theory of “learning styles” is the categorization of learners as
visual, auditory or kinesthetic. Sometimes called “modalities”, these ways of learning have filtered
into popular thinking in many places, with people labeling themselves as one of these three learner
types.
Differentiation according to such “learning styles” may not be very applicable to language
acquisition. All language learners seem to benefit from visuals and physical movement. Also, all
language learners usually need to develop all four language skills (reading, writing, speaking
and listening), so visual vs. auditory distinctions may not be relevant.

Finally, this discussion would not be complete without mentioning cultural influences on
language learning. Do Japanese learners acquire language just as well even though they may
speak less? Do Americans learning foreign languages benefit more from learner choice than other
nationalities might? Do Brazilian English learners do best with highly collaborative and relational
classroom activities?
Researchers are engaged in many studies about the effect of cultural differences on language
acquisition, and any English teacher working with a specific cultural group would be well-
served by investigating what cultural influences have been found.

Though we know that all learners do not acquire languages in exactly the same ways, actual
research on the effect of learning styles, culture and other differences is sparse. What is our take-
away, then? First, certainly learners are different in all sorts of ways, and if a class is small, it
behooves the teacher to know her learners well and teach in ways that will be most motivating
and effective for them. Second, learner differences should not be a noose around the neck of
teachers of large classes. If a teacher has many students, the point to remember is that variety is
needed. Regardless of learning style, all learners need to read (visual) and write (kinesthetic) and
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 engage in oral communication (auditory). All learners benefit from diverse activities.

Myth #3: Children learn to speak through explicit teaching or memorization

Children learn language long before they enter a classroom, just from exposure to it, and they produce
language that they couldn’t have ever heard before based on figuring out linguistic patterns. A classic
example showing that children figure out patterns in language that they can generalize to unfamiliar
data is the wug test, but another source of evidence comes from children’s overgeneralizations of
irregular forms. For example, children may produce goed, eated, foots despite the fact that they’ve
only ever heard went, ate, feet.

In fact, children may even resist explicit teaching of language, as this example shows:
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.

Father: You mean, you want THE OTHER SPOON.

Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.

Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?

Child: Other … one … spoon.

Father: Say … “other."

Child: Other.

Father: "Spoon."

Child: Spoon.

Father: "Other … Spoon."

Child: Other … spoon. Now give me other one spoon?

Myth #4: You have to speak the language of the learners in order to teach them English.

This is a persistent myth that sometimes prevents people from entering the TESOL profession,
or even volunteering to help English learners in some way. The fact is that we teach languages
primarily in the target language… the language students are learning. Thus, English classes
should be taught in English, using words and structures that are appropriate for the students’ level.
We do not rely on translation when teaching a language, and in fact, too much translation often
hinders language acquisition.

In many English-teaching contexts, there are students from several different native languages
in the classroom. So, this is an additional reason why we need to keep the language of the
classroom in the target language: English.

This is not to say that English teachers should not learn the language of their students, if all their
students speak the same native language! If an English teacher is living and working in Korea, for
example, teaching classrooms of students who all share Korean as their native language, the
teacher should, of course, be taking classes to learn the Korean language. This will be very
beneficial in her teaching of English, as she will have a greater understanding of the commonalities
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 and differences in the two languages, will be able to establish rapport with learners in their mother
tongue, and will develop more empathy for her learners as she attempts to learn a foreign language.

However, it is important to understand that good language teaching relies on an understanding of

language acquisition and skill in using methodologies which foster language acquisition. It does
not rely on knowledge of the learners’ native language.

Myth #5: Animals have language just like humans

Animals can communicate with each other, but human language is unique for several reasons. Firstly,
human language is recursive: sentences can be infinitely long (or as long as your breath/memory will
hold out) by embedding one phrase or sentence into another. Some examples from children’s songs:
“the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground…”, “…she swallowed the
spider to catch the fly, and I don’t know why she swallowed the fly…”, “…who lived in the house
that Jack built”.

Human language is also creative and productive: you can make sentences and even words that no
one has ever heard before (e.g. snowpocalypse, I’m all cookied-out). Finally, human language is
more abstract than animal communication: we can talk about past and future and even hypothetical
events and entities. Although bee dances can communicate information about food and distances,
and dogs can recognize names of toys and even whether you’re happy or angry, neither of them can
tell you about how their weekend was or what they’d do if they had a million dollars.