A case study exploring the differences reported between adult and child L2 learners

Date
2015-05
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Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
Abstract
"The current research is concerned with how age affects foreign language learning. The importance of the students‟ age is a vital factor that intervenes in this process (Ellis, 1989). Learning a foreign language could be more or less successful depending on the maturity of the person. Age is a factor in the foreign language learning process that is sometimes not understood by course instructors and insufficient attention is often given to the age of the learner. A second language (L2) according to Sharwood Smith (1994) stands as a cover term for any language other than the first language learned by a given learner or a group of learners a) irrespective of the type of learning environment and b) irrespective of the number of the other non-native languages possessed by the learner. Krashen (1982) maintained that adult second- language learners have at their disposal two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a second language acquisition, which is a “subconscious process identical in all important ways to the process children utilize in acquiring their first language” and learning which is a “conscious process” that results in knowing about the knowledge."
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