A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

2.4 Cognitive Explanations

Rosansky (1975) and Felix (1985) have hypothesised Piaget's cognitive stage
of 'formal operations' as the close for a critical period for second language
acquisition. Rosansky (1975) hypothesised that Piaget's stage of 'formal
operations', the onset of abstract thinking and the awareness of differences
adversely affected second language acquisition by blocking the natural
acquisition path. Whereas the pre-puberty child acquired a second language
subconsciously and naturally, unaware that he was involved with another
language, the adult perceived the second language as 'a problem to be solved
using his hypothetico-deductive logic' (Rosansky, 1975: 98). The ability to think
in abstract terms therefore came at the expense Ofaccess to Universal
Grammar and innate learning mechanisms. Rosansky also suggested that the
post-puberty Iearnerwas hindered by strong attitudes towards the target
language thus suffering from a double handicap, a conscious awareness about
language as well as preconceived social attitudes. Children on the other hand
would be at an advantage by not having either the affective or the cognitive
'barriers'.

Felix (1985) hypothesised that innate 'language-specific' cognitive structures
(LSC-Structures) are complemented with the onset of formal operations by
'problem-solving' cognitive structures (PSC-Structures) and claimed that the
more the 'problem-solving' ∞gnitive structures shape the learning process at
the expense of the 'language-specific' cognitive structures, the less likely it was
that the learner would achieve native-like mastery of the second language.

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