Does 'different' necessarily mean worse? And what does it mean to have
near-native like or native-like competence?
Adding to this confusion in the use Ofterminology and question formation is the
fact that research findings from one ∞ntext are often uncritically transferred to a
different context without taking into account context-specific variables or
'without regard to their particular conditions of validity' (Widdowson, 1990: 26).
Many of the studies on age in language learning were carried out in a first or
second language acquisition context and a major part of the literature on age
assumes a second language environment. Findings from these contexts are
often transferred to the learning of a foreign language in the classroom where
quite clearly different variables are at play and where, as Hatch (1978b) pointed
out, the application of results from second language acquisition research often
involves 'leaps in logic'. On the other hand, 'extremist' and 'exclusive' views
have often led to what might be valuable and relevant findings from second
language acquisition research being ignored in discussions of classroom foreign
language learning (Lightbown, 1985). Any discussion of the age factor in
language learning, however, which does not take context-specific variables into
account is likely to be of little value:
"Generalizations about the optimum age that fail to take context into account
are almost certain to be false." (Jakobovits, 1970: 74)
80
More intriguing information
1. Neighborhood Effects, Public Housing and Unemployment in France2. What should educational research do, and how should it do it? A response to “Will a clinical approach make educational research more relevant to practice” by Jacquelien Bulterman-Bos
3. Survey of Literature on Covered and Uncovered Interest Parities
4. The Making of Cultural Policy: A European Perspective
5. Solidaristic Wage Bargaining
6. Individual tradable permit market and traffic congestion: An experimental study
7. Can a Robot Hear Music? Can a Robot Dance? Can a Robot Tell What it Knows or Intends to Do? Can it Feel Pride or Shame in Company?
8. An institutional analysis of sasi laut in Maluku, Indonesia
9. Governance Control Mechanisms in Portuguese Agricultural Credit Cooperatives
10. Improving Business Cycle Forecasts’ Accuracy - What Can We Learn from Past Errors?