A critical period for second language acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers

[Cainntear]

I'd say as advice without any other qualifications it leads to some weird outcomes, like parents talking to their children in broken English so they can get a "headstart", imposing English as the medium of instruction where teaching staff doesn't have the competence to pull it off (in Spain, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa), or throwing money at language classes that don't take them anywhere.

In the case of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the decision was likely more led by politics than by educational goals -- I suspect the Pashtun- and Hindko-speaking population were never happy at having the majority of their education in the language of another ethnic group from hundreds of miles away.

Given that the ruling party in the region is also the governing party at a national level, it seems plausible that they may have instituted the use of Pakistan's other official language because its status as the language of international trade, commerce and diplomacy will make it harder for Pashtun nationalists to push for mother-tongue education in the future. "You want to deny your children access to English??? Won't somebody think of the children?!?"

Or Hindko-speakers may have proposed the policy on similar grounds, to prevent their language(s) becoming further marginalised by a potential future move to Pashtun-medium schooling.

Equally, the initiative could have come from Pashtun-speakers who knew that Pashtun-medium education was unlikely to happen, and felt that getting Urdu out of the schools was in and of itself a way to reduce marginalisation of their language, and English's status as one of two official languages made it the easiest way to achieve that.

Or indeed, all of them could have come to realise that it served their purposes to some extent.

Regardless, I really don't think there's any genuine pedagogical thinking behind it -- one way or another it's political. (But in an on-topic, language-related way!! Please don't ban me from the forum, rdearman!!!)

But then again, all governmental education initiatives are led by politics to a certain extent, if not as explicitly as this one.

[Saim]

In the case of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the decision was likely more led by politics than by educational goals -- I suspect the Pashtun- and Hindko-speaking population were never happy at having the majority of their education in the language of another ethnic group from hundreds of miles away.

Given that the ruling party in the region is also the governing party at a national level, it seems plausible that they may have instituted the use of Pakistan's other official language because its status as the language of international trade, commerce and diplomacy will make it harder for Pashtun nationalists to push for mother-tongue education in the future. "You want to deny your children access to English??? Won't somebody think of the children?!?"

True. Part of that is at play in Spain as well -- the push to implement English as a medium of instruction was lead by PP (conservative) governments and many opposition groups in Galicia and Valencia perceived this "trilingual" policy as an attack on Galician/Catalan.

That said, I do think that part of it is rooted in real observations of pedagogical outcomes: people from real [1] English-medium schools have more knowledge of English than those from Urdu- or Sindhi-medium schools (the other languages are barely used as the medium of instruction anywhere), and these people also have better professional outcomes. Now, I think the primary factor there is class and quality of education and not language (although if course if most bachelor's degrees are taught primarily in English you're at a serious disadvantage if you enter tertiary education having come out of an Urdu or Sindhi school).

They tried the same thing in Punjab more recently but it seems to have already been reversed, in favour of Urdu of course (why not Punjabi, you say? are you mad?), and was never actually implemented. I can't find any information on what the current situation is in KP; even if the official policy is in place I doubt it's being put into practice to the extent the policy would suggest (how many qualified KP teachers are actually capable of teaching science and history in English?).

[1] Even before the new PTI policies in favour of English, there were nominally "English-medium" government-run schools in Punjab, where the use of English is mostly symbolic and the teachers have to default to Urdu when they actually want to teach anything. I haven't managed to figure out which one it was but I distinctly remember this being discussed in one of Tariq Rahman's papers.

Or Hindko-speakers may have proposed the policy on similar grounds, to prevent their language(s) becoming further marginalised by a potential future move to Pashtun-medium schooling.

I do remember the (left-wing Pashtun nationalist) ANP, back when they used to consistently win elections (they've since slid into irrelevance), did propose having both Pashto- and Hindko-medium education at least at the primary level, but that's one of the things that seems to be routinely proposed in Pakistan but never ends up close to being implemented.

Then again, it was the PTI that changed the name of the province from "Northwest Frontier Province", which was also largely opposed by the Hindko-speaking population as the new name had the Pashtun ethnic name as part of it. They don't seem to have much in the way of a consistent approach to the "national" question in Pakistan.

[s_allard]

Here is something that exemplifies what this discussion is all about. The future US Secretary of State of the incoming Biden administration is Anthony Blinken who speaks excellent French. How did Blinken learn to speak French so well? Guess! Here is a quote from the magazine Politico:

Blinken speaks impeccable French, with just the slightest hint of an accent. The future top diplomat moved to Paris as a child after his parents divorced and his mother, Judith, married Polish-American Holocaust survivor and powerhouse lawyer Samuel Pisar.

Much to the delight of French policymakers, journalists and all other ardent torchbearers of “francophonie,” Blinken is no “Omelette du Fromage Man” but the Real Cassoulet. He has given multiple interviews in comfortable, eloquent French. Blinken attended École Jeannine Manuel, a bilingual school in Paris — the same one attended by another Obama administration alumnus, Robert Malley.

[Cainntear]

Much to the delight of French policymakers, journalists and all other ardent torchbearers of “francophonie,” Blinken is no “Omelette du Fromage Man” but the Real Cassoulet. He has given multiple interviews in comfortable, eloquent French. Blinken attended École Jeannine Manuel, a bilingual school in Paris — the same one attended by another Obama administration alumnus, Robert Malley.

Crucially, that's a bilingual school with native speaking children in it, and that's an impossible environment to replicate artificially. Again, it doesn't tell us anything about critical periods, or give any useful guidance to learners and teachers, other than (potentially) "you're stuffed. Your best efforts are useless."

[Saim]

What does it show other than the fact that if you grow up in Paris it's pretty likely you'll end up learning French?

[tungemål]

...

Good post, iguanamon.

I listened to the Henry Kissinger video. He admits that he's got an accent in both English and German. I'd say that both his English and German are pretty good, practically native-level, and better than any of my second languages. I can hear his German accent, but in his German I didn't notice any accent, allthough natives might.

If we analyse his accent in English - his pronunciation is good, allthough a few sounds may be a little off. I wonder if it is his intonation that pins him as a German native speaker. Still, I'd say that his /u/ sound is very German, and possibly his "th" sound is wrong. Listen to "to prove to you, that..." at 1:05.

[s_allard]

What does it show other than the fact that if you grow up in Paris it's pretty likely you'll end up learning French?

That's the very point. We agree. If you go to Paris at the age of nine, you will end up sounding nearly like a native for the rest of your life. If Anthony Blinken has gone to Paris at the age of 20, he wouldn't sound the same. If you come to America relative late in life like Henry Kissinger or Arnold Schwartzenegger, you'll most likely have a foreign accent for the rest of your life. It's a simple as that. This is not my invention. It's exactly what the cognitive scientist Stéphane Dehaene said in his conference that one can read at the beginning of the blog.

Now, having an accent does not mean that one cannot speak the language well, have a successful career and a happy life. That's another question. What we are discussing here is the existence or not of a certain age bracket around 5 - 17 in which acquiring a foreign language is cognitively much easier than later in life. I believe this is true. Other people people believe that one can learn languages just as easily at any age in life with equal results.

[s_allard]

Much to the delight of French policymakers, journalists and all other ardent torchbearers of “francophonie,” Blinken is no “Omelette du Fromage Man” but the Real Cassoulet. He has given multiple interviews in comfortable, eloquent French. Blinken attended École Jeannine Manuel, a bilingual school in Paris — the same one attended by another Obama administration alumnus, Robert Malley.

Crucially, that's a bilingual school with native speaking children in it, and that's an impossible environment to replicate artificially. Again, it doesn't tell us anything about critical periods, or give any useful guidance to learners and teachers, other than (potentially) "you're stuffed. Your best efforts are useless."

Let me first add the first part of my text that was probably inadvertently omitted in this comment:

Blinken speaks impeccable French, with just the slightest hint of an accent. The future top diplomat moved to Paris as a child after his parents divorced and his mother, Judith, married Polish-American Holocaust survivor and powerhouse lawyer Samuel Pisar.

So Blinken moved to Paris at the age of nine and attended a very exclusive bilingual school that by the way costs around 7300 euros a year. He did not attend a monolingual French lycée for free. As the omitted part of the quote points out, Blinken 40 years later speaks "impeccable French with the slightest hint of an accent." As someone else pointed out here in this thread that's what you get from growing up (after the age of nine) in Paris. Age nine looks to me like right in the critical period.

[tungemål]

I believe, or want to believe, that it is possible to acquire a perfect accent as an adult. However, it would take so much work that few if any are willing to do it, because it is simply not necessary. You would have to work with a coach and fine tune every vowel and consonant, and learn the right sentence melody. A lot of work, but not impossible. A child of 9 will learn it because for them it is important to fit in and be like their peers, and they will unconsciously imitate what they hear. As an adult immigrant, the priority is communication, understanding advanced texts, building an adult vocabulary, and acquiring the perfect accent is too much work with no real gain.

[Montmorency]

I can't bear to listen to Kissinger, not even in the name of linguistic research, sorry.

But if I put aside my personal dislike of the man, there is something odd about his never having lost his German accent. (The Wikipedia page blames shyness and reluctance to speak as a child). He was about 15 when he arrived in the USA, which is not all that old after all, although admittedly older than 9.

Is it true that his brother does not have this same accent? (He is younger, but only by about a year).


I was trying to think of a German immigrant to Britain whose accent I was familiar with to compare, and the only one I've come up with so far is Matt Frei:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Frei

He is reasonably well known on TV, and speaks English with barely any, if any, German accent.
He came here at the age of 10, and went to a posh private school in London (with probably small class sizes), and had the advantage that his father almost certainly spoke English (as London correspondent for Deutschlandfunk).
So perhaps not really comparable with Kissinger.