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From: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Language Learning
Message-ID: <1973@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Nov-87 09:05:57 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1973
Posted: Wed Nov 11 09:05:57 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Nov-87 22:01:22 EST
References: <8986@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <1125@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <1966@uwmacc.UUCP> <1409@houdi.UUCP>
Reply-To: edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu (mark edwards)
Organization: UW-Madison Academic Computer Center
Lines: 49
Keywords: Goal Based

In article <1409@houdi.UUCP> marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
:>  I don't see why second language learning in adults supports the
:>  "crystallization period". For one, when a child starts learning
:>  to speak they do it naturally, they have plenty of time...
:>  The adult learns a second language in a hurry....
:
:There are immigrant adults who have been here twenty years or more and
:don't speak English yet.

 So. That doesn't prove anything but the immigrant adult had no 
 incentive to learn English. He/she had no goal to learn English.
 My theory says nothing about those people.

:Oh, is that what happens? I thought children were supposed to be the
:ones with short attention spans.

But their attention spans are quite different. For children 
simple conversation are OK. Adults will get stone bored if a trivial
conversation, that children might enjoy, continues for any length of
time.


:>  Is second language learning in adults inhibited because of the 
:>  "c" period? 

:Apparently, yes.

Why apparently yes? Support your claims! 

:>  I think more facts must be weighed, more applicable data must
:>  be gathered. Clearly the child and adult are in vastly different
:>  environments when the process is being learned.
:
:I'm told there is a lot of field experience with ESL (English as a
:Second Language) that says that children dumped into a foreign language
:environment learn the new language faster and better than adults.

 Great, this supports my claims. And adds nothing to your claims.


 Marty you didn't read a word of what I said. There may well be a "c"
 period. But I was bringing up contrary evidence and facts that are
 not apparently considered when the "c" period was coined. 

 mark
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