The Optimal Age of Learning English for Children in China
Abstract: With the help of the analysis of various views and some typical examples of practice, the thesis discusses the optimal age of learning English for children whose native language is Chinese.
Key Words: the optimal age, hemisphere
With the development of national economy, and the policy of open-to-world, English learning is becoming more and more seriously attentioned to around China. Some primary schools have set up English lessons. Then, when is the best for children to begin second language learning? As to this question, foreign scholars have different view. The school of reason thinks that the critical period of second language learning is 14 or 15. Hamley’s (see王斌华，1996：P28) view points out the most idealistic age of second language learning is about 12. British linguist L.G. Alexander thinks that the age of 8 or 9 is the optimal age to start second language learning (see王斌华，1996：P28).
According to children’s competence of learning English the childhood can be divided into two periods --- 4 or 6 and 7 to 12. From the view of children’s psychological development, children aged 4 to 6 are in the period when their abilities of perception, concentration and memorization are developing comparatively rapidly and their power of consideration and imagination begins to sprout. The rapid development of language behavior is the most vivid character of that period. They continuously absorb and use language in order to develop and improve their own language. For example, they ask what this is or that is, ask adults to tell stories to them and talk with their companions without stop. Frequent use of language pushes forward the growth of children’s left hemisphere of brain. Due to the task division of the left and right hemispheres, the growth of the left hemispheres urges the development of children’s language competence in return, but suppresses the growth of the right hemisphere. The imbalance of the growth of these two hemispheres results in the imbalance of the development of children’s thinking. In this period, children’s concrete thinking systems are especially powerful while the abstract thinking system has not established. This psychological phenomenon determines their sense of object when they are perceiving objects and learning languages. For instance, when teaching children English, the teacher presents them a picture of horse and teaches them to say ’a horse’, or presents a picture of hen and teaches them ’a hen’. Then, they can associate the voice of /hɔ:s/ to a horse or /hen/ to a hen after they are taught like that for several times. However, if the teacher writes down ’horse’ and ‘hen’, teaches them to read and tell them ’horse’ is a horse and ’hen’ is a hen, it will be difficult for children to recognize such easy words as ’horse’ and ’hen’ regardless of the teacher’s great efforts. The reason is that alphabetical language does not resemble the forms of object. During the process of memorizing alphabetical language, children’s concrete thinking ability has not been fully applied and exerted. For the children whose nation language is Chinese, the alphabetical language appears abstract. Children’s (4 to 6 years) abstract thinking has been put off because of the slow growth of the right hemisphere of brain. So it’s inevitable to limit their abilities of learning the abstract alphabetical language.
Children aged 4 to 6, in one hand, have many advantages in language learning such as strong imitation ability, memorizing ability (especially unconscious memorizing ability) and acceptance ability, because native language in their brains has not been systematized and sorted out, and has not a fixed model. The exclusive ability in second language learning is weaker in young children then in older children and adults. Besides, their brains are in the period of growing when new brain cells seem pieces of ’blank paper’ where you can draw any ’picture’. Therefore, they possess great plasticity. In the other hand, their articulatory organs are not physiologically sane, especially oral cavity muscles and teeth. What’s more, children in this period are so eager to move that they are almost impossible to settle down to study for a long time as older children and adults do. Because of the limitation of age, they do not possess the ability of studying by themselves and have not a definite aim of learning. So their English teaching is not active and conscious but passive and unconscious.
In one word, children in the age period of 4 to 6 should learn English not in way of teaching and studying in the classroom but in the way of combining ’learning’ with ’acquisition’. Here are some examples, such as teaching a child to learn English, when he is four. One year later, the child had been able to take short conversations in English, call names of objects, persons, animals and plants around him in English, count the numbers in English, recite the children’s ballads in English, sing many children’s English songs, make short speeches in English according to pictures and make reactions to adults’ English directions. For instance, if one said to him ’Go to wash your hands.’ before dinner, he knew that he was told to wash his hands. If one said to him ’Go to bed’ at night and he did not want to sleep that time, he would make bargain with adults after hearing that. When a pear and an apple were in front of him, and one asked him ’Do you want a pear or an apple?’, he would answer ’an apple’ according to his own favorite. Thus those children (4 to 6 years) have great potentiality in learning oral English under the method of combining learning with acquisition if condition permits that.
Let’s see the condition of children in the age of 7 to 12. Children’s brains in that period of age are developing rapidly. As far as some experts concerned, weight of children’s brain in twelve have reached the level of adults, and the half time of brains’ whole development lies between 7 and 12. The rapid development of children’s brain pushes forward their cognitive ability with a large step. At the moment, the development of the left hemispheres and right ones gradually grows to balance day by day. Children’s thinking system also changes from the simple concrete thinking into the combination of concrete thinking and abstract thinking. As to the aspect of concentration and memorizing ability, they are changed from unconsciousness to consciousness. Besides, children in this period of age get certain power of self-restraint. Take an instance, they will not optionally take and leave their seats during class time. They can settle to study for a comparatively long time. Furthermore they have had perceptual knowledge about alphabetic writing. The study and frequent use of Chinese phonetic alphabets provide large convenience for them to recognize and memorize English words. It’s easy to find that children at the age of 7 to 12 memorize and spell English words far more rapidly than the adults who seldom meet phonetic alphabets during the process of teaching them. Most of the words can be directly spelt by them as they conform to the spelling rules. Based on the phonetic alphabets, English handwriting is no longer a burden to them.
So children in this period of age, besides that they have the advantages of the last period (such as strong ability of imitation, memorizing and plasticity), are more mature than children in the last period in the aspect of either psychology or physiology. They have had a little idea about the aim of English learning (They certainly should be directed by their teachers and parents.) and have possessed learning competence. What’s more, they have had certain competence of analyzing and integrating, which provides them condition for English syntactic rules and grammar learning.
As a result, the optimal age for children whose native language is Chinese to start English earning should be 7 to 12, because children at that age have obtained not only the ability of learning oral English but also some primary ability of learning written English.
Bibliography
1. Yin Li Min. "Motivation in Second Language Acquisition. Teaching English in China". The Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy. ELT Newsletter 22, May 1991.
2. 王斌华，《中小学英语教学与研究》，华东师范大学出版社，1996，第5期28-30页。
3. 章兼中，俞红珍，《英语教育心理学》，警官教育出版社，1998。
