Critical Period Hypothesis and Foreign Language Learner’s Accent

The unending controversy of the practicality of the critical period hypothesis and the presence of Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is still a cryptic word to explore and the study will put light on the phonological aspect of language acquisition keeping its focus on the foreign accent. To justify the validity of the study the data have been collected from the students of Bangladesh, who are studying home and abroad. The findings of the paper will demonstrate first, examining and observing the validity of the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) by analyzing the elementary English language learners of Bangladesh and ended up with this conclusion that even if during the period of Critical Period (CP) Bangladeshi learner of English starts to learn English but they fail to communicate in English, although for Bangladeshi learner learning English is a colonial legacy. Ultimately it will focus on the statement that, there may be a critical period but language exposure plays a more important role to learn or acquire any language. Second, the paper will do another quantitative study on the English language learners of Bangladesh taking higher education from home and abroad that will deny the existence of CPH, suggesting certain ways to attain native-like language skills after Critical Period (CP) if the learner is preconditioned with proper language exposure using the technology-based language teaching and learning.

It has been evident and also a popular belief that children as L2 learners are ‘superior’ to adults, that is, the younger the learner, the quicker the learning process and the better the outcomes to achieve native-like pronunciation [1]. Researchers have found out the relationship between age of onset (AO) of acquisition and ultimate attainment (UA) is negatively correlated in speech [2-4]. Nevertheless, a closer examination of how age combines with other variables reveals a more complex picture, with both favorable and unfavorable age-related differences being associated with early- and late-starting L2 learners. But at the same time it is also proved that the earlier a learner starts to learn any language the better outcome they will get means, they can attain native-like pronunciation. Some studies have evidence against the critical period hypothesis (CPH). This assumption has been also confirmed in numerous studies that have focused on different aspects of language, like pronunciation, accent or morpho-syntactic, lexical and collocational abilities that have been present in the papers [5-12]. Recent proposals on language aptitude such as distinguished between cognitive aptitudes for implicit and explicit learning. When an L1 learner learns the language it is the only language that person acquires where no other language interferes but when learning L2 or L3, L1 interfere consciously or subconsciously, the process may be the same when it comes to learning the L3 or L4, when L1 or L2 may interfere. Moreover, the learner also may not give proper priority to learn the language as it is seen out of the observational study that if a learner gets proper push to learn a language in an apt learning environment then the person can learn almost native-like L2 or L3. The present study did two quantitative studies, first on younger learners at home and second on the tertiary level learners to validate the hypothesis native-like language skill can be attained after CPH if the learner is preconditioned with proper language exposure within their native land or in abroad. Moreover, the present study suggests using technology the learners can experience an artificial environment in the existence of CPH to attain native-like speaking skills for the English language learner of Bangladesh.

Studies in abroad

Eric Lenneberg’s Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) is one of the most critically analyzed debates that has been taking place in the linguistic area. A recent study examined the reliability of CPH and whether it is completely biological or other social construct factors play that aid some L2 learners of Morocco to attain native-like pronunciation despite the high unlikelihood of its occurrence. He has mentioned the role of environment like spoke that features of the environment cannot explain language development, which he proposed to be the knowledge of linguistic structure, otherwise known as the human language faculty, and not linguistic behavior. The CPH might function to link with the experience of language present in the environment to the development of the brain language system [13]. It was still believed that the plasticity of the brain is somehow locked or fixed after a period known as the critical period, which is usually associated with the age of puberty. However, emerging evidence challenge this assumption, for instance, we have Alarcón’s pronunciation and ultimate attainment, the statistical critique, and Lin’s CP and phonological acquisition in addition to other major critics of CPH like Krashen's Input Hypothesis [14]. The Critical Period Hypothesis in cognitive psychology and language acquisition is the core of the ongoing debate concerning the effect of the brain on language acquisition. It is also revealed that learners who had arrived after that age did not present an age-related pattern. This seminal study sets off a line of research that has featured prominently in the field of L2 acquisition up till the present time [15-18]. The shape of this function continues to be a topic of debate [19-21]. Studies examining learners’ UA after a long period of residence in an immigration setting have shown the younger starters’ UA to be consistently higher than that of older starters and in some cases native-like or near-native. In another review of research, Acquiring L2 is still possible beyond CP, but the mastery of the language is repeatedly less successful. “One strong prediction made by some CPH exponents holds that post-CP learners cannot reach native-like L2 competences.” In addition to that, grammatical gender seems to be one of the main challenges for adult L2 learners. This high unlikelihood for adult L2 learners to attain full mastery and fluency of L2 does not have to be deemed decisively unattainable. If a successful incident has happened at least, once, then clearly factors that are directly or indirectly responsible for the success of post-CP L2 acquisition which indicates the exposure factors also. Older learners were observed to be especially good at syntactic and morphological rule acquisition, and also at meta-linguistic ability and vocabulary, which reflected their superior cognitive development. Early arrivals’ advantage had been observed in a few more recent studies. 5- year longitudinal study of 10 Mandarin-speaking children and adolescents in America and observed the timing of the early arrival advantage in six English morphological structures. It was found that only by the end of the 5 years, younger AOA significantly predicted the average performance on all the structures, though some were not yet fully mastered [22]. The pattern resembles that of phonological acquisition found in several studies investigated the effects of time on a large sample of Mandarin speakers with a wide range of AOA and found that an early arrival advantage gradually emerged in L2 (English) vowel perception and production after 3 to 5 years of English immersion. It has been suggested that a minimum of 5 years of residence or even 10 years may be necessary for CPH studies to methodologically ensure measurement of UA rather than rate, that is, to safely assume asymptote. Along these lines, suggests that after 10 years LOR ceases to be a determinant factor. So it can be said that exposure plays a vital role in the hypothesis of CPH when it comes to attaining native pronunciation. This paper mainly focusing on that statement the paper did quantitative studies on the English language learners of Bangladesh of elementary level and tertiary level education from home and abroad that will deny the existence of CPH, suggesting certain ways to attain native-like language skills after CP if the learner is preconditioned with proper language exposure using the technology-based language teaching and learning.

Majid (2000: 73-86) gave us some important information that represents the English as a foreign language situation in Bangladesh quite practically. The samples were then learners at the Institute of Modern Languages. The paper revealed, "61% learners had English grammar explained to them in Bengali all the time.” 36% people always needed extra help (P. 74)" from outside the classroom. The majority also said that they always rote-learned essays from books (P. 76)." 81% of students were dissatisfied with the teaching method. They also expected proper guidance from the teachers—an outcome of the close relationship of the teacher-student. However, most of them thought to have knowledge in English ranging from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘not bad’ finally, revealed, "These learners had, therefore, very little practice in all the four skills of the language and were dependent largely on the coursebook and the syllabus, the teacher and the private tutors as the principal means of exposure to English [23]." "Despite learning English for 1600 hours at the pre-university level, students cannot use English, and have been perceived to be at least six years behind the proficiency necessary to perform at the tertiary level of education [24,25]." Hence the need for the change of method occurs. ‘The students who pass and somehow get good marks do not seem to reflect their achievement practically. They can neither speak fluently and naturally nor understand English when they are not spoken to nor comprehend the meaning of what they read nor can they interpret the reading materials [26]. But drew attention to the role of the teacher in using the TL in the classroom saying. "The fact that not all learners had much experience in responding in the class in English is less serious than the fact that very little English was being used in the class. Teacher did not use the TL in the classroom, the language becomes to the learners “rather like numbers in a mathematics lesson, a series of ciphers embedded in normal speech. It thus failed to convey to the learner the message that language is something alive and creative that could serve real purposes, instead of something mechanical to be studied only for passing exams a fictional writer and journal wrote in a journal “Dhaka Tribune”, “We learn English for about 12 years and yet we don’t learn it properly. Does that mean we are not interested enough to learn it? Does that mean there’s a methodical flaw in teaching it? I had learned English from grade I to grade XII, but struggled with it when I went to university.” The aim of the present study also found out the overruling influence of language exposure plays an important role along with the reason for failure to obtain the English language learning capability of English language learners of Bangladesh at home and the success of learning a new language learner of Bangladesh studying abroad. It also suggested the vital role of using technology to create an artificial atmosphere learning English, especially on speaking skills [27-30].

The study tried to find out the answers of

·         Why Bangladeshi Learners of the English Language fail to acquire English even if they start learning during the CP?

·         Which factor then plays the most important role while learning Language even after CP?

·         What resource do we need to create a favourable exposure to learning native-like English in Bangladesh?

The researcher adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches to find out the outcome of the analysis. A Comparative Quantitative study was done first, on the elementary level students’ Teachers’ following a questionnaire and the Guardians perspective following a personal interview towards the reason to find out is their children failing to learn to communicate in English or not and then why Bengali learners fail to attain native-like speaking skills in English though they start to learn or acquire language during their formal education along with Bengali at the age of onset. Second, another questionnaire for the tertiary level students of Bangladesh who are studying abroad is done to find the factor that plays the most important role in acquiring language even after CP. Finally, an observational study and with the suggestion that technology could create such exposure to learning the based on that a qualitative study had been done [31-35].

Most of the data had been collected from randomly selected institutions English language teachers of Kindergarten, English medium, Bengali medium, Madrasah, and English and Bengali version schools of Pre-school sections to class or standard 5 of Bangladesh to find out why the young learners are failing to speak English fluently and native-like, although they are learning English at the critical period which has been proved in different research mentioned in the earlier part of the paper. The researcher chooses to do a teacher questionnaire as the learners are way too naïve to put their opinion on paper or to attain any proficiency test. Also, most of the past papers somehow seem to blame somewhat the teacher as a responsible figure for the young learners failing to learn to speak English. So the questionnaire includes the teacher’s opinion on it too. As for parents, an informal individual interview has been followed to cross-check the teacher’s opinion. The second questionnaire had been made and the data collected from the different learners of Bangladesh who are studying abroad of different majors to find out how they are doing adapting themselves in a foreign land with a foreign language. The participant of this study was 50 participants from different universities who are studying abroad and 30 primary level English language teacher’s opinion along with the guardians. But as the parents’ interview was collected, when they came to the school, due to a shortage of time, the researcher only keep 5 questions for them to answer in ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Among the 50 students studying abroad, there were undergraduate students, some of them majoring in English. Most of them were multilingual (90 percent knew two languages, 4 percent knew three, and the rest know 4 languages). This group had at least 10 years of English language learning experience studying mostly from their native land. The second questionnaire has been done on the learners of Bangladesh studying abroad in different countries to find out their skills of learning a new language (formally and informally) where they are staying on the purpose of the study. For that 50 students have been chosen to study mostly in China, America, Australia, the Philippines, and Italy. Finally, the paper suggested the use of technology not replacing teachers but as a media, to create an exposure attaining native-like speaking skills to communicate in English within the atmosphere of Bangladesh. A questionnaire has been designed to follow the Likert scale such, 5- Always, 4- Often, 3-Sometimes, 2-Rarely, and 1- Never. The data are analyzed using SPSS.25 Descriptive Statistics to find outcomes [36-38]. The mean scores were used to determine the overall opinion as well as the ability of the young and adult learners’ condition when it comes to speaking English [39-42].

To find out the answer to the first question about the reason behind young learners who are learning English at the critical period but still failing to speak English properly had been found out through the Teacher’s questionnaire in the different institution as follows (Figure 1).

Table 1: Teacher’s Questionnaire

Table 2: Student’s Questionnaire.

Figure 1: Numbers of Teacher.

Figure 2: Interviewing the teachers and parents.

The questionnaire designed for 5 questions where teacher opines their way of teaching like whether they use English in class to the instructor not, whether they speak English with the learners or not, whether their pronunciation is native-like or not or they make sure the learners are learning English with correct pronunciation or not. Rest 5 questions were on teacher’s opinions on their learners’ capability of using English in class. As the table present (Table 1).

From the analysis of the teacher’s questionnaire, it’s pretty clear that neither the teacher nor according to the teacher, their learner is not enough proficient to speak English because neither of them is getting enough exposure to use English while speaking. But only in English Medium school teachers responded that their speaking skill may not be native-like but they speak only English with the learners. Even they think their learners may not all, can speak English. But even when it comes to pronunciation even the English medium teachers said they remain not that conscious as they are not trained to pronounce English vocabulary properly. So the young learners learn English speaking with some influence of their native tongue. As the paper, and many more papers revealed that even after graduating in English the learner of Bangladesh fails to speak English, although the learners start to learn English formally along with their mother tongue from the Critical Period. The teacher’s questionnaire in this study found out even the CPH fails if certain facts like exposure to use the language, teacher’s teaching method and training, students getting the proper environment to learn English, and so on also plays a vital role to acquire of learning any foreign language. To cross-check the validity and reliability of this survey researcher took an informal interview of parents of the young learners (Figure 2).

The interview with both teacher and parents opine almost the same about the overall conditions of the learners speaking skills. But comparatively English medium school’s learners could speak English without any feeling of uneasiness due to exposure, opined by both parent and teacher. From above all discussion, it can be said that the hypothesis of the Critical Period failing in Bangladesh mostly due to lack of exposure mostly and also for another fact when it comes to speaking English or speaking English like a native. To find out the answer to whether the exposure has any role to solve the problem that the English language learners of Bangladesh are having when it comes to speaking. For that, a survey has been done on the students of Bangladesh who are studying abroad not only English as a major but also studying in different majors (Table 2).

Out of 50, almost 20 students of Bangladesh are studying in Australia, America, and Italy and they were enough confident to say that their speaking is almost native-like. 30 students studying in China and the Philippines also show the same confidence but some were an English major. It’s not difficult to say the reason behind their improvement of speaking skill in English, was the exposure and proper atmosphere to use English as a media of communication. Even in China where the learners from Bangladesh studying there, said that they could even learn Mandarin Chinese, the hardest language, within two years and use it near fluently. Where in Bangladesh the learners learning English for at least 12 years but fail to communicate and the same situation seems in many foreign language contexts. So all the survey were indicating only that foreign language could be learned best if the exposure of that language and proper atmosphere to use that language, like the English medium learners of Bangladesh and the students studying abroad were getting, could be assured in every class of English in Bangladesh, then it’s possible to attain native-like speaking accent even after CP [43-46].

Native-like accent and creating artificial exposure

Now the question arises, how we can create an artificial native-like exposure or atmosphere within the country. For that, it won’t be wrong to suggest that technology can play a vital role to create such an artificial atmosphere. As most of the teachers of English doesn’t possess a native accent, but with the increasing use of technology like showing conversation in English, different videos related to text, songs, digital games, movies, and so on, not only make the learning enjoyable for all kinds of learners but also would help the learners grasp the accent of native when it comes to learning the foreign language like English. Even the teacher’s and parent’s interview session’s final question revealed that the young learners learn new vocabulary and expression by watching cartoons in English, at the same time they engage themselves to use them frequently. Due to the unavailability of certain resource researcher could not work on this suggestion to prove my statement but in the future researcher will work on it.

In the foreign language context of Bangladesh, the hypothesis of the Critical Period seems inactive. Out of the statement of the teachers and parents, it could be said that even in CP, a child learner also need the proper exposure and atmosphere for language and also other factors. Also, CP may not exist as even the adult learners can attain an almost native-like language accent if they are provided with suitable exposure to use the language without any phobia to use it either correctly or incorrectly. Because if learners start to use the language fluently they will sooner learner to use it accurately with time.

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