Review of Older Learners in SLA Research

1. Introduction

The article is a review of a research article about older learners aptitudes， processes， and outcomes in learning English in second language acquisition. The name of this article is Older Learners in SLA Research： A First Look at Working Memory， Feedback and L2 Development. I choose this article because is a research into age-related difference in the processes and outcomes of second language acquisition that is an interesting topic. Meanwhile， there are not many other researches about the area of elderly of learning English as a second language.

The first part of this review is the theory part that related to age and second language learning. In the second part， the main points of the article and authors findings and arguments will introduced. The third part， I will provide my own ideas about this case study. In the last part， the implications and the future development of the relationship between age and English as a second language learning will be discussed.

2. Age and second language learning

According to Lightbown， P. M.， Spada， N. （2013， 92）， the relationship between age and second language learning is complicated and controversial. They indicated a common phenomenon that children from immigrant families can speak the second language better than their parents. This phenomenon may show that there are relationships between age and second language learning. The Critical Period Hypothesis is used to explain this situation. The Critical Period Hypothesis is that there is a period of time during the human study and grow， when the brain is a trend to get success in second language learning. But learners start to learn not in this period could not be successful as learners in that period. Some further findings provide evidence that there may be multiple critical periods that are relevant to different aspects of language learning. Such as， the period of the ability of learning pronunciation is earlier than vocabulary.

Some other ideas that support the learning conditions for children and adults are different that would be the reason of the phenomenon that mentioned before. Younger learners are in the informer situations that have more time to practice but adults are under high pressure to speak fluently and accurately and also they have to use complex language to express more complicated opinions. Besides， some researches show that older learners have learned second languages more efficient than young learners with metalinguistic knowledge， memory strategies and problem solving skills. In fact，Robert Dekeser（2000） did some research and indicated that the study ways of adult learners and young children learners are different.

The working memory is related to the area of cognitive functioning that includes： executive control， and/or processing speed and predict language performance. And also Baddeley （2003， p837） points out that working memory is “an integrated system for temporarily storing and manipulating information”. This means working memory is a significant part of second language learning. （Doughty， C. J.， & Long， M. H.， 2008）

3. Review 

This article focuses on two research questions： Do English as second language older learners have progressed in L2 question formation according to the task-based interaction with feedback？ What is the relationship of working memory ability and interaction-driven learning in the older learners. The participants of this research are elderly and old age learners that are people between 65 and 90 years of ages. They spoke Spanish as their first language and English as their second language. And also， they are finished 11 years formal education in their home countries and all of them have ESL experiences. There are other eight native speakers to be the interlocutors who are major in applied linguistics and the related majors， and the age of them are from 19 to 30.

In the step of data collection， interlocutors will meet learners individually five times over a 5-week period. There are 11 measures in total. Eight of them are communicative tasks and two of them are working memory tasks that are listening-span test of verbal memory and a non-word recall test of PSTM. The last one is a questionnaire to gather the background information of each participant.

The research results show that： two thirds （6/9） of older learners have development in at least one posttest， two of the nine （2/9） participants maintained development more than one posttests. Second， the participants received feedback about 63% of nontargetlike question forms that means they have enough opportunities to revise their output. According to data of the similar studies about younger learners， older learners have higher rates of feedback. Third， the learners with higher listening-span scores have higher immediate development and the relationship is stronger than other characteristics such as age， length of residence and years of formal education. Last but not the least， different components of the working memory system maybe relate to learning different aspects of language. In conclusion， the author proposed that some large scales researches could neglect the older second language learners and the concerning on working memory and learning processes in the area of second language acquisition.

4. Critical thinking

Some limitations of this article are that the capabilities of this research is too small that cannot give accurate points just provide guidance for other researchers. The participants are only nine learners and eight teachers that are quite small sample may not represent the general situations of SLA. The second limitation is that the questions regarding the relationship of communication age， working memory， and second language development should go further. Furthermore， working memory is related to the modes of cognitive that need to go deeper study. In addition， the area this research-based is too narrow that only based on elderly learners. The author would make a comparison group of young children and adults to do the same experiments. Through comparing the data of three different groups， more effective and clear statistics and more reliable results can get.

The strong point of this article is that these are few researches about elderly learners in SLA. A majority of researches do not mentioned this area and there are no statistics or evidences for this area that means the research of this article filling the gaps of this area. The second strength of this research is that it is a theory based that makes the research methodized. The design of measurements and the collection and analyzing of data follows the previous theory and studies.

5. Implication and future development

The research of this article is a small part of the area that is age and second language learning in SLA. The author studied the age between 65 and 90 L2 learners. The main goal of this article is do more specific study with different age groups not only the children and adults but also elderly. Previous studies are focus on children and adults and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of learning second language in different age. The author hopes to do a case study to research the different aspects such as interaction and working memory and feedback in detail and provide some guides for other researches.

The implications of the relationship of age and second language learning are in many aspects. Analysis the advantages and disadvantages of different age would give teachers who teach certain age group students the guide to play learners strength do more practice on the weak points such as： elderly learners are good at working memory but weak in pronunciation， teachers would encourage and motivate those learners in give some tasks and assignments about working memory meanwhile teachers would ask learners do more practice on pronunciation. In addition， the research of the theory that are linked to SLA and applied linguistics may guide the future development.

There are some limitations of current researches about the relationship between age and SLA. The research methods are only limited in questionnaire， interview and observation. And there are not enough researches in this area for analysis the relationship of age and different ability of second language learning. So， in the further studies， researches may focus on figuring out the strength ability of different age groups and use them to improve the teaching quality.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion， age is only one element belongs to individual differences of second language acquisition， and there are some other elements would effect SLA such as the personality and learning styles. Teachers and learners should not exaggerate the impacts of age. Besides the element of individual differences teachers should also consider the social-culture background and study and language atmosphere of learners. Only considered many aspects of the case， can obtain good teaching results. （Lightbown， P. M.， Spada， N.， 2013）

References：

[1]Baddeley， A. D. Working memory： Looking back and looking forward[J]. Neuroscience，2003，4：829-839.

[2]DeKeyser， R. M. The Robustness of critical period effects in second language acquisition[J]. Studies in second language Acquisition，2000，22/4：493-533.

[3]Doughty， C. J.， & Long， M. H. （Eds.） The handbook of second language acquisition[J]. Blackwell Publishing Ltd，2008.

[4]Lightbown， P. M.， Spada， N. How languages are learned[M]. Oxford： Oxford University Press，2013.

[5]Mackey， A.， & Sachs， R. Older learners in SLA research： A first look at working memory， feedback， and L2 development[J]. Language Learning，2012，62（3）：704-740.

【作者簡介】李美玲，海南热带海洋大学。