Posts by linger
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Hard News: The crybaby philosopher, in reply to Russell Brown,
Act Party press release declaring Whyte the winner of the minor party leaders’ debate
i.e. the gold minor; at least, that's their claim
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Mark Easterbrook,
I remember that as the march where we were addressed thusly: “This is not the ‘Lockwood Blows Goats’ march. Maybe we can have one of those next week.”
But yeah -- all of this is a sideshow. How about some actual policy coverage in our news?
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If National end up holding power without any effective checks or balances, there is even better reason -- based on past performance and signalled policies, rather than on fear and uncertainty -- to have concerns about what that may lead to.
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I.e., it's OK to have and express opinions about political parties, but not OK to misrepresent or hide relevant political affiliations when doing so.
(obligatory full disclosure: I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party.) -
Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz,
off they go overseas, taking their intellects with them
and leaving only politicians behind.
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Hard News: The crybaby philosopher, in reply to WH,
Someone* once said
* Anatole France, Le lys rouge [The Red Lily](1894)
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Hard News: The crybaby philosopher, in reply to Sacha,
But he says he wants to be challenged, philosophically, and logically. *
So ... wilfully ignorant, then.(* Albeit, only by his limited definitions of those terms; and he may not have any definition of morality sufficient to recognise, let alone respond to, challenges on that front.)
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
further retreat into petty nationalism
seems to be how it's playing here, though hilariously, nekminit, the Ministry of Education is doing a full headless chicken routine on how to introduce English from elementary school up so Japan can be prepared to handle OMG Teh Forrinahz! in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (More hopefully, most elementary schools have already introduced English programs -- albeit minimalist and not "communicative" in any meaningful way -- independently of the Ministry, at the request of parents.)
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Here in Japan, I quite often hear arguments such as “it’s more important for children to learn proper Japanese than to spend time talking in English”, or “Children need to learn to think logically before they can benefit from learning English”.* It’s a common trap to think of teaching one set of subjects (especially, languages) as coming at the expense of others (especially, science and maths), as if different subjects involve exclusive and competing uses of time and resources.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, if a curriculum is properly integrated. One could, for example, have science presented in English (including English communication activities), but then use some classes in te reo to revise or revisit the same material from a different perspective.
(* one hidden undercurrent here is the idea that a fluent speaker of English cannot be “truly” Japanese. Which is absurd [unless you think that Japanese national and cultural identity is uniquely tied to the exclusive use of Japanese language]; but is it any better to suggest that a nonfluent user of English cannot be a “truly” effective scientist?)
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I think I might have mentioned the “critical period hypothesis” before on PAS. It’s important to note that it’s a hypothesis specifically about first language acquisition , not about “language learning” in general.
Basically, young children are able to “acquire” a language – i.e., to pick up the patterns of a language by being immersed in it and using it to communicate, without having to consciously pay attention to the language itself; but (for a variety of reasons, some biological, others cultural) most adults have to “learn” a language – a conscious process that includes focussing on analysing language, and forcing associations to be created between forms and meanings.
One biological factor working in favour of children is that they have many more neural pathways to use in processing the meaning of language. Connections between brain cells are “thinned out” (=synaptic pruning) as we develop and become more specialised as individuals – especially in two peak periods, between ages 3-6 and then again, less drastically, in adolescence; but also, at any age, there’s a continuous process of pathways that aren’t being used being lost, while pathways that are being used are strengthened.
In highly multilingual societies, children who keep being exposed to new languages don’t lose the pathways that allow acquisition of the patterns of a new language.
By contrast, if a society is
(i) largely monolingual and
(ii) doesn’t provide opportunities for true meaningful communication in other languages, and
(iii) doesn’t introduce language learning in early education,
then second (or, especially, foreign) language learning at age 13+ is much more difficult because it has to proceed using other, less efficient, pathways developed for conscious analysis. (Which to some extent also means that the learner's first language is being used to understand the second language, rather than a full "immersion" experience in which the second language is the medium of understanding.)Another social factor is that, by this stage, a monolingual individual’s national identity, their social network of friends, and even their own self-image, may be closely tied to the use of their first language, which can undercut any practical motivation there may be to learn a second language.
Which still doesn’t make adult second language learning impossible; as others here have noted, it just takes more work.