Easy As Pie? Children Learning Languages

Abstract

Many people seem certain that children learn additional languages rapidly and with ease. This “fact” is widely believed, but research in a number of language learning contexts suggests that it is necessary to refine – if not to refute – this assumption. In this paper, some of the experience and research that have been used in support of the conclusion that “younger is better” will be reviewed. The relevance of this conclusion to different learning and teaching environments will be discussed, and the conventional wisdom that for children, language learning is easy as pie will be challenged. The emphasis will be on how different learning contexts and conditions lead to different outcomes as well as how research designed to answer one question is often cited to answer another – one that it cannot in fact answer.

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