"Herausragende akademische Arbeit", Bild: Screenshot youtube
With this letter I publicly support the academic work
that Dr. Simone Pfenninger has done on Age Effects in Foreign Language
Instruction.
Her papers (Pfenninger 2011, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, in
press; Pfenninger & Singleton, 2016a, 2016b, accepted), some in collaboration
with the eminent Irish linguist Professor David Singleton, are of excellent
quality and have been published in a wide variety of edited books and journals,
some of which are established top journals in the field with an interest in
that topic (Second Language Research, International Journal of Multilingualism
and the journal that I edit myself: International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism). Dr. Simone Pfenninger has an outstanding insight
into methodological and theoretical issues in age research and Second Language
Acquisition. She has identified a gap in the existing research, which is
abundant but has many flaws. She has undertaken a systematic and critical
discussion of the age factor in multilingual education. By focusing on the
specific Swiss educational context to meet local needs and reflect local
reality, she has carried out a much-needed longitudinal empirical study with a
large number of participants. She has focused on unexplored issues regarding
the amount and type of English input needed for early Swiss starters to surpass
late starters and be able to retain their English learning advantage in the
long term.
Her research is of considerable theoretical and
practical significance as debates around the world are revolving around the
question whether “younger is better” when introducing foreign languages. Age is
indeed a powerful and very often misunderstood variable in the research on FL.
As such it can effective weaken FL pedagogy. It is therefore crucial for
linguists, educators, teachers and policymakers to understand what the effect
of age is on the end state of FL instruction. The finding that an early start
does not guarantee a higher proficiency in the end should enter the debate on
early instruction of different languages in primary school.
The originality of Dr. Simone Pfenninger’s work is
also the focus on the interaction of age with (often neglected)
non-maturational factors, such as situation of learning, socio-affective
variables, the roles of L1 literacy skills and multilingualism, and
institutional problems such as mainstreaming. To carry out her research she has
used the most advanced complex techniques and statistical methods in
quantitative and qualitative approaches.
To conclude, Dr. Simone Pfenninger’s outstanding
academic work has contributed to a change in academic perspectives on the role
of the age factor as a predictor of success in FL learning. Her work is having
a growing impact on the field. She has been actively involved in disseminating
these findings more widely, and I sincerely hope that politicians, teachers and
parents will take note of her conclusions. Regards,
Professor in Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism
Department of Applied Linguistics & Communication, Birkbeck, University of
London
Former president of the European Second Language
Association (EUROSLA)
Vice president of the International Association of
Multilingualism
General Editor of the International Journal of
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
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