Whether or not we agree philosophically with the concept of a "national language," English is clearly the dominant language in the United States. As such, knowledge of English is an important component to success in this country. The percent of people in the U.S. from non-English speaking nations is growing, which has fostered the search among grade schools, universities, and adult education programs, for the best methods to teach English to non-native speakers.
Research with songbirds and sophisticated brain imaging technologies provide some intriguing insights into how to best accomplish the goals of teaching (and learning) a second language.
Whistling Finches and Listening Children
Studies of song development in certain species of songbirds suggest that auditory feedback may be a crucial step in learning language.
Allison Doupe, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and postdoctoral fellow Michael Brainard study the way zebra finches develop their characteristic songs. Young male zebra finches learn a single tune early in life from their fathers. Doupe and Brainard have found that this learning process depends on the young finch being able to hear not only its father's songs, but also its own attempts to vocalize the tune.
This requirement of auditory feedback in songbirds corroborates what has been seen in humans. Researchers came to understand this when, in the early 1970's, they learned of a child named Genie who had been confined and raised without human contact or stimulation from the age of 20 months to 13 years. As a result, she displayed very abnormal vocalizations, particularly with syntax. Genie was almost completely unable to master things like verb tense, word order, prepositions or pronouns.
It is also known that older children who lose their hearing gradually lose their ability to form words properly. As Doupe and Brainard write in the October 2000 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience: "These findings provide evidence that, in humans as in songbirds, the sounds produced by the individuals themselves are essential for normal vocal development."
If auditory feedback is so important in the initial development of language, it stands to reason that it may also be required to learn a second language. Indeed, studies have shown that successful second language learners tend to enhance their communication skills by listening to the radio in the second language or by talking with native speakers. Thus, it appears that the combination of auditory input from the second language and the student's own work to vocalize that language is key to learning.
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