chniques are based on this assumption. The Total Physical Response Method, for example, is fundamentally based on this belief.
Another hypothesis states that children acquire language in a systematic rule-governed way, and that what motivates the child to speak is the need to communicate. Hence, the Communicative Approach to second language learning.
There is increasing empirical evidence to dispute these hypotheses--bar the Critical Period Hypothesis as a concept, not as a corpus of verities. Maturational readiness, the basic concept of this hypothesis, is an empirical observation rather than a clearly defined theory explicated through neurological statuses.
This paper very briefly looks into the acquisition of L1 and of L2 in the child and in the adult, and assesses these modes of acquisition and learning in terms of common pedagogical methods.
The Critical Period Hypothesis posits that there are chronological points in a child's development at which he or she is optimally ready to learn a particular response pattern. "This concept is much like that of maturational readiness" (Wolman 1973, p. 84). It seems to apply to all organic--and certainly human--forms. Lorenz, for example, found that the first three days of life constitute a critical period for imprinting in ducks. Ducks, of course, do not learn a language (Or do they?), but, on a different scale, some of their maturational processes parallel those of humans. The point is that there is systematic genetically programmed neurological maturation in the animal kingdom, the stages of which can be identified through overt behaviors.
Language is said to be unique to the human race--though dolphins, parrots, and orangutans might feel offended at the discrimination. If phonological experimentation and eventual competence are typical of early maturation in the human being, semantic development is slow, and "some lexical generalizations only start developing about the age ...