Brain Plasticity and Second Language Acquisition: Part II

The implications of brain plasticity research on ESL teaching are many and far reaching. The revolation that adult minds continue to form new brain pathways has begun to start a revolution in second language acquisition (learning) research and education. The findings of neuro-scientists has provided hard evidence to back up what social-interactions have been saying for years, namely that adults can learn a second or multiple languages all throughout the adult years of life. Yet, what happens when the neuro-scientists, such as Dr. Michael Merzenich, begin impeding on the social-interactionists' turf by designing their own educational teaching methods by way of learning computer programs that are rooted on a classist belief, that lower class students underperform because they have not yet developed the neuropathways that middle and upper class students already have in place? Will this new scientific based education deem more effective than the multiculturally sensitive, communicative, collaborative teaching techniques of the social-interactionists?

To examine this question, let's first review the differing beliefs of inatists and social-interactionists. The following excerpt from wikipedia.org describes the different opinions held by inatists and social-interactionists regarding I-language and E-language:

In Chomskian linguistics, a distinction is drawn between I-language (internal language) and E-language (external language). In this context, internal language applies to the study of syntax and semantics in language on the abstract level; as mentally represented knowledge in a native speaker. External language applies to language in social contexts, i.e. behavioral habits shared by a community. Internal language analyses operate on the assumption that all native speakers of a language are quite homogeneous in how they process and perceive language.[citation needed] External language fields, such as sociolinguistics, attempt to explain why this is in fact not the case. Many sociolinguists reject the distinction between I- and E-language on the grounds that it is based on a mentalist view of language. On this view, grammar is first and foremost an interactional (social) phenomenon (e.g. Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, Sandra Thompson).

In other words, the inatists lay more emphasis on the influence our minds have on language while social-interactionists stress that the world we live in has the strongest affect on our language development. Inatists are locked inside of their heads and social-interactionists are locked outside of their minds (figuratively speaking) in regards to how they explain language. What inatists and social-interactionists are unable to see is how the world and ourselves are interconnected and interrelated. In the words of the Beatles (borrowing from Eastern Philososphy), "And the time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you."

Both camps can not be discounted for their contributions to the field of linguistics, for as neuro-science research has shown, internal and external forces physically shape our minds from birth until death. This new knowledge complements inatists theories...