Subject: esl in children cut off from their native language - any insights ?

2 years ago , my wife and i adopted two kids from russia , at the time aged 6 . 5 and 5 . at the time , i informally asked around and got the impression that there was unlikely to be anything particularly interesting linguistically about their experiences in learning english , and was referred to several books on esl / 2nd language learning among immigrants . unfortunately , due to the joys of parenting , i never read most of the references i was given ( i spent the time trying to learn russian instead ) . i recently read something in another adoptive parent 's posted experience that made me again wonder about my kids ' experiences in learning english , which so far have apparently been a little unusual for adoptive kids ( i ' ll skip the details at this point in my inquiry ) . i am starting to wonder if there is indeed something important in the language experiences of kids adopted into a foreign language environment after infancy . the key difference between international adoptions and other esl situations is that the older adopted kids suddenly are cut off from input in their native language with a certain level of vocabulary and mastery of that language , and thrown into an esl / 2nd language situation where they learn a new language usually with no support in their native language . learning the new language takes a considerable amount of time - my kids could communicate only minimally in english for about a year , but for most adoptive kids , use of the 1st language seems to stop within 1 - 3 months since the kids seem to realize that it no longer serves any useful communicative function . after 2 years , my kids speak what to most people sounds like fluent idiomatic english . however , their vocabulary seems greatly restricted compared to native english kids their age - and their passive vocabulary ( words they understand that they do n't use themselves ) seems to be especially restricted . they also have some peculiarities in grammar and usage - perhaps those typical of second language speakers , but ignored in the adoptive kids since they speak with no trace of an accent . these problems seem to be especially persistent , probably because they pass unnoticed most of the time ( they do show up in the kids ' writing now ) and they are resistent to correction . my readings in linguistics have thus far all seemed to generalize about a critical period lasting past my kids ' age , where they are supposed to learn languages like a sponge . the other adoptive parent , however , posted that in talking with esl experts , she found out that " esl learners generally cannot do phonics in the second language , nor can they follow along in group oral reading . it takes 7 to 11 years in the second language to develop the ability to manipulate written english , particularly abstract cognitive academic material . " that poster also said that children completely removed from their native language " before mastering all of its principles " have especial problems in learning the new language . she also said that many of the normal esl procedures break down in such kids , that there are no good tests for diagnosing language and learning problems in such kids , and that the situation is enough unlike the normal esl situation that trained esl teachers may not recognize problems or know how to solve them . she gave several references , but mostly on the pragmatic " how to help your kid " level . but putting on my linguist hat , and reading between the lines , i came up with some questions that i put to the linguistic community : 1 . is anyone reading this doing any research relating to language acquisition in kids cut off from their native tongue in the formative years ? 2 . can anyone provide me references to such work ? 3 . whether i get answers to # 1 or # 2 , what years are the " formative years " in which cutting off the child from the native language will have an effect on 2nd language learning ? 4 . does this age range have any relation to the " critical period " of language learning ? might there be a correlation that would tell us something about how and why kids learn languages differently and more easily than adults ? 5 . what are the different effects of cutting off a child from his native language at different ages / stages in language formation ? it seems pretty obvious that at the earliest years , " 2nd language " learning would asymptotically approach identity with the learning of the first language . 6 . when 1st and 2nd languages have contrasting features , it would seem that these kids would provide especial insight into ug models with parameters , in addition providing some clue as to when and how the parameters are set . has anyone looked at this ? 7 . what is the long-term language prognosis for such kids ? 7 to 11 years of language difficulty , when the difficulty often goes unnoticed ( or at least the fact that the difficulty is due to language problems - the adoptive parent who posted gave a detailed chronicle of her daughter 's varying problems from adoption at age 4 until 5th grade when the parent finally came to find out why her daughter was having problems even though she spoke english fluently ) - this seems likely to have severe long-term effects . 8 . my kids and all others i know of have completely lost the native language except for word isolates . do such kids relearn their native language any easier when they get older ? again , looking at contrasting features that such kids have difficulty relearning might tell us a lot about " parameter setting " especially when the difficulties do not match those of others acquiring the language as a 2nd langusge with no prior experience in the language . kids cut off from the native language would seem more likely to give clear data on this . 9 . are the effects of being cut-off from one 's native language different in kids like mine ? my kids were cut off from the native language only incompletely - they still had each other to talk to , in addition to my wife and my rudimentary self-teaching - but all of this continued exposure to the native language was impoverished both in vocabulary and grammar . ) russian remained the language of our household for most of the kids ' first year here , and i quickly came to understand the differences in language at differing ages . i could understand and communicate with my kids quite well ( and fluently ) in russian after about a month , but still cannot understand even a slow talking russian adult . the types of errors kids tolerate ( and make - my kids often had the ' wrong ' declensional ending on irregular words ) seem quite different from what adults accept . 10 . are there any english language discussions about child language acquisition in russian kids ? ( i ' m sure there are russian language sources , but i would never get through them . ) i would like to know what the typical russian child at the age my kids were adopted would typically have mastered in features like declensions , numbers , perfective / imperfective distinctions , and proper use of cases - things that i have n't mastered well enough to be able to extract from relistening to tapes thaty i made while they still spoke russian fluently . lojbab lojbab @ access . digex . net bob lechevalier , president , the logical language group , inc . 2904 beau lane , fairfax va 22031-1303 usa 703-385 - 0273 for the artificial language loglan / lojban , see ftp . cs . yale . edu / pub / lojban or see lojban www server : href = " http : / / xiron . pc . helsinki . fi / lojban / "
