Children learn a second language in a few cases. Firstly if they grow up in a bilingual environment. Secondly if the country where the child has grown second lingua franca.

Dear David Coulson,

The questions of how and why are interrogatives addressing metalinguistic awareness, and children at an early age, at least before the age of 11, cannot use that kind of reasoning. However, you can refer to Slobin's idea stipulating that children first learn the functions of language , and then their forms.

Good luck with your research.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Thank you for the reference Reza.

Best, David

Yes, kindly see some of my work from an East African perspective. In particular see Muthwii 2002 on research in Uganda and Kenya. Banda from South Africa has written quite a bit too on this subject. 

Dear Margaret,

Many thanks for your answer. Would you recommend this from among your papers? Language of Instruction: A Qualitative Analysis of the Perceptions of Parents, Pupils and Teachers Among the Kalenjin in Kenya

Also, could you give me more citation details about Banda's work?

Thank you,

David

I wrote my dissertation thesis on the role of silence in child second language learning and interaction (7-9 years old moving to the US from CZ). I recorded, transcribed and did conversation analysis. Interesting results, mainly that sometimes they do not want to talk but that does not mean they do not communicate. It is rather about power...

In many European countries children start learning FLs early (age: 6-9). Please, have a look at the article "Exploring young learners’ foreign language learning awareness" by Carmen Munoz in Language Awareness 2014 and the available literature on the ELLiE Project on young learners from different European countries.

Yes, the ELLIE study sheds light on this question -  another one that might be helpful:

Howard de Leeuw: English as a foreign language in the German elementary school: What do the children have to say? (Giessener Beitrage zur Fremdsprachendidaktik) Paperback – 1997

Howard De Leeuw (Author)

Please check:

1. http://www.davidenglishhouse.com/en/resources/snakes_ladders.html

2. http://www.davidenglishhouse.com/journalpdfs/2008/2008summerrausch.pdf

3. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40016029427

4. jalt-publications.org/files/pdf-article/32.11art2.pdf‎

Good luck.

Hope attached ones are useful for you. Enjoy your reading

Article Evaluating maturational parallels in second language childre...

Conference Paper Longitudinal Effects of Second Language Exposure on First La...

I am so grateful to everyone writing in with ideas, and suggestions for reading. Thank you very much! The reason why I asked the question is that my Masters student, who owns her own English school, is interested in teaching her young learners various communication strategies for effective interaction for future encounters with English speakers, although they have had few or maybe no such encounters so far. So part of the research is how young learners may be able to imagine themselves in interactional situations. As part of her research, she is going to interview her student, and analyze the date qualitatively for this 11 year-old's ideas about learning. It seems that there is a good, and increasing, literature, in various disciplines, that values such research data feedback from young people. David

Thanks for your giving detail, hope she successfully complete her research. All the Best