SECOND LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION
ENGLISH 316

MYCAH-AMELITA C. CHAVEZ
 THEORIES APPLIED TO LANGUAGE LEARNING
BEHAVIORIST LEARNING THEORY
• techniques that felt wrong to many teachers and students
• not a theory of language acquisition
• APPLIED TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR
• Teachers feel unprepared because they had not been trained in the latest version
of transformational theory
• not a theory of the process of language acquisition
 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY

• Krashen (1982) proposed a second language acquisition theory that

attempts to deal with the process of language acquisition, not its
product.
• Language acquisition, first or second, occurs only when comprehension
of real messages occurs, and when the acquirer is not "on the
defensive."
 FIVE HYPOTHESES ABOUT SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

• THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISTINCTION

• THE NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS
• THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS
• THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS
• THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS
 THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISTINCTION
Adults have two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a
second language.
• LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, is a process similar, if not identical, to the way
children develop ability in their first language. Language acquisition is a
subconscious process. The result of language acquisition is acquired competence.
acquisition include implicit learning, informal learning, and natural learning.
“Picking up a language”
• LANGUAGE LEARNING refers to conscious knowledge of a second language,
knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them.
“Knowing about a language”
 THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISTINCTION

• Adults can also acquire a language, and their ability to "pick-up“

languages does not disappear at puberty.
• Adults can access the same natural "language acquisition device" that
children use.
• Error correction has little or no effect on subconscious acquisition, but is
thought to be useful for conscious learning.
 THE NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS
ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES PROCEEDS IN A PREDICTABLE ORDER
• Brown (1973) reported that children acquiring English as a first language tended to
acquire certain grammatical morphemes, or functions words, earlier than others.
• Dulay and Burt (1974, 1975) reported that children acquiring English as a second
language also show a "natural order" for grammatical morphemes, regardless of their
first language.
• Bailey, Madden, and Krashen (1974) reported a natural order for adult subjects, an
order quite similar to that seen in child second language acquisition.
• The order of acquisition for second language is not the same as the order of acquisition
for first language, but there are some similarities.
 THE NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS

"Average" order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes for English as a second language (children and adults)
 THE NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS
TRANSITIONAL FORMS
• Acquirers make very similar errors, termed developmental errors, while they are acquiring.
Examples:
No Mom sharpen it.
Not like it now.
I no like this one.
This no have calendar.
How he can be a doctor?
What she is doing?
 THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS

• The Monitor hypothesis posits that acquisition and learning are used in very
specific ways and implies that formal rules, or conscious learning, play only a
limited role in second language performance.
• Acquisition "initiates" our utterances in a second language and is responsible for
our fluency.
• Learning has only one function, and that is as a Monitor, or editor.
 THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS

Acquisition and learning in second language production

 THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS
LIMITATIONS OF CONSCIOUS LEARNING
• Time
• Focus on form
• Know the rule
INDIVIDUAL VARIATION IN MONITOR USE
• Monitor over-users
• Monitor under-users
• The optimal monitor user
 THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS
THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS MAKES THE FOLLOWING CLAIMS:
• A necessary (but not sufficient) condition to move from stage i to stage i + 1 is
that the acquirer understand input that contains i + 1.
• We acquire by understanding language that contains structure a it beyond our
current level of competence (i + 1).
• When communication is successful, when the input is understood and there is
enough of it, i + 1 will be provided automatically.
• Production ability emerges.
 THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS
FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN CHILDREN: CARETAKER SPEECH
• Caretaker speech is modified in order to aid comprehension. "roughly-tuned" to the child's current
level of linguistic competence, not "finely-tuned."
• "here and now" principle
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: SIMPLE CODES
• The second language acquirer, child or adult, is also an "acquirer,“ just like a first language
acquirer.
• Foreigner-talk results from the modifications native speakers make with less than fully competent
speakers of their language.
• Teacher-talk is foreigner-talk in the classroom.
• Interlanguage talk is the speech of other second language acquirers.
 THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS

THE SILENT PERIOD

• It has often been noted that children acquiring a second language in a natural,
informal linguistic environment may say very little for several months following
their first exposure to the second language.
• What output there is consists usually of memorized language, whole sentences
learned as if they were one word.
• The explanation of the silent period in terms of the input hypothesis is straight-
forward-- the child is building up competence in the second language via listening,
by understanding the language around him.
 PROVIDING INPUT

THE POTENTIAL OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

• The classroom is of benefit when it is the major source of comprehensible input.
• In the case of the adult beginner, the classroom can do much better than the
informal environment.
• The value of second language classes, then, lies not only in the grammar
instruction, but in the simpler "teacher talk", the comprehensible input.
 THE ROLE OF OUTPUT

• Participation in conversation is responsible for language acquisition.

• Output aids learning because it provides a domain for error correction.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF OPTIMAL INPUT

• OPTIMAL INPUT IS COMPREHENSIBLE.

• OPTIMAL INPUT IS INTERESTING AND/OR RELEVANT.
• OPIMAL INPUT IS NOT GRAMMATICALLY SEQUENCED.
• OPTIMAL INPUT MUST BE IN SUFFICIENT QUANTITY.
 PROVIDING INPUT

LIMITATIONS OF THE CLASSROOM

• The outside world can supply more input.
• The range of discourse that the student can be exposed to in a second language
classroom is quite limited.
 AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

• THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS states how affective factors relate to the
second language acquisition process.
• The concept of an Affective Filter was proposed by Dulay and Burt (1977), and is
consistent with the theoretical work done in the area of affective variables and
second language acquisition.
Affective variables related to success in second language acquisition:
• Motivation
• Self-confidence
• Anxiety
AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

Operation of the "affective filter"

 THE CAUSATIVE VARIABLE IN SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

• Acquisition is more important than learning.

• In order to acquire a language, two conditions are necessary. The first
is comprehensible (or even better, comprehended) input containing i +
1, structures a bit beyond the acquirer's current level, and second, a
low or weak affective filter to allow the input "in".
 DOES LANGUAGE TEACHING HELP?
WHEN DOES LANGUAGE TEACHING HELP?
• when it is the main source of low filter comprehensible input, that is, for beginners
and for foreign language students who do not have a chance to get input outside
the class
WHEN DOES LANGUAGE TEACHING NOT HELP?
• when students have a rich source of comprehensible input outside the classroom
and are competent enough in the second language to be able to take advantage
of it
 OTHER VARIABLES
EXPOSURE VARIABLE
• Length of residence (LOR) in the second language environment
AGE
• Adults proceed through the early stages of second language development faster
than children do (where time and exposure are held constant).
• Older children acquire faster than younger children, time and exposure held
constant.
• Acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood
generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as
adults.
 ACCULTURATION
• Schumann (1978) has hypothesized that acculturation is the "major
casual variable in second language acquisition.“
• Acculturation can be viewed as a means of gaining comprehensible
input and lowering the filter.
• Acculturation is the most effective way of lowering the affective filter
and getting input for immigrants and long-term visitors.
 TYPES OF ACCULTURATION

• TYPE ONE ACCULTURATION - the learner is socially integrated with the TL group
and, as a result, develops sufficient contact with TL speakers to enable him to
acquire the TL. In addition, he is psychologically open to the TL such that input to
which he is exposed becomes intake.
• TYPE TWO ACCULTURATION - has all the characteristics of type one, but in this
case the learner regards the TL speakers as a reference group whose life styles
and values he consciously or unconsciously desires to adopt.
ACCULTURATION AND SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
 VARIABLES FOR STUDENT SUCCESS
• Social dominance
• Assimilation, preservation, and adaptation
• Enclosure
• Cohesiveness
• Size
• Congruence
• Attitude
• Intended length of residence
 ACCOMMODATION THEORY
• The Accommodation Theory (Giles, 1973) describes how people adjust their
language and communication patterns to those of others.
• The theory suggests that individuals are not merely recipients of verbal
communication but interactive participants whose brains are in a consistent state
of decision making.
• When people interact with each other, they either try to make speech:
• similar to that of their addressee in order to empathize social cohesiveness (a process
of convergence)
• different in order to empathize their social distinctiveness ( a process of divergence)
 VARIABLES GOVERNING THE ACCOMMODATION
THEORY

• Identification of the individual learner with his ethnic in-group

• Inter-ethnic comparison: whether the learner makes favorable or unfavorable
comparisons between his own in group and the out group
• Perception of ethnology-linguistic vitality
• Perception of in-groups boundaries
• Identification with other in-group social categories
 CRITICISMS OF KRASHEN’S HYPOTHESES
• ACQUISITION-LEARNING HYPOTHESIS
• Instead of drawing a borderline separating acquisition and learning into two discrete
disciplines, the cross-currents at both are constantly at work in SLA are to be
acknowledged and explained ( Zafar, 2009).
• NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS
• Krashen claimed for a natural order is based mainly on English morphemes order (Gass
and Selinker, 1994; McLaughlin, 1987).
• The natural order hypothesis fails to account for the considerable influence of the first
language on the acquisition of a second language. (Wode 1977, Zobl, 1980, 1982).
• MONITOR HYPOTHESIS
• It is often difficult to use the monitor correctly since the rules of a language can be
extremely complex ( Zafar, 2009).
 CRITICISMS OF KRASHEN’S HYPOTHESES
• INPUT HYPOTHESIS
• The concept of a learner’s “level” is extremely difficult to define, just as the idea of
i+1.
• It is difficult to determine the learners' current levels due to individual differences
(McLaughlin, 1987).
• AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS
• It does not explain the instances of adult second language learners who acquire a
second language to a native-like competence.
• Children also experience differences in non-linguistic variables such as motivation,
self-confidence, and anxiety that supposedly account for child-adult differences in
second language learning.
 CONCLUSION
• Despite the various criticisms, Krashen's Theory of second language
acquisition had a great impact on the way second language learning
was viewed.
• It also initiated research towards the discovery of orders of
acquisition in languages other than English.
• It contributed to the debate of whether or not grammar should be
taught explicitly.
THANK YOU.