WEEK 2: THEORIES OF SECOND LANGUAGE AQUISITION

Second Language Aquisition : subset of general human learning, involves cognitive variations is closely related to onces personality type, is interwoven with second culture learning and involve interference, the creation of new linguistic systems and the learning of discource and communicative functions of languange.

Factors in theory if SLA.

What language, what learning, is, and for classroom context, what teaching is.

Knowledge of children 's learning of their first language.

Adheres to general principle of human learning and intelligence.

Personality , the way people view themselves

Communicative competence, with all of its subcategories, is the ultimate goal of learners.

Claims on research findings on SLA.

Adults and adolescents can acquire a second languange.

Practise does not make prefect.

Knowing a languange rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction.

One cannot achieve nativelike (or near nativelike) command of a complex.

The learner's task is enormous becaise language is enormously complex.

Criteria for a viable Theory (Larsen-Freeman)

Beware of false dichotomies.

Beware of linear, causal approaches to theorizing.

Beware of overgeneralization.

Beware of reductionist thinking.

Criteria for a comprehensive theory of SLA.

Account for universals.

Account for cognitive/innate factors.

Account for environmental factors

Account for others variables besides exposure and input.

Explain both cognitive and affective factors.

Account for variability in age, acquisition rate and proficiency level.

An Innatist Model: Krashens Input Hypothesis.

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Adult Second Language

Internalizing Acquisition Conscious learning Learners attends to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process.

A subconsious and inuitive process of constructing the system of a language.

Learning cannot become aquisition.

2. The Monitor Hypothesis The monitor is involved in learning not in acquisition. It is is a device for watchdogging ones output. 3. The natural order hypothesis. We acquire language rules in a predictable or natural order. 4. The input hypothesis. If an acquire is at the stage or level i, the input he or she understands should contain i+1. The languange that the learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but, still be challenged to make progress. 5. The affective filter hypothesis. The best acquisition will occur in environment where enxiety is low and defensiveness absent.

McLaughlins Attention-Processing Model.

Implicit & Explicit Models

Models of SLA Innatist Krashen o Subconscious acquisition superior to learning and monitoring o Low effective filter o Natural order of acquisition Cognitive McLaughlin/Bialystok o Controlled/automatic processing (MccL) o Focal/peripheral attention (McL ) o Implicit vs. explicit Constructivist Long o Interaction hypothesis o Intake through socail interaction. o Output hypothesis o Task based intruction