LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Child Language Acquisition

a. Theories of CLA
i. Imitation theory ii. Reinforcement theory iii. Active construction of a grammar theory

i. Imitation theory
this theory suggests that children learn to speak by imitating the speech of others in their environment; it claims that children are able to listen, memorise and reproduce the language whenever required; some arguments refute that children are borned with no knowledge of any language and language is culturally transmitted; problems of this theory
inaccuracy of reproduction; children are unable to reproduce or imitate adults language accurately

problems of this theory

predictable mistakes; every child seems to make the same consistent mistakes such as saying goed for went and holded for held produce of new sentences; children are capable of producing utterances which they have never heard before

ii. Reinforcement theory

Parents teach children language by correcting errors and rewarding their grammatical utterances Many parents correct their young childrens errors, but many do not. Parents usually correct content, not grammar.
Kid: Matt goed to school . Mom: No, Matt went to the PARTY.

Correcting a young childs grammar is futile.

Child : nobody dont like me. Mother : No, say nobody likes me. Child : Nobody dont like me. Mother : Now listen carefully! Say, Nobody likes me. Child : Oh! Nobody dont likes me

iii. Active construction of a grammar theory

Children build on innate abilities. They discover patterns in the language around them and hypothesize rules that account for these patterns Childrens productions obey these rules, although they may violate rules of the adult grammar;

b. Stages of acquisition:
i.

3 10 mths (cooing, babbling)

ii. 12-18 mths ( holophrastic/ one word e.g. daddy) iii. 18-20 mths (two-word stage e.g. hi mommy) iv. 2-3 yrs old (telegraphic speech e.g. I good girl )

2nd Language Acquisition

a. Acquisition vs learning:
a. Acquisition of Lg has the following elements: a. Occurs in natural communicative situations b. Unconscious internalization of Lg structures c. Gradual development of Lg ability b. Acquisition is an unconsciuos process while learning is a conscious knowledge of a 2nd Lg by knowing the rules, being aware of them and being able to talk about them;

a. Factors affecting SLA:

i. motivation ii. empathy iii. anxiety iv. inhibition v. risk taking

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b. The L2 classroom
- L2 classroom consists of individuals with different learning capacity and proficiency levels - the success of learning also depends on the characteristics of the particular learner (refer to table) - teacher uses Teacher-Talk to students to ensure that they understand what the teacher is saying; - by using the simplified language, teacher may think that he/she is providing comprehensible input; - however, in the L2 classroom where the proficiency level of the students may be wide-ranging, this can be misinterpreted as patronizing the students; - teacher is suggested to use simple but normal speech - error correction may or may not help a learner to increase his/her level of proficiency

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c. The Good Language Learner

has an effective personal learning style ii. has an active approach to the learning task iii. has a tolerant and outgoing approach to the target language and empathy with its speakers; iv. has technical know-how about how to tackle a language v. has strategies to experiment and plan a new lg into an ordered system
i.

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c. The Good Language learner

vi. is consistently searching for meaning vii. is willing to practice viii. is willing to use the language in real communication ix. has self monitoring ability x. is able to develop the target language as a reference system

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