FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

(FLA) AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

(ENG. ELT 2- LANGUAGE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES IN
MULTILINGUAL SOCIETIES)

Prepared by

MR. ASKIN VILLARIAS

KEY TERMS TO REVIEW
 FIRST LANGUAGE- It is the language that
is first acquired by a child, like mother
tongue or native tongue.
 SECOND LANGUAGE- It is a non-native

language that has an official role in a

country.
 FOREIGN LANGUAGE- It is a non-native

language that has no official status in the

country.
KEY TERMS TO REVIEW
 HERITAGE LANGUAGE- It is used to
identify languages other than the dominant
languages.
 DIALECT- It is a language variety in which

the use of grammar and vocabulary

identifies the regional or social background
of the user.
 MOTHERESE- It describes the language

adaptation adults make to give the child

maximum opportunity to interact and learn.
ACTIVATE YOUR PRIOR
KNOWLEDGE
 What is the difference between acquisition
and learning?
 What is the comparison between speech

and language?
 Is language acquisition true for all children?
 What is the role of adults in the language

and literacy development of children?

 What is the relationship between cognition

and language acquisition?

 Language acquisition has been defined in
various perspectives and in various ways. As
language teachers, we need to understand all
of these theories and approaches in order to
combine them and make a more responsive
theory-based language curriculum and policy
appropriate to our learners regardless of the
generation.

To better understand the complexity of

language acquisition, let us understand the
different theories that influenced it.
BEHAVIORIST
PERSPECTIVE
1) BEHAVIORIST
PERSPECTIVE
 It first perspective to shed light to learning
and language acquisition that believes that
language, like any other knowledge, skills and
values, can be taught to children via
repetition, imitation and habituation.
 The most influential behaviorist is B. F. Skinner

with his Operant Conditioning Theory which

was highly influenced by Edward Thorndike’s
Connectionism Theory also known as Theory
of Effect (3 laws of education: law of
readiness, law of exercise and law of effect).
BURRHUS FREDERIC
SKINNER
He admits that every individual has a brain, but he
argues that it is unproductive to study internal
systems and that the best way to understand
behavior is to look at the causes of an action and
its consequences.
 He explains that a behavior that is continuously
reinforced tends to be repeated and becomes
deeply rooted in an individual’s behavior and a
behavior that is not reinforced dies-out and is
eventually forgotten.
 He also argued that children learn language based
on reinforcement principles by associating words
with meanings. This theory is called imitation.
 B. F. SKINNER
The Father of Operant Conditioning
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
REINFORCEMENT
REINFORCEMENT PUNISHMENT

POSITIVE Something is added Something is added

to increase the to decrease the
likelihood of a likelihood of a
behavior behavior.

NEGATIVE Something is Something is

removed to increase removed to decrease
the likelihood of a the likelihood of a
behavior. behavior
 Language in the behaviorist perspective is
viewed as consistent formal pattern and
through imitation and constant practice,
language is developed just like in habit. This
process is called habituation.

One of the teaching methods that has been

influenced by this perspective is the audio-
lingual teaching method.
AUDIO-LINGUAL TEACHING
METHOD
 It is language teaching method that is
based on the behaviorist theory that
advocated conditioning and habit-formation
models of learning that were perfectly in
keeping with mimicry drills and patterns.
 This method was designed to help the
armies become proficient in the languages
of their allies in during World War II.
THE THREE BASIC PARTS OF
AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD (ALM)
1) PRESENTATION through oral and dialogue
form with little explanation. Errors are
immediately corrected, accuracy
emphasized, accurate repetition and
memorization of the dialogue is the goal of
this stage.
2) PRACTICE through patterned drills to help
learners master the structure of the
language and fluency overly emphasized.
3) APPLICATION through the use of the
memorized structures in different contexts.
 CONSTRUCTIVIST
PERSPECTIVE
A. COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVISM
B. SOCIOCULTURAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
 The two most recognized cognitivists are
Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Although both
are highly concerned with how children
acquire and construct meaning, their views
quite differ but unlike behaviorists, both do
not view children as empty vessels waiting to
be filled by an expert and learned adult.
Cognitivists argue that children are prewired
to learn and acquire language as they go
through different developmental stages.
COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVISM
 With its main proponent Jean Piaget, this
perspective argue that children are active
learners who construct meaning from their
environment.
 It explains the interconnectedness of
knowledge acquisition and language
acquisition through qualitative changes of
their mental processes as they develop.
 It views children as active learners,
constructive knowledge over time, as they
interact with the environment through four
developmental stages.
1) SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
 Extending from birth to the acquisition of
language, it is characterized by the children’s
active construction of an understanding of the
world by physically interacting with the
environment using their various senses such as
seeing, hearing grasping, sucking and stepping
and progressively learn that they are separated
from the environment continue to exist with or
without physically interacting with them.
 This development is called object permanence
that allows children to create mental pictures of
things they perceive from the environment.
2) PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
 It is a stage that begins when children start talking
approximately at age two and extends up to seven
years.
 Children still do not understand concrete logic and
have difficulty manipulating objects mentally.
 Moreover, they are still predominantly egocentric;
hence, have difficulty seeing viewpoints of others.
 Language acquisition in this stage is primarily
centered on pretend play which is a form of symbolic
play, which is the ability of children to use objects to
represent other objects and will ultimately progress to
symbolic function, when children can now mentally
understand, represent, remember, and picture objects
in their mind without actually seeing the object.
 At the end of this stage, children eventually
acquire intuitive thinking, where they begin to
want to know everything as evidenced by their
series of questions that seem endless and
unquenchable.
3) CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
 This stage immediately starts from seven years
old to twelve years old where children begin to
acquire concrete logical thinking like inductive
reasoning.
 Children begin to solve problems logically and
language acquisition moves to social matters and
the reemergence of egocentrism: adolescent’s
sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility
4) FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
 This stage extends from adolescence to
adulthood years .
 Knowledge development is demonstrated through
logical use of symbols related to abstract
concepts.
 Children acquire hypothetical and deductive
reasoning, where individuals learn to use
language abstractly without relying on concrete
representation.
PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
STAGE AGE DESCRIPTION
Sensorimotor 0-18 months Language is acquired and structured
through sensory perception and motor
activity. Schemes involve action rather
than symbols.
Preoperational 2-6 years Language is acquired and structured
through symbols, such as words, but
schemes are intuitive rather than
logical.
Concrete 7-12 years Language is acquired and structured
symbolically and logically, but
Operational schemes are limited to concrete and
present objects and events
Formal 12 years old older Language is acquired and structured
symbolically and logically, and
Operational hypothetical/deductive (“if-then”)
thinking can be used to generate all
the possibilities in a particular
situation.
SOCIOCULTURAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
 With Lev Vygotsky as its main proponent, his
perspective is centered on the role of culture and
social interactions of children with other children
and adults in the environment.
 It even argued that children’s speech is a tool in
their development of thinking.
 It emphasized the importance of private speech,
where children talk to themselves in turning shared
knowledge into personal knowledge.
 It also implies that cognitive development and tha
ability to use thought to control one’s own actions
require first as mastery of cultural communication
systems and then learning to use these systems to
regulate one’s own thought processes.
 It explained that every individual has zone of
proximal development (ZPD) – the gap
between actual ability (AA), something that
learners can do on their own and potential
ability (PA) something that they can do with help
and supervision (scaffold).
 SCAFFOLDING- It refers to the assistance that is
provided by more competent peers or adults
which means providing a child with great deal of
support during the early stages of learning and
then diminishing support and having the child take
on increasing responsibility as soon as he or she is
able.
VYGOTSKY’S ZONE OF PROXIMAL
DEVELOPMENT
IMPLICATIONS FROM VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
IN THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS
Slavin derives some implications of Vygotskian
theory in teaching-learning process to support
children’s language acquisition and development
 Set up desirable and interesting cooperative

learning arrangements among groups of

students with differing levels of ability.
 Plan cooperative learning activities with groups

of children at different levels who can help

each other learn.
 Give emphasis on scaffolding with students

taking more and more responsibility in their

learning.
 Plan instruction to provide practice at the
upper levels of zone of proximal
development for individual children or for
groups of children.
 Provide hints and prompts at different levels
to scaffold children’s learning at varying
degrees.
THE CRITICAL PERIOD
(CP) HYPOTHESIS
THE CRITICAL PERIOD (CP)
HYPOTHESIS
 Eric Lenneberg, as a linguist and a
neurologist, pioneered on innateness and
argued that the development of language in
children can be best understood in the
context of developmental biology that
critical period in human maturation existed,
especially on language acquistion.
 Lenneberg explained six characteristics

of language, in consideration to man

as biological species.
SIX CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE
ACCORDING TO LENNEBERG
 It is a form of behavior present in all cultures of
the world.
 In all culture, its onset is age correlated.
 There is only one acquisition strategy – it is the
same for all babies everywhere in the world.
 It is based intrinsically upon the same formal
operating characteristics whatever outward form.
 Throughout man’s recorded history, these
operating characteristics have been constant.
 It is a form of behavior that may be impaired
specifically by circumscribed brain lesions which
may leave other mental and motor skills relatively
unaffected
THE CRITICAL PERIOD (CP)
HYPOTHESIS
 Lenneberg further argued that any form of
human behavior that has all of these six
characteristics may likewise be assumed to
have a rather specific biological foundation.
 Lenneberg believed that the development

of language was said to be the result of

brain maturation: the hemispheres were
equipotential at birth, with language
gradually becoming lateralized in the left
hemisphere
A SUMMARY OF LENNEBERG’S
CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS
 First language acquisition typically occurs in
infancy and early childhood. An important question
concerns whether the acquisition of the first or a
second language shows a critical or sensitive
period: that is, whether acquisition displays a
normal course and leads to full proficiency in the
language only when it begins early in life.
 A critical period is a maturational time period

during which some crucial experience will have its

peak effect on the development or learning,
resulting in normal behavior attuned to the
particular environment to which the organism has
been exposed.
 Critical or sensitive periods in most
behavioral domains involve gradual declines
in learning, with some (reduced but not
absent) ability to learn, and greater
individual variation, in mature organisms.
Critical periods in other domains also
exhibit more learning during the waning
portion of the critical period if the organism
with extremely salient or strongly preferred
stimuli, or with learning problems similar to
those experienced early in life.
THEORY OF UNIVERSAL
GRAMMAR/INNATENESS
INNATENESS
 It is a theory that opposes the behaviorists’
perspective of children’s learning and
language acquisition posed by Noam
Chomsky, world’s famous linguist to date.
 Chomsky argued that children are endowed

with the capacity of the brain to arrive at

general principles based from adult speech
 Innateness is the capacity of the brain to

arrive at general principles based from adult

speech.
 NOAM CHOMSKY’S CHILD
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE


PRIMARY GENERAL
LINGUISTIC LANGUAGE GRAMMATICAL CHILD’S
DATA LEARNING KNOWLEDGE SPEECH
(ADULT SPEECH) PRINCIPLES

INPUT LAD OR UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

OUTPUT
INNATENESS
 Chomsky proposed the theory of Universal
Grammar, an idea of innate, biological
grammatical categories that facilitate the entire
language development in children and overall
language processing in adults.
 Children use their LAD to make sense of the
utterances heard around them, primarily coming
from the primary linguistic data or adult speech and
create hypotheses about grammar of the language.
 They use this grammatical knowledge to produce
sentences after several attempts through trial and
error and form generalizations or rules on
constructing sentences.
INNATENESS
 Chomsky proposed the theory of Universal
Grammar, an idea of innate, biological
grammatical categories that facilitate the entire
language development in children and overall
language processing in adults.
 Children use their LAD to make sense of the
utterances heard around them, primarily coming
from the primary linguistic data or adult speech and
create hypotheses about grammar of the language.
 They use this grammatical knowledge to produce
sentences after several attempts through trial and
error and form generalizations or rules on
constructing sentences.
INNATENESS
 This theory explains clearly why children
acquire language in such speed but on one
hand, it cannot account for other input that
children are exposed to.
INTERACTIONIST
PERSPECTIVE
INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
 Albert Bandura, known for his Social
Learning Theory (SLT), noted that the
Skinnerian emphasis on the effects of
consequences of behavior largely ignored the
phenomena of modeling – the imitation of
others’ behavior – and vicarious experience –
learning from others’ successes or failures.
 Bandura calls modeling as the no-trial
learning because students do not have to go
through a shaping process but can reproduce
the correct response immediately.
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
 This theory explains that children learn from
each other and from others through
observation, imitation, and modeling.
 This theory explains that children imitate the
words and language patterns they hear by
watching and listening to the models,
caregivers, and family members of their
lives.
 This theory has been identified as the link
that bridges the gap between behaviorist
and constructive perspective to learning and
language acquisition.
INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
 Interactionists argue that children are social
beings and they need more than adults to
observe, imitate, and model from and more
than an innate language acquisition device
(LAD) to create universal grammar from
primary linguistic inputs.
 Children need to socialize because like any
individual, children are social beings and
they need language acquisition support
system (LASS) like their families, community,
technology and even print and non-print
materials to help acquire the language.
THE FOUR PHASES OF BANDURA’S
ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
THE FOUR PHASES OF BANDURA’S
ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

 ATTENTION PHASE- This is the first phase in

observational learning is paying attention to a
model.
 RETENTION PHASE- During this phase, it is time to

model the behavior they want students to replicate

and then give learners a chance to practice or
rehearse.
 REPRODUCTION- During this phase, learners

attempt to replicate the model’s behavior.

 MOTIVATION PHASE- It is the final stage where

children imitate a model because they believe that

doing so will increase their own chances to be
reinforced.
THE TWO CONTRIBUTIONS OF
BANDURA’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

 VICARIOUS LEARNING- It is the process by

which children learn from the reinforced
(negative or positive) learning and/or
behavior of other people. It also notes that
people learn by seeing others reinforced or
punished for engaging in certain behaviors.
 SELF-REGULATED LEARNING- It is the
process where children observe and
evaluate their own behavior against their
own standards, and reinforce or punish
themselves.
VICARIOUS LEARNING
SELF-REGULATED LEARNING
WAYS ON HOW TEACHERS CAN SUPPORT
STUDENTS TO BECOME MORE SELF-REGULATED

 Support students to analyze tasks and

to set appropriate goals.
a. Discuss the importance of analyzing tasks
as a first step in learning.
b. Lay out requirements clearly and discuss
criteria for task completion.
c. Confirm students’ understandings of tasks
(in class discussions, through learning logs).
d. Emphasize learning objectives rather than
the pursuit of grades.
WAYS ON HOW TEACHERS CAN SUPPORT
STUDENTS TO BECOME MORE SELF-REGULATED

 Support students to analyze tasks and

to set appropriate goals.
a. Discuss the importance of analyzing tasks
as a first step in learning.
b. Lay out requirements clearly and discuss
criteria for task completion.
c. Confirm students’ understandings of tasks
(in class discussions, through learning logs).
d. Emphasize learning objectives rather than
the pursuit of grades.
WAYS ON HOW TEACHERS CAN SUPPORT
STUDENTS TO BECOME MORE SELF-REGULATED

 Explicitly support students’ use of

effective learning strategies.
a. Talk through the process of task
completion with students.
b. Teach students effective learning
strategies in the context of meaningful tasks.
c. Involve students in discussions about the
strategies they used to learn and about the
relative merits of different strategies.
WAYS ON HOW TEACHERS CAN SUPPORT
STUDENTS TO BECOME MORE SELF-REGULATED

 Support students’ monitoring.

a. Support students’ efforts to identify clear
criteria for assessing their own experience.
b. Help students to make judgments about
the quality of their own performance.
c. Encourage students to reflect on their
learning, to evaluate the effectiveness of
the strategies they used, and to modify
learning approaches, if necessary.