Assignment No.

02

Course:
Psycholinguistics and Language Teaching Methodology (5655)

The Project Report

Supervisor:
Mr. Tahseen Afreen
MA (English); MA (TEFL); B.Ed.

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 The Project Question

“What is the difference between first language acquisition and second

language learning? Observe two children of secondary level in their English
language classroom for a week and note down in your diary or observation
sheet:
a. How they are learning second language?
b. What similarities are there in acquisition of first language and learning of
second language?
c. What are the factors which are hindrance in the way of their learning of
second language? ”

Prepared by

Zeeshan Nawaz Bhalli

SSE(Govt. H/S Kammanwala, Sialkot)
Roll # AH 526472
VPO Kapoorwali
Sialkot

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 Introduction of the Topic

The topic on which I am going to make a research is a very interesting one for
me. In Pakistan, the system of language learning is both very stimulating and
complicated. In Pakistan, a child has to counter many problems while trying to
acquire or learn a language. Now a days, a Pakistani child, is expected to learn
three languages simultaneously at very early stages of his life i-e the mother
tongue, the national language (Urdu) and the English language. Thus, the
language learning process for a Pakistani kid is very painstaking.

At the very first stage, he acquires his mother tongue. In some modern
families, the elders try to make their children talk in Urdu language. Thus, for a
few families, Urdu acts as their mother tongue. However, mostly, the mother
tongue for Pakistanis is the regional or local language and not Urdu. Punjabi,
Pushto, Siraiki, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Gujrati etc. are some of the regional languages
that are being used as mother tongues in Pakistan. Thus, a Pakistani child first
tries to make sounds or utter some broken words in his or her local/ regional/
mother language. In some families, the children have to use both regional and
Urdu languages because they listen to both these languages form their elders.
Some very interesting sentences can be heard from the mouth of a child when
he tries to utter a sentence using a mixture of both the regional tongue (say
Punjabi) and Urdu language.

Examples:
1. Mama, tu kithay gaee thee?
2. Meri taang gaaray mein phass gaee thee.
3. Papa, Ali nay mujay “watta” mara hai.
4. Kall ma naaly mein “dig” giya tha.
5. Dekho, meri “pent” aaj “gitton” say ooopar hai. etc. etc.

The following examples clearly show that the elders are producing a lot many
problems for their young ones who are trying to acquire their first language.
Instead of facilitating them, the elders are making their task more and more
difficult and mysterious. In comparison to this situation, the acquiring of a
single language (either the mother tongue or Urdu) is a lot easier for a kid. This

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mixture of language forces a child to commit more and more language
mistakes and errors in acquiring his or her first language.

After having acquired the mother tongue, a Pakistani child proceeds further for
leaning Urdu and English languages. When the child is admitted to some
school, he or she has to learn two languages… Urdu and English. AT home, the
child uses local language and Urdu and English at school, thus facing challenge
of structuring patterns of three languages simultaneously. This question
becomes even more puzzling when we keep in mind the fact that the
structures of all these languages differ a lot. Thus, we baffle the child by forcing
him to try his little innocent mind with these three languages. However, it is a
matter of satisfaction that a Pakistani child, by the grace of Allah Almighty,
behaves very nicely leaning Urdu and English language to some extent. The
learning of English language creates some problems in a child’s life. The child
uses his experience of Punjabi and Urdu languages while learning English
language. Thus, the interference of the mother tongue can create real problem
for a Pakistani child in learning English language. We can safely say that for
Pakistanis L1 is the main hindrance in leaning L2.

Another main problem in Pakistan is that majority of the students think that
learning English language is very difficult. This thinking is prevalent in our
Society since ages. I have often seen that most of the persons who are good at
English language, instead of encouraging the students to learn, they are seen
rather discouraging the students. This thing really puts the students in the back
gear. We should try to understand the gravity of the situation and try to
encourage and convince the young learners to learner foreign languages. We
should make things simple for young learners who are already afraid of
learning a foreign language.

In spite of all the problems faced by Pakistani learners, they work really hard
and are able to express themselves in English as some stage of their
educational careers. Now a days, the Pakistani government and the Pakistani
community are trying their level best to remove the hindrances that stop a
person from performing well in English language. For this, the latest methods
of teaching and learning are being applied in schools.

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 I am, as a learner of English language, quite hopeful that we will be able to get
the required results by applying new methods and techniques. Such strategies
should be adopted that will turn these hindrances into leaning opportunities
for English language learning.

Literature Review

According to linguists there is an important distinction between language

acquisition and language learning. As we see that children acquire their mother
tongue through interaction with their parents and the environment that
surrounds them. Their need to communicate paves the way for language
acquisition to take place. As experts suggest, there is an innate capacity in
every human being to acquire language. By the time a child is five years old, he
can express ideas clearly and almost perfectly from the point of view of
language and grammar. Although, parents never sit with children to explain to
them the workings of the language, their utterances show a superb command
of intricate rules and patterns that would drive an adult crazy if he tried to
memorize them and use them accurately. This suggests that it is through
exposure to the language and meaningful communication that a first language
is acquired, without the need of systematic studies of any kind.

The acquiring of the first language is a biological process. There is very little
variation from this timetable. Just as almost all human babies start walking at
between 12 to 18 months, puppies open their eyes few days after their birth,
many trees shed their leaves in autumn, according to some biological
timetable, similarly human babies acquire their mother tongue. Learning of the
mother tongue is certainly a natural process, biologically controlled. If the
onset of language had not been pre-ordained, but only when the need arose,
then the speech would have been learnt at different times within different
cultures, with different degrees of proficiency. Most children acquire more or
less the same degree of language competence within almost same period of
time. The same cannot be said about learning a second language.

Learning his mother tongue is not the child’s own decision, but if he decides to
learn to ride a bicycle, it is purely his own decision. Similarly, if an adult decides

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to learn a foreign language, it is purely his personal decision and may be the
result of some need or interest. There are thousands of people in the world
who don’t feel any need to learn a foreign language and lead their whole lives
with just their mother tongue. It is said that language is badly affected by
linguistically impoverished environment. For example, the children who are
brought up in orphanages tend to lag behind in speech development though
they started to speak on schedule. Aitcheson gives the following approximate
schedule of the onset of language among the children. The age of onset is
approximate, but the order of events is fixed.

Crying Birth

Cooing 6 weeks

Babbling 6 months

Intonation Patterns 8 months

One-word utterances 1 year

Two-word utterances 18 months

World inflections 2 years

Questions, negatives 2.5 years

Rare or complex structures 5 years

Mature speech 10 years

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The major differences between first language acquisition and second
language learning

1) Children normally achieve perfect L1 mastery, whereas adult L2 learners

are unlikely to achieve perfect L2 mastery.

2) In L1, success is guaranteed, but in L2 learning complete success is very

rare.

3) There is little variation in degree of success or route in L1 learning,

whereas L2 learners vary in overall success and route.

4) The goals of L1 and L2 learners differ completely. In L1, target language

competence is guaranteed, but L2 learners may be content with less
than target language competence and they may be more concerned
with fluency than accuracy.

5) Children develop clear intuitions about correctness in L1, but L2 learners

are often unable to form clear grammatical judgments.

6) Correction is not found and not necessary in L1 learners, whereas in L2

learners, correction is generally helpful and necessary.

7) In L1, usually instruction is not needed, but in L2 learning it is necessary.

So, we can say that there is a great difference between first language
acquisition and second language learning. Much of second language learning
centers on issues of the nature of learnability. First language acquisition is
somewhat a mystery and relies mostly on innate universal principles of
constraints and assumptions, whereas second language learning seems to rely
more on cognitive mechanism in order to fashion general problem solving
learning strategies to cope with the material. It goes without saying that
children naturally acquire their first language, but adults do not naturally
acquire their second language, as a number of fundamental differences appear
in their rationale towards learning.

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 Observations (My Diary)

Since I am working as a Teacher at a Public school, and fortunately, teaching

English language to secondary class students. I chose two average students for
my observation sheet. I will mention not only my observation of those two
boys, namely Muhamamd Shoaib and Tayyab Ali (Class 9th B, Govt. High
School, Kammanwala, Sialkot), but also my overall experience of teaching and
learning English to secondary class students.

How are the students learning second language

The education system or the traditions have made the educational and
learning process a very intricate and complex phenomenon. Cramming things
has become a fashion in our educational institutions. Even in Urdu, the
students are seen digesting things by cramming. I observed Shoaib and Tayyab
cramming Urdu and English subjects. Thus, for them, learning a mother tongue
or the foreign language is the same thing. They learn the foreign language the
way they acquire first language.

The traditional method of teaching through GT Method is there in our

Pakistani classrooms. A strange situation prevails in the country. Ridiculously,
in Public institutions, the teachers can't help speaking L1 while teaching L2 to
the class. The students studying in Public schools generally do not understand
communication in English. If the teacher uses English as a medium of
instruction in the classroom while teaching L2 to the class, the students will not
be able to pick anything. Shaoib and Tayyab are also no exceptions.

Shoaib and Tayyab speak Punjabi at home and then they have to learn English
langauge which happens to be totally different in structure as compared to L1
structure. Both these students particularly and the whole class in general, find
this scenario very serious and demanding.

Thus, we can safely say that our students try to learn L2 through L1.
Sometimes, L1 helps the students in learning L2 but most of the times their L1
experience forces them to commit errors.

Both these students, Shoaib and Tayyab were taught grammar deductively in
the previous classes. They were made to learn the rules by heart and then
applying these rules, they were asked to give examples. Unfortunately, they
found this method unhelpful for them. Thus, deductive method for them did

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not work. I am now trying to teach them through inductive method, and I hope
it will work for them. These are the ways in which our students are learning
second language in Pakistan.

Similarities in acquisition of first language and learning of second language..

In the process of learning a second language, the learner can use his mother
tongue experience as a means of organizing the second language data. If the
system of the L1 resembles that of the L2, we speak of facilitation. In this case,
the L1 helps the learner in learning second language.

There are a number of words in Urdu (and Punjabi) which are actually taken
from English language like car, fridge, computer, machine, TV, remote control,
copy, pencil, rubber, marker, wiper, board, glass, VCR, CD, laptop, dish, plate,
packet, chocolate, cricket, hockey, volleyball, stand, bus, truck, mobile,
transformer, regulator etc. A Pakistani learner may find the translation of these
words in English an easy task because he is to simply write the spelling of these
words. Thus these words of L1 are helping the learner in learning L2 (English).

In Pakistan, our secondary class students, especially studying in the Public

sector, have less previous second language knowledge; therefore, they make
more use of their first language knowledge. There are many ways in which we
can use a "present tense" structure for the identification of a future
event...e.g.

"I am going to Lahore tomorrow."

In case of a "Pakistani" student whose mother tongue is Urdu will also

translate or produce the sentence in the same way. i.e.

"ma kal Lahore ja raha hoon".

Similarly, if a sentence in L1 (Urdu) is in "present perfect" and the time is also

"present", we can easily translate it into L2 (English) as "present perfect". e.g.

"ma Lahore say aaya hoon"

"I have come from Lahore"

"ma aaj hee Lahore say aaya hoon"

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"I have come from Lahore today"

But if the same sentence is accompanied by a "past time" in L1, it can be

written or spoken in "present perfect" in L1, but as far as L2 is concerned, it
should be in the "past indefinite". It is here that the L2 learner is liable to make
an error. Here, owing to the interference of L1, the L2 learner commits an
error. e.g.

"ma kal hee Lahore se aaya hoon"

The L2 learner translates the above sentence wrongly in the light of his
experience of L1.......

"I have come from Lahore yesterday"

The factors which are hindrance in the way of learning second language...

In my humble opinion, there are a number of factors which really hinder the
way of a L1(Urdu) learner while learning L2. These factors are discussed below
one by one:

The Social background

Both the students, Shoaib and Tayyab belong to rural areas. Their families are
middle class families. Their means of earning is agriculture. They hardly meet
both ends meet. The parents are illiterate. They do not pay attention to the
study of their sons. The parents’ lack of interest in their education had a bad
effect on them. They, somehow, had some zeal and therefore, came up to the
level of secondary class. If they were born in an educated family, their
educational career must have been good. Thus, the poor social background is a
hindrance in learning…. whether it is 1st or 2nd language learning.

L1 as a hindrance in learning L2

For a Pakistani leaner, L1(Urdu) acts as the main hindrance in learning L2

(English). Here, the errors are mainly due to the interference of the mother
tongue. Such errors are called Inter lingual errors. Sometimes, L1 interference
helps a learner learning L2 but most of the time L1 acts as a hindrance in the
way of leaning L2. Almost 60 percent of the total errors committed in learning

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L2 by a Pakistani leaner are the result of the first language interference.

1) Shoaib and Tayyab in particular and the Pakistani secondary class students
in general, try to translate the Urdu language word to word in the target
language and it leads them to commit errors. Consider this sentence in Urdu..

"wo Lahore jatay hain"

In urdu, we use plural verb for plural subject. When a Pakistani student
translates a sentence into English, he keeps the following rule of Urdu in his
mind and translates this sentence this way......

"They goes to Lahore"

They think that because the subject is plural, therefore an "es" is a must for
making the verb "go" plural. They do this because they are applying L1 rules in
learning and translating L2.

In the same way, a Pakistani learner might translate the sentence " wo doob
raha hai" in the following way....

"He is sinking".

This is also because of first language interference. However, if we try the Direct
Method in our English classroom, it might improve the situation.

2) There is no article in Urdu language. Shoaib and Tayyab tried this sentence
without any article…

“burrha aadmi aahista aahista chal raha tha”

Instead of translating it ….
"The old man was walking slowly".

They translated it like…

"Old man was walking slowly" (leaving out the article … owing to L1 interference)

3) The Urdu meaning of "stand" is "adda" in the expression "bus stand". I

was checking the English papers when I had the following sentence by a
student of mine….
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"The aeroplane was standing on the air stand"

4) The English language is very rich. The translation of the Urdu word
"dekhna" was generalized by Shoaib and Tayyab. They used the English word
“see” for all the expressions whether it was “ TV daikhna” or “ek aadmi ko
dekhna” or “ek aadmi ko ghurna” or “ khirrki say bahar jhankna”. They wrote

“to see TV” for “TV dekhna”

“to see a man” for “ek aadmi ko dekhna”

“To see a man” for “ek aadmi ko ghurna”

“To see out of a window” for “khirrki say bahar jhankna”

5) I observed the two of them learning the meanings of the individual words.
That’s why they made mistakes. I asked them to learn the meanings in phrases
so that they are mentally clear of the usage of that word. This will help them in
using the words in contexts.

6) Both Shoaib and Tayyab always searched for the equivalents while
translating Urdu language into English. For example, both of them translated
the sentence…

“Amjad kee Ayesha k saath shadi huee”

like….

“Amjad married with Ayesha” (They used the word “with” for “saath” as its equivalent)

And…

“India nay pakistan per hamla kiya”

“India attacked on/ over Pakistan”.................. without knowing that no

preposition is used in Enlgish after attack. Shoaib wote “on” and Tayyab wrote
“over” for “per” as its equivalent.

Thus , L1 causes unbelievable hindrances in the way of learning L2 language for

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Pakistani learners.

Deductive Method as a hindrance in L2 learning

As it has already been stated, I use inductive method in the class. Shoaib and
Tayyab were taught through deductive method but they failed to follow this
method. In fact, this rule puts much emphasis on memorization. The students
forget the rules and are, therefore, unable to give an examples. Thus,
deductive method can be seen as a hindrance in the way of L2 learners. AS a
substitute, inductive method can be used in order to get fruitful results.

More emphasis on correction and tenses rather than communication

We, the Pakistani teachers, put much emphasis on correction and tenses
rather than encouraging the students to communicate in English. Now-a-days,
attempts have been made by the government of Pakistan to spread awareness
among educational communities of the importance of communication method
of teaching. The students should be encouraged to express themselves and
talk in English. Their mistakes should be ignored considering them as “learning
opportunities” for the learners. They should be encouraged by the teachers to
communicate in English. This method of teaching, the Communicative Method,
is becoming popular now-a-days in Pakistan. Thus, emphasis on correction and
tenses can be seen as a hindrance in learning a foreign language.

Negative feedback from the teachers

If the teachers give positive feedback to their students, the students can be
made to work harder. The morale of the students gets higher if he is given
positive feedback from his teacher. Negative feedback from the teachers will
worsen the overall atmosphere of teaching learning process. The student will
never try to say anything which he considers wrong. This situation might create
dangerous results for the student. Therefore, negative feedback from the
teachers can be taken as a hindrance in way of learning L2.

Suggestions for improving the L2 learning process in Pakistan

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 1) The Communicative Method should be used more and more in the
English language classrooms.
2) The use of GT Method should be minimized in the English language
classrooms.
3) Interactive learning and the group work should be initialized in the
English language classrooms.
4) Inductive Methods should be given a chance. If we are able to use this
method efficiently in the English language classrooms, we will take much
benefit out of this method.
5) The use of audio-visual aids must be increased in order to make the
language learning process interesting for the students.
6) The government should establish the language laboratories in the Public
schools.
7) The teachers should try to encourage the students to speak English.
They must not point out the errors and mistakes of the students.
Positive feedback from the teacher may really motivate the students to
work even harder.

Conclusion

Concluding this brief report, this can be said that acquiring the first language
and learning a second language are the quite different things. A man learns the
first language mysteriously and perfectly through imitation. He does not have
to attend any classes in order to get mastery over L1. Learning L2 needs hard
work, planning and the use of latest methods. Learning of L2 has always been a
challenge for all the societies in general and the Pakistani society in particular.
In Pakistan, the interference of L1 is very much realized in learning L2 (English).
Both Urdu and English languages differ a lot in structure. The parts of speech
differ in both these languages. The English language is a very rich language in
comparison to Urdu language. The Urdu language is, in fact, a mixture of many
languages which mars the overall beauty this language. The discussion in this
report shows that we need to work really hard and we need to devise the
latest and approved methods of teaching English as a foreign language to
Pakistani students. The teachers should try to make the L2 (English) learning
process easy and simple for the Pakistani students. Fortunately, our
government (especially the Punjab government) is also making serious efforts
in order to improve the overall L2 learning process in Pakistan. May our dream
of improving the L2 learning process fulfills! AAmeen.

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 Bibliography

http://www.scribd.com

http://www.articlesbase.com/languages-articles/english-language-
teaching-in-pakistan

http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL

http://www.englishraven.com

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