Second Languange

Acquisition
KEY ISSUES
IN SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
1. What is SLA
2. Competence vs Performance
3. Acquisition vs Learning
4. The role of L1
5. The natural route of development
6. Contextual variation in language-learner
language
7. Individual learner differences
8. The role of theory in SLA research


SLA vs FLA
SLA is not intended to contrast with FLA
SLA is is used as a general term that
embraces both untutored (naturalistic) acq
and tutored (classroom) acq.
SLA is an open question whether the way
in which acq proceeds in these different
situations is the same or different.
What is SLA?

A number of key questions need to be
adressed so that the reader is clear what
positions researchers have taken up in
order to study how an L2 is learnt
L2 Acquisition vs L1 Acquisition
L2 acq. stands in contrast to L1 acq.
It is the study of how learners learn an
additional language after they have
acquired their mother tongue.
The study of lang learner language began
with the study of L1 acq and followed with
SLA both in its methodology and in many
of the issues.
The Centrality of Syntax and
Morphology
SLA refers to all aspects of language that the
lang. learner needs to master. However the
focus is grammatical subsystems: negatives,
interrogatives, grammatical morphemes (plural
s or definite/ indefinite articles.
A little about L2 Phonology and almost nothing
about the acq. of lexis.
Resent development is on how learners acquire
the ability to communicate and started to
examine how learners use their knowledge to
communicate their ideas and intention.
Competence Vs Performance
Competence consists of the mental
representation of linguistic rules which constitute
the speaker hearers internalized grammar.
Performance consists of the comprehension and
production of language
SLA research is about performance it looks at
actual utterances which are treated as evidence
for what is going on inside the learners head.
One of the major problems of SLA research has
been precisely to what extent competence can
be inferred from performance.
Acquisition vs Learning
Acquisition refers to picking up an L2 through exposure.
Learning refers to the conscious study of L2
However they may be used interchangeably.
SLA refers to the subconscious or conscious process by
which a language other than mother tongue is learned in
a natural or a tutored setting. It covers the development
of phonology, lexis, grammar and pragmatic knowledge,
but has been largely confined to morphosyntax.
The study of SLA is directed at accounting for the
learners competence, but in order to do so has set out
to investigate empirically how a learner performs when
he/she uses an L2
The Role of L1
Popular belief: SLA is strongly influenced by L1.
How does SLA research characterize the role of L1
1. There is never peaceful co-existence btw two
languages systems in the learner but rather constant
warfare supporting the belief.
2. L2 acq of syntactic structures in a natural structures in
a natural environment suggest that interference does
not constitute a major strategy in this area to
abandon interference as a natural and inevitable
phenomenon in L2 acq. rejecting the belief.

BEHAVIORIST LEARNING
THEORY: HABITS AND ERRORS
Habits they were observable and
automatic (performed spontaniously
without awareness and difficult to
eradicate unless environmental changes
led to the extinction o the stimuli upon
which they were built.
Habits were performed when a particular
stimulus became regularly linked with a
particular response

The points considered below are all central
to an understanding of how researchers
have set about examining SLA

SLA as a uniform phenomenon
SLA is the product of many factors pertaining to
the learner in one hand and the learning
situation on the other. It is important, therefore,
to start by recognizing the complexity the
complexity and diversity that results from the
interaction of these two sets of factors.
Different learners in different situations learn L2 in
different ways.
The study of SLA assumes interest only if it is
possible to identify aspects that are relatively
stable and generalizable.
Various theories about habit
formation
Behaviorism of Watson:
The stimulus was said to elicit response If the stimulus
occurred sufficiently frequently, the response became
practised and therefore automatic.
Neo-behaviorism of Skinner:
He emphasis the consequences of response.
He argued that it was the behavior that followed a
response which reinforced it and helped to strengthen
the association. The learning of habit, then is through
imitation and reinforcement.
Based on the theory L1 and L2 learning are both habit
formation (stimulus-response links) It also explained
why the L2 learner made errors.
ERRORS
Interference: The result of what was called
proactive inhibitionit concerned with the
way in which previous learning prevents or
inhibits the learning of new habits.
Error in L2 is because the learner transfer
the realization device from his L1 to L2
Transfer will be either positive or negative.
INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS
DIFFERENCES AND SLA
L2 learners vary on a number of dimensions:
Personality
Motivation
Learning style
Aptitude
age
PERSONAL FACTORS
Personal factors can be identified in two
ways:
Diary studies (Schumann and Schumann,
1977,1980)
Questionnaires and interviews with
individual learners (Pickett, 1978 and
Naiman, et al. 1978)
Personal Factors can be grouped
into:
Group Dynamic (Bailey, 1983)anxiety and
competitivenessthe result is a model of how a
learners self image in comparisons with other
L2 learners can either impair or enhance So
them in SLA.
Attitude to the teacher and Course Materials
preference for democratic teaching style; adult
learners dislike having a coursebook imposed to
them in a rigid way.
Individual learning techniques(1)preparing
memorizing vocabulary lists, (2)learning word in
context, (3)practicing vocabulary.
GENERAL FACTORS
Agethe learners age affects the rate or success of
SLA. Older learners reach higher level of proficiency;
teenagers learn more rapidly than either the older or the
younger; children are superior in learning pronunciation.
Intelligenceability to master and use a whole range of
academic skillsit is not a major determinant of L1 acq
as well as of SLA. However, it influences the acq of
some skills associated with SLA (oral fluency skills).
Aptitudeit can also influence the rate of development;
it is defined in terms of tests that have been used to
measure it.
THE EFFECTS OF AGE
Starting age does not affect the route of SLA
Starting age affects the rate of learning
grammar and vocabulary are learned better by
adolescent; pronunciation is better learned by
children.
Both number of years of exposure and starting
age affect the level of success. The number of
years exposure contributes to fluency and the
starting age determines the level of accuracy.
COGNITIVE EXPLANATION
Adolescent/adult comprehend language as a formal
systemconsciously learn and apply linguistic rules
when they use language; Younger children are not so
prone to respond to language as a formfor them it is
only a tool for expressing meaning.
The young children see only similarities, lacks flexible
thinking and is self-centredit is pre-requisites of
automatic language acq. They have not developed social
attitude towards he use one language. While the adults
cannot learn a L2 automatically and naturally, they are
likely to hold strong social attitudes towards the use of
his own language and the target language.

AFFECTIVE EXPLANATION
Children are more likely to achieve secondary
levels (the ability to handle complex grammatical
structures and different lang. styles) because
they are much more strongly motivated by the
need to be accepted by their peer groups.
The adult is happy to maintain a foreign
accentthe child who is exposed to the L1
culture is anxious to achieve native-like
pronunciation.