Second Language Acquisition

• If we want to understand where we are now, we need to consider where we have come from
• It is important to understand ideas at the time they originated and how the ideas that motivated a field of enquiry at one time evolved into and were sometimes replaced by ideas later on
• My own interest in SLA

  Began while I was a teacher in Africa in the late 1960s, with concern for what and how to teach English, and realizing there was a gap between teaching and learning
• M.A. in Linguistics and Language Teaching

  Introduced to Chomsky's transformational generative grammar and the idea that we all possess an innate faculty for language that determines how we learn our mother tongue, but little about L2 learning and teaching
• Newmark's (1966) article 'How not to interfere in language learning' floated the idea that it was neither necessary nor helpful for teachers to present and practise specific linguistic items as learners acquire an L2 in the same way as children acquire their L1 - by drawing on the innate faculty for language
• My journey with SLA

  Initially an applied one, studying how L2 learners learn with a view to extracting sound principles and practices for language teaching, then more one of intellectual curiosity and orienting to SLA for its own sake, completing empirical studies and writing survey books, and more recently a return to a more applied perspective
• SLA began as an applied discipline, but increasingly separate perspectives have emerged - 'applied SLA' addressing issues of social and pedagogical importance, and 'pure SLA' aiming to contribute to our understanding of the nature of the human language faculty
• Phases of SLA research

  • Making a start (1960s-70s)
  • Expansion period (1980s)
  • Coming of age (1990s)
  • Social turn (late 1990s-2000s)
  • Sociocultural SLA (pre-dated Firth & Wagner 1997)
• Second language acquisition

  The process by which a person learns a language, sometimes called acquisition instead of learning, because some linguists believe that the development of a first language in a child is a special process
• Acquisition

  The internalization of rules and formulas which are then used to communicate in L2, a spontaneous process of rule internalization that result from natural language use
• Learning

  The development of conscious L2 knowledge through formal study, such as language classroom learning
• Second language acquisition (SLA) is the process by which people develop proficiency in a second or foreign language
• SLA is a complex process, involving many interrelated factors pertaining to the learner and the learning situation
• Factors influencing second language acquisition

  • Motivation
  • Attitude
  • Age
  • Intelligence
  • Aptitude
  • Cognitive style
  • Personality
• Motivation


  A factor that determines a person's desire to learn a language
• Types of motivation


  • Integrative motivation (interest in the people and culture of the target language)
  • Instrumental motivation (functional and useful goals like getting a better job)
• Intrinsic motivation


  Motivation from within, for the activity itself
• Extrinsic motivation


  Motivation from external rewards like money or praise
• Attitude


  Sets of beliefs about factors like the target language culture, their own culture, teachers, and the learning task
• Types of attitudes


  • Attitudes towards the community and people who speak L2
  • Attitudes towards learning and language concerned
  • Attitudes towards languages and language learning in general
• Age


  One of the factors that influences second language learning, with younger learners better at language acquisition and older learners better at learning language rules and systems
• The critical period hypothesis proposes that there is a period during child development when language can be acquired more easily, until puberty
• Intelligence


  General ability to master academic skills, measured by IQ tests, which correlates with success in formal language learning but not necessarily informal language use
• Multiple intelligences


  Eight types of intelligence described by Gardner: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic
• Aptitude


  Specific ability a learner has for learning a second language, including abilities like identifying sound patterns, recognizing grammatical functions, and rote learning
• Language aptitude


  Natural ability to learn a language
• Language aptitude


  • Ability to identify sound patterns in a new language
  • Ability to recognize the different grammatical functions of words in sentences
• Language aptitude tests


  • Carroll and Sapon's Modern Language Aptitude Test (1959)
  • Pimsleur's Language Aptitude Battery (1966)
• Language aptitude


  • Stable factor that cannot be trained
  • Separate from motivation, achievement and intelligence
  • Allows to learn a second language faster and with less effort
• Factors in language aptitude

  • Phonemic coding ability
  • Grammatical sensitivity
  • Inductive language learning ability
  • Rote learning ability
• Language aptitude


  • General language processing capability
  • Ability to use language in a decontextualized way
• Cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP)


  Related to general intelligence
• Basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS)

  Related to aptitude
• A person with high language aptitude can learn more quickly and easily than that of low language aptitude
• Learning style


  The particular way in which a learner tries to learn something
• Learning modalities


  • Visual (seeing)
  • Auditory (listening)
  • Kinesthetic (moving)
  • Tactile (touching)
• Matching teaching methods to students' learning styles can make students more successful and interested in the language
• Left-brain dominance


  Intellectual, prefer established, certain information, rely on language in thinking and remembering
• Right-brain dominance


  Intuitive, process information in a holistic way, rely on drawing and manipulating to help them think and learn
• Existing research does not conclusively show that cognitive style is a major factor for success in language learning