SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
AFFECTIVE FACTORS IN SLA
Does/is the learner;
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Know at least one language?
Cognitively mature?
Have a well developed metaling. awaremess?
Have an extensive knowledge of the world?
Anxious about making mistakes
Exposed to an environment s/he has to speak or not?
Have time to practice?
Receive corrective feedback in terms of grammar?
Receive corrective feedback in terms of meaning?
Have access to modified input?
LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS AND LEARNING CONDITIONS
+ usually
-- usually absent
? sometimes
EXPLAINING SLA: BEHAVIOURISM
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AUDIOLINGUAL method
Classroom activities that emphasize mimicry and
memorization
Repeated practice of sentence patterns and dialogues
The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
EXPLAINING SLA: BEHAVIOURISM
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The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
comparison of linguistic structures in the learning task between the native
language and the target language.
since learning is habit formation, similar patterns will be learned more easily.
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Reaction: InterLanguage Approach – comes from the innatist perspective
INNATISM
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A UG approach to SLA
The Hypothesis: UG principles are available to SLL after critical period, but may be
altered by the acquisition of the first language
The Problematic Aspect: Experiments on CPH
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The Interlanguage approach (Corder (1967), Selinker(1972))
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Learners were viewed as active and rational agents who engaged in the discovery of
underlying L2 rules.
Error analysis
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Krashen’s monitor model
INNATISM
KRASHEN’S MONITOR MODEL
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Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis:
Monitor Hypothesis: Learned system is an editor for the acquired system
Natural order hypothesis: Unfolding in certain sequences
The Input Hypothesis: the famous i+1, whatever it is !
Affective filter hypothesis: may be the best part of the whole theory!!
Some criticism:
can be tested empirically?
how do we differentiate between acquired or learned?
APPLICATION OF KRASHEN
The Communicative Approach
No apparent instruction of grammar forms
Content based curriculum design/skill based rather than grammar based ordering
of topics
Exposure to comprehensible input
(a) the core ingredient of additional language learning is meaningful, comprehensible
input;
(b) the processes of additional language acquisition are implicit and subconscious and
any explicit and conscious processes that may be summoned in the classroom can only
help careful monitored performance but will have little effects on true language
knowledge or on spontaneous performance
(c) the main obstacles to additional language learning for adults stem
from affective inhibitions.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE APPROACH
Information Processing
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building up of knowledge that can eventually be called on automatically for speaking and understanding.
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learners have to pay attention at first to any aspect of the language that they are trying to understand or
produce.
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learners at the earliest stages will use most of their resources to understand the main words in a message.
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Through experience and practice, information that was new becomes easier to process, and learners become able
to access it quickly and even automatically.
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This frees them to pay attention to other aspects of the language that, in turn, gradually become automatic.
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'practice' needed for the development of automaticity is not limited to the production of language.
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Exposure to, and comprehension of, a language feature may also be counted as practice. In information
processing, practice involves cognitive effort on the part of the learner, but it need not necessarily be available
for the learner’s introspection. It can occur below the level of awareness.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE APPROACH: Connectionism
(also emergentist)
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No innate ability
the emphasis is on the frequency with which learners encounter specific linguistic features in the input
and the frequency with which features occur together.
(Neural) Networks between situational and linguistic contexts = connectionism
presence of one situational or linguistic element will activate the other(s) in the learner's mind
The more learners hear a linguistic structure, the stronger the connections between the linguistic items
between those structures
learners might get subject verb agreement correct, not because they know a rule but because they have
heard examples such as 'I say' and 'he says' so often that each subject pronoun activates the correct verb
form.
Transfer appropriate processing
Empiricist, associationist, generalist view.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE APPROACH (also emergentist)
A neural network consists of large number of units
joined together in a pattern of connections. Units in a
net are usually segregated into three classes: input
units, which receive information to be processed,
output units where the results of the processing are
found, and units in between called hidden units. If a
neural net were to model the whole human nervous
system, the input units would be analogous to the
sensory neurons, the output units to the motor
neurons, and the hidden units to all other neurons.
Each input unit has an activation value that
represents some feature external to the net.
An input unit sends its activation value to
each of the hidden units to which it is
connected. Each of these hidden units
calculates
its
own
activation
value
depending on the activation values it
receives from the input units. This signal is
then passed on to output units or to another
layer of hidden units. Those hidden units
compute their activation values in the same
way, and send them along to their
neighbors.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE APPROACH: SLA APPLICATIONS
“structures that are easier to process, that take up less amount of mental effort, are
acquired first by the learners”
Which Cognitive Abilities require what kind of mental effort?
1. Paying attention to and noticing structures: requires a good deal of mental effort,
so learners can’t pay attention to every single detail at first. Only pay
attention to main words, do not realize the morphological markers.
2. Automatization: Noticed structures get easier to process. Does not require a
lot of mental effort to process them.
3. As information and strucutures are automatizes, mental focus can be given to meaning
and text processing.
4. Transfer appropriate processing
COGS PERSPECTIVE: SLA APPLICATIONS
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Interaction hypothesis
Modified conversational interaction
1. interactional modification makes input comprehensible
2. comprehensible input promotes acquisition
3. interactional modification promotes acquisition
Types of interactional modification
elaboration
slower speech rate
gestures
comprehension checks
clarification requests
self-repetition/paraphrase
COGS PERSPECTIVE: SLA APPLICATIONS
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Noticing Hypothesis
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nothing is learned unless it has been noticed. Noticing does not itself result in acquisition, but it is
the essential starring point.
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The extent to which learners' awareness of language affects their second language development??
Consciousness??
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Processability Hypothesis
“structures that are easier to process, that take up less amount of mental effort,
are acquired easier by the learners”
THE SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH
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Lev Vygotsky
Language development as a result of social interactions
Conversations motivate thinking, which makes learners to gain control over
their mental abilities.
It is through interaction that higher order thinking emerges, the place where
this is most likely to be facilitated is the zone of proximal development; ZPD.
ZPD: the distance between the actual developmental level [of the learner] as determined
by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined
through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable
peers
More capable peers (and teachers) aid or ‘scaffold’ learners in the ZPD, thus contributing
a socially oriented rationale for interactive and collaborative pair and group work
(Lantolf 2000).
Task-based cirriculum: learning by doing, semantic and procedural syllabi