Second Language Acquisition & ALx
Two sisters at School
Characters
•Nazma•Naseem•Mrs. Raja•Zakkia
Attitudes•Feelings – affective conditions
•Loneliness – trying to understand
•Nazma does not interact (Lge) Mrs. Raja
Education• What is Education?
–Share knowledge•Children learning •Parents support
»ProvokingTraditionLegislationPolicy
Characteristics• Language use – socialization – cultural
experiences• Learning at home
– School level– Role of their grand mother– Tv’s role
Qur’anic-Qur’anUrdu (official lge in Pakistan) Literacy practices
Language acquisition
We are designed to walk… That we are taught to walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language. In fact you can’t prevent the child from learning it.
Noam Chomsky, The Human
• Language is extremely complex• Children before 5 already know the complex
system that make up the grammar of a language:– Syntactic – Phonological– Morphological– Semantic and pragmatic rules of
grammar• Children acquire a system of rules that enables
them to construct and understand sentences, most of them have never produced or heard before.
• Children are creative in the use of language• Nobody teach grammatical rules to the children
Critical period hypothesis• Brown (2007) defines CPH as . . . “a biological timetable during which, both
first & second language is more successfully accomplished”.
• Ellis (1997) defines CPH as . . . a period during which “target-language competence in an L2 can only be achieved if learning commences before a certain age is reached. (e.g. the onset of puberty)”
Am I past it? • If established theory states that L2
language acquisition is not achievable beyond puberty, what’s the point in trying?
• If L2 is not achievable beyond puberty, how was I able to learn my second language at the age of 34?
• Does Ellis’ (1997) definition hold the key, that competence in L2 is what theorists are really arguing?
Conclusions• Age is a factor to consider in second
language acquisition.• Age should not be a deterrent to
learning a second language.• Grammar, and its mastery, is possible in
all languages and at all ages, but is more easily mastered during childhood.
• Accent is the most prominent determiner of age of L2 acquisition
Social pychological perspective on second language acquisition
An innatist model: Krashen’s input hypothesis
1. The Acquisition – Learning Hypothesis- Adult second language learners have two
means for internalizing the target language The first is “acquisition”, a subconscious and
intuitive process of constructing the system of a language, not unlike the process used by a child to “pick up’’ a language.
The second means is a conscious “learning” process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process.
- “Fluency in second language performance is due to what we have acquired, not what we have learned.”
- Our conscious learning processes and our subconscious acquisition processes are mutually exclusive: learning cannot “become” acquisition.
The Affective Filter Hypothesis
- The best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent, or in contexts where “affective filter” is low.
Two preceding theories
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
The cognitive model of Second
Language Acquisition
A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL: LONG’S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
Focus to a considerable extent of the learners
A social constructivist model: Long’s interaction hypothesis
A social constructivist model: Long’s interaction hypothesis
Theories and Models of SLA
INNATIST COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVIST
(Krashen) (McLauglin/Bialystok) (Long)
•Subconcious acquisition superior to “learning” & “mornitoring”
•Comprehensible input (i+1)
•Low affective filter
•Natural order of acquisition
•“zero option” for grammar instruction
•Controlled/ automatic processing (McL)
•Focal/pheripheral attention (McL)
•Restructuring (McL)
•Implicit vs. explicit (B)
•Unanalyzed vs. analyzed knowledge(B)
•Form-focused instruction
•Interaction hypothesis
•Intake through social interaction
•Output hypothesis (Swain)
•HIGs (Seliger)
•Authenticity
•Task-based instruction