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

»Provoking

Tradition

Legislation

Policy

Characteristics• Language use – socialization – cultural

experiences

• Learning at home– School level– Role of their grand mother– Tv’s role

Qur’anic-Qur’an

Urdu (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