Theories of First and Second Language Acquisition

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Theories of First and Second Language Acquisition

• Education 45310

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Four General Profiles of Students

• Balanced bilingual
• Monolingual/literate in native language
• Monolingual/preliterate in native language
• Limited bilingual

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Balanced Bilingual

• Maria is a tenth grader who was born in
  Guatemala. She moved to Toronto in second grade.
  Before coming to Canada, she was a good student
  and learned to read and write in Spanish. When
  she began school in Canada, she was placed in a
  bilingual classroom where she received some
  native-language support before transitioning into
  English instruction.

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Balanced Bilingual

• Duplicating this experience is the goal of
  English second language teaching
• Individuals who are balanced bilingual are
  influenced by their environments and personal
  motivation
• Their language competencies are constantly
  evolving and interacting
• Their working vocabulary is twice as large as
  monolingual individuals even when they begin
  school. 1000 x 2

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Monolingual Literate in Native Language

• Rahul is a recent immigrant in grade seven. He
  has grade-level academic ability in his native
  language but speaks very little English. Because
  he has lived outside Canada for thirteen years,
  certain cultural knowledge presents difficulties
  for him. Rahul is quite shy and does not seek
  help readily. He has excellent social and
  academic language skills in his native language
  and has studied English for a few years, but his
  proficiency is limited.

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Monolingual Preliterate in Native Language

• Mais family came from Vietnam. They do not have
  a strong support system in Nova Scotia. Mai is a
  third-grader who mainly speaks Vietnamese. Mai is
  one of two ESL students in a rural school in
  Sheet Harbour. She is a nonreader in English and
  struggles with the simplest words. Her spoken
  English is quite limited when she interacts with
  students and teachers in class. The members of
  her family have not been able to provide literacy
  experiences for her at home in either language

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Limited Bilingual

• Björg from Iceland (Hafnarfjörður) Icelandic is
  his first language and Icelandic and English are
  the languages he wants to improve upon and learn.
• Halló My name is Björg .Im turning 18 this
  october. I realy wood like to talk to some one
  that is learnig icelandic or English so pleas
  contact me.
• http//www.mylanguageexchange.com/Learn/Icelandic.
  asp

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Limited Bilingual

• Luisa is a friendly 15-year old who sits quietly
  in class as if she understands everything. When
  written assignments are given, she writes down
  the assignment and begins work. Her writing,
  however, is illegible, and her spelling is
  extremely poor. Spanish is her first language,
  although her family speaks a mix of English and
  Spanish at home. Luisa can converse quite well in
  both languages, but for some reason has not made
  academic progress in either language.

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How Do We Teach Them?

• Research has shown that students acquire second
  language in stages in a similar fashion to how
  they acquired their first languages
• (Krashen and Terrell, 1983)

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The Natural Approach

• Stephen Krashens theory of five stages has
  influenced the entire field of ESL teaching
• Students have more receptive ability than
  expressive ability during early stages

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Stage 1 Preproduction

• Students are not ready to produce language
• Teachers communicate with gestures and actions
  (Total Physical Response Asher, 1982) while
  students develop vocabulary

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Stage 2 Early Production

• Students speak in one or two words, short
  phrases, and have a working vocabulary of 1000
  words they can answer who, what, where questions
• Teachers encourage students to build receptive
  vocabulary and to produce vocabulary they already
  understand

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Stage 3 Speech Emergence

• Students are ready for increased English language
  development
• Teachers teach curriculum content using native
  language support as necessary

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Stage 4 Intermediate Fluency

• Students have developed improved conversational
  skills and increased academic skills depending on
  their age and level of literacy in a native
  language
• Teachers still provide native language support in
  language arts because students ability to
  understand and complete academic tasks in English
  may lag behind

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Stage 5 Advanced Level

• Students continue to need to have their English
  skills refined to further develop their academic
  skills
• Teachers need to recognize gaps in academic
  ability and provide students with specific
  learning strategies
• Iverson

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Considerations for ESL Teaching

• The importance of academic background and school
  experience increases exponentially with the age
  of the student
• Most teachers have a theory of first language
  development that influences their teaching

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Theory 1 Behaviorist (B.F. Skinner)

• Language is learned through imitation and habit
  formation learning language is a process that
  involves input, imitation, and habit formation
  through repetition
• Children imitate the language they hear in the
  language environment and receive positive
  reinforcement

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Implications for ESL learning

• Second language learners learn to pronounce the
  sounds and words in English in the same way as
  they learned to utter the sounds of their first
  language through imitation
• They may have difficulty recognizing and
  producing some of the sounds in English and have
  an accent (th, v, w, l, r)
• PROBLEM embarrassed to speak

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Theory 2 Innatist(Noam Chomsky)

• Children learn language because it is in their
  nature to do so
• An innate predisposition for language learning
  enables children to discover the patterns or
  conventions of language based on the basis of the
  language in their environment

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Implications for ESL learning

• ESL learners listen to the English spoken around
  them and subconsciously seek patterns, test
  validity of the patterns by reproducing them in
  their own speech, and over an extended period,
  modify their patterns in response to feedback
• PROBLEM overgeneralization, interlanguage
  patterns, fossilization

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Theory 3 Interactionist(Lev Vygotsky, Krashen)

• Childrens language development results from the
  interaction between the learner and language
  environment, assisted by innate cognitive
  processes
• Adults tend to address young children using
  modified input strong contextual support with
  communication as the purpose, scaffolding, zone
  of proximal development (Vygotsky)

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Implications for ESL teaching

• ESL learners need interaction with proficient
  speakers of English they need modified or
  comprehensible input to make sense of the
  language (Krashen)
• Learners need background knowledge in the subject
  area to relate to the context and the language
  level of the lesson must not be too far above the
  learners current level
• Learners then need to be given opportunities to
  produce meaningful output and receive feedback.

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Theories of Second Language Acquisition

• Stephen Krashens 5 main hypotheses
• Jim Cummins contribution an expert in second
  language acquisition among school-aged students

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Krashen 1 The Acquisition Learning Hypothesis

• There is a distinction between second language
  acquired through natural communication and second
  language learned formally
• Implicit idea students learn best through
  modeling and practice, not overt correction by
  the teacher

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Krashen 2 Natural Order Hypothesis

• Individuals learn a second language in a
  predictable order

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Krashen 3 Monitor Hypothesis

• Individual learners internalize the rules of the
  second language and use these to monitor their
  own errors before and after language production.

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Krashen 5 Input Hypothesis

• Language learners progress from one developmental
  stage to the next, so teachers need to
  know/assess the level of students functioning
  and respond accordingly with a greater or lesser
  degree of curriculum support

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Krashen 5 Affective Filter

• A positive affective (stress free) learning
  environment will enhance language learning

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Jim Cummins Contribution (1986)

• The linguistic interdependence model
  cognitive-academic skills learned in the native
  language will transfer to the new language
  (English) and that such skills are interdependent
  across languages

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Communicative Demands

• Communicative tasks English listening, speaking,
  reading and writing may be easier or more
  difficult for ESL learners depending on the task
  itself

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Cummins Conclusions

• Students with limited English skills often
  achieve communicative competence more rapidly
  than academic competence
• Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)
  are achieved within two years of immersion in an
  English language environment
• Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) at
  age appropriate levels requires at least five
  years

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Bilingual Education

• Bilingual education can accelerate language
  acquisition and enhance academic achievement
  because it is
• The foundation for second language learning
• An important tool for learning
• An important component of personal and cultural
  identity