L1 - L2 - FL

L1 - L2 - FL

1. First language

   • Similitudes
     • Developmental Sequences
       • Silent period
         • L2 Learners opt for a silent period when immediate production is not required from them.
         • L1 Children acquire their first language through a period of listening to the language they are exposed to. During this period the child tries to discover what language is.
       • Structural and semantic simplifications
         • L1-L2 Functors (e.g. articles, auxiliary verbs) and semantic simplifications take the form of omitting content words. The second reason is that they are unable to access linguistic forms during production.
       • Formulaic speech
         • L1-L2 Expressions which are learnt as unanalysable wholes and employed on particular occasions. these expressions can have the form of routines, patterns, Greetings.
     • Acquisition Order
       • L1-L2 There is a common - invariant - sequence of acquisition for at least 14 function words in English as a first language - noun and verb inflections, prepositions, and articles etc.
       • Studies which have proposed that the acquisition of question words (what, where, who, why, when, and how), show a great similarity in first and second language acquisition.
       • We acquire the rules of language in a predictable order.
       • This acquisition order is not determined by simplicity or the order of rules taught in the class.
     • Linguistic Universals and Markedness
       • Typological universals: linguistic comparisons on a wide range of languages drawn from different language families to discover which features they have in common (e.g. all languages have nouns, verbs etc.).
       • The generative school represented by Chomsky: The aim is to study individual languages in great depth in order to identify the principles of grammar which underlie and govern specific rules.
     • Input
       • A direct relationship between input and output. In order to obtain favorable habits the language learner must be given feedback, which constitutes the input.
       • The learner needs to receive comprehensible input to acquire language.
     • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Vygotsky.
       • Assistant performance and collaboration are crucial for learning and development.
       • The teacher’s most important classroom work “is to provide for the social interaction within the community of learners such that the learners may move from what they know to what they don’t yet know (Hawkins, 2001, p. 375)
       • “What one can do today with assistance is indicative of what one will be able to do independently in the future” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007, p. 210).

2. Foreign language

   • The selection of a target foreign language is thus largely a personal choice of the learner, except in cases where children and adults are compelled to learn foreign languages for academic or professional reasons.
   • Diversity: foreign language learners can belong to different age groups and can have different learner objectives and capacities; they may have as teachers, native or non-native speakers of their target language; they may learn in learning environments that are favorable or unfavorable to language acquisition, etc.
   • First language learners in their vast majority are toddlers and small children.
   • The most representative groups of learners for second languages are young children and adolescents.
   • Foreign language learners on the other hand are generally adults.

3. Second language

   • Diferences
     • The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis
       • The Acquisition is the way children 'get' their first language, subconsciously, through informal, implicit learning.
       • Learning Hypothesis This is knowing about language, explicit, formal linguistic knowledge of the language.
     • Critical period hypothesis
       • It holds that there is "a biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired more easily and beyond which time language is increasingly difficult to acquire” (Brown 1994, p. 52)
       • Critical period in second language acquisition neurological, psychomotor, and cognitive arguments were examined (Brown, 1994). These have mostly tried to explain why adult language learners are not able to reach full competence and native like pronunciation in the second language.
     • Affective Considerations
       • The affective domain includes many factors such as inhibition, attitudes, anxiety, and motivation.
       • Attitude Formed by the cognitive development of a person, that can make second language acquisition difficult for an adult.
       • Young children are not cognitively enough developed to possess attitudes towards races, cultures, ethnic groups, and languages.
     • Fossilization. Learners' brains loose plasticity at a critical age, therefore, certain linguistic features cannot be mastered.
     • Social Factors
       • Natural Contexts. First language acquisition takes place only in a natural context and in the social group the child is growing up and where the child gets L1 input only.
         • Bibliography: Comparing and Contrasting First and Second Language Acquisition: Implications for Language Teachers. Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages. - First, second and foreign language learning: how distinctive are they from one another? University of Sri Jayawardenapura, Sri Lanka.
           • Daniel Torres Group # 1
       • Educational contexts the second language is taught to learners in a separate context from the native speakers of the target language.