SLA Process and Theories

SLA Process and Theories

1. ·

   • Stephen Krashen: Input Hypothesis
     • We acquire language through comprehensible input. This is when we are exposed to a language that we can understand by reading visuals, gestures, context cues, tone of voice, etc. We need to use this language in order to build a developing system or interlanguage in our brain.
       • I use comprehensible input to teach foreign language in my classroom. This theory is crucial to understand and teach language effectively. By knowing this theory, the instructor can prepare lessons that are comprehensible to the students. Also, the instructor can be aware of the importance of visuals and build a picture file where he-she can access when teaching the lessons. Finally, it is important that the instructor monitor his-her language by using simplified grammar and simple language that the students can understand and put in their developing system. Knowing this can help the instructor to be more efficient when teaching foreign language and it can help the students to be engaged and motivated to learn. When they feel they can understand another language and be successful the learning experience is more effective. This kind of lessons can help them to build a developing system of language that they can later use to produce.

2. Theories

   • Jim Cummins: BICS vs. CALP
     • BICS stands for Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills and CALP stands for Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. The fact that a second language speaker can perform communicative tasks does not necessary means that they can perform and be successful in an academic environment where the demand of reading and writing may be challenging to their language proficiency. Assuming that a child has a learning disability because they can perform academically in English is a mistake.
       • Teachers need to understand that language proficiency can be demonstrate through Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. Some students that have learned a language communicative have interpersonal communicative skills. However, they may not able to read or write at the same level. Being aware of this help us to design lessons and use tools that can help these students to improve their language proficiency in Reading and Writing. Using dictionary activities, graphic organizers, and charts can help the students to process the information better. Also, it can help them to build their English vocabulary. In my Spanish class, I have had Spanish speakers that grew up speaking Spanish at home but they never got to read it. As a result, their reading proficiency in Spanish is very low. I use Reading apps for them that help them to improve their skills.

3. Noam Chomsky: Universal Grammar

   • Universal Grammar stays that all human language rest on a building blocks of expressions. Every language can have its own unique features, but they all share the same basic things: verbs, nouns adjectives. These features may be alike but the way we utilize them in each language is different. Different languages are based on the fundamental interactions between verbs, nouns, adjectives, and the like.
     • Teachers help the students to build their knowledge of language in general, as well as the main features of language. Helping the students to build language proficiency and their linguistic knowledge helps them to succeed not only in Language Arts but also in other classes where they have to process texts and they have to express themselves through writing. In my foreign language class, I always start by talking about the applications of the grammar concepts and features that we are about to learn in English. The students compare and contrast the English language with the Spanish language they are learning. This most of the time makes them reflect and learn more about their own language and grammatical elements that they are usually not aware about it. By doing this, the students develop linguistic awareness and language competence. This can only be possible because the fundamentals of languages are the same.

4. Michael T. Ullman: Declarative/procedural model

   • Michael T. Ullman has used a declarative/procedural model to understand how language information is stored. This model is consistent with a distinction made in general cognitive science between the storage and retrieval of facts, on the one hand, and understanding of how to carry out operations, on the other. It states that declarative knowledge consists of arbitrary linguistic information, such as irregular verb forms, that are stored in the brain's declarative memory. In contrast, knowledge about the rules of a language, such as grammatical word order is procedural knowledge and is stored in procedural memory. Ullman reviews several psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies that support the declarative/procedural model
     • Teachers need to understand how languages are learned and how information is storaged because learners have a short memory capacity and they can only process and storage certain amount at a time. By knowing this we can prepare lessons that help the stduents retrieve the information sucessfully.

5. Merrill Swain: Output hypothesis

   • In the 1980s, Canadian SLA researcher Merrill Swain advanced the output hypothesis, that meaningful output is as necessary to language learning as meaningful input. However, most studies have shown little if any correlation between learning and quantity of output. Today, most scholars[citation needed] contend that small amounts of meaningful output are important to language learning, but primarily because the experience of producing language leads to more effective processing of input.
     • It is important for teachers in the classroom to provide activities that require the students to produce with the language they acquire in a meaningful and contextualized way The language learned need to be used in real worl like situations so the students can gain fluency and accuracy.

6. PROCESS: DYNAMIC BUT SLOW

   • It requires comprehensible Input in order to build a developing system
     • It requires output and production in order to gain fluency and accuracy

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