Explaining Second Language Learning  “How Languages are Learned”

Explaining Second Language Learning “How Languages are Learned”

1. The cognetivist/developmental perspective

   • Norman Segalowitz and others have suggested that learners have to pay attention at first to any aspect of the language that they are trying to understand or produce. The 'practice' needed for the development of automaticity is not limited to the production of language. They suggest that most learning, including language learning, starts with declarative knowledge then practice and result procedural knowledge.IIn SLA, the path from declarative to procedural knowledge is sometimes associated with the kind of learning that takes place in a classroom, where rule learning is followed by practice. • With enough practice, procedural knowledge surpasses the declarative knowledge, which, in time, may be forgotten. • For this reason, fluent speakers may not even realize that they once possessed the declarative knowledge that set the process in motion.

2. Connectionism

   • Connectionists argue that learners gradually build up their knowledge of language through exposure to the thousands of instances of linguistic features.
   • Competition model
     • The competition model is proposed as an explanation for both first and second language acquisition. • Through exposure to thousands of examples of language associated with particular meanings, learners come to understand how to use the 'cues' with which a language signals specific functions.
   • Second language applications: interacting, noticing & processing.A number of hypotheses, theories, and models for explaining SLA have been inspired by the cognitive/ developmental perspective.
     • The interaction hypothesis
       • Evelyn Hatch (1978), Michael Long (1983, 1996), Teresa Pica (1994) and Susan Gass (1997), among others, argue that conversational interaction is an essential, if not sufficient, condition for SLA. • These researchers have studied the ways in which speakers modify their speech and interaction patterns in order to help learners participate in a conversation or understand some information.
     • The noticing hypothesis
       • Richard Schmidt proposed the 'noticing hypothesis', suggesting that nothing is learned unless it has been noticed.Noticing does not itself result in acquisition, but it is the essential starting point.
     • Processability theory
       • Jurgen Meisel, Harald Clahsen, and Manfred Pienemann (1981) studied the acquisition of German by a group of adult migrant workers who had little or no second language instruction, and they concluded that the sequence of development for features of syntax and morphology was affected by how easy these were to process. Ease of processing was found to depend to a large extent on the position of those features in a sentence. Features that typically occurred at the beginning or end of a sentence were easier to process than those that were in the middle.
     • The sociocultural perspective
       • Vygotsky's theory assumes that cognitive development, including language development, arises as a result of social interactions. • Learning is thought to occur when an individual interacts with an interlocutor within his or her zone of proximal development (ZPD)
     • Second language applications: Learning by talking
       • Using the term 'collaborative dialogue', Swain and Lapkin (2002) carried out a series of studies. The aim of these studies was to determine how second language learners co-construct linguistic knowledge while engaging in production tasks (i.e. speaking and writing) that simultaneously draw their attention to form and meaning.Swain (2000) considers collaborative dialogues such as these as the context where language use and language learning can co-occur. It is language use mediating language learning. It is cognitive activity and it is social activity

3. Behaviourism

   • It explained learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit formation.
   • Second language applications:Mimicry and memorization
     • Powerful influence on second language teaching between 1940 and 1970.
       • Audiolingual
         • Nelson Broos and Robert Lad, They influenced in the development of AUDIOGLINGUAL teaching materials and teacher training. it was assumed that a person who learns a second language would begin with the habits formed in the first language and that these habits would interfere with the new ones that were needed for the second language
       • Contrastive Analysis Hipothesis
         • According to CAH with the first language and the target language are similar, learners should acquire target language structures with ease; where there are differences, learners should have difficulty.

4. The innatist perspective: Universal Grammar

   • Chomsky argued that innate knowledge of the principles of UG allows all children to acquire the language of their environment during a critical period of their development.
   • Second language applications: Krashen's 'monitor model'
     • One model of SLA that was influenced by Chomsky's theory of first language acquisition was Stephen Krashen's (1982) Monitor Model.Krashen described his model in terms of five hypotheses.
       • The acquisition-learning hypothesis
         • He contrasts these two terms: 'acquire' as we are exposed to samples of the second language we understand with no conscious attention to language form. • We 'learn' through conscious attention to form and rule learning.
       • The monitor hypothesis
         • The acquired system initiates a speaker's utterances and is responsible for spontaneous language use. The learned system acts as an editor or 'monitor', making minor changes and polishing what the acquired system has produced.
       • The affective filter hypothesis
         • The 'affective filter' is a metaphorical barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language even when appropriate input is available
       • The input hypothesis
         • Acquisition occurs when one is exposed to language that is comprehensible and that contains i + 1. The 'i' represents the level of language already acquired and the '+1' is a metaphor for language that is just a step beyond that level.
       • The natural order hypothesis
         • It was based on the finding that, as in first language acquisition, second language acquisition unfolds in predictable sequences.