Second Language Acquisition and Learning

Second Language Acquisition and Learning

1. ENGLISH EDUCATION IN EUROPE

   • Before 19th Century French and German were taught in schools as foreign languages.
     • In 1920s German schools started to teach English.
       • After second world war more and more schools taught English.
   • The Bologna Process by European Union in 1999
     • Three-cycle higher Education System ( Bachelor, Master and Doctorate)
     • Mutual recognition of qualifications.
     • System of quality assurance
   • Socio-cultural
     • Law Moyano (1857) "foreigners became civil servants"
     • English was a "luxury and ornamental", and some private schools taught it. English teachers got paid less.
   • Bibliographical
     • Textbooks included social customs, traditions, history, grammar and vocab. Authentic material were used.
   • Methodological
     • Grammar -translation
       • Translation was the key. No oral communication.
     • Direct method
       • All oral communication. Accuracy.
   • SPAIN (Nowadays)
     • Language Assistants
     • Policies that foster Language Learning
     • CLIL

2. Theories and methods

   • Grammar-translation (Pre-20th century)
     • Teacher-centered/ Grammar the most important.
     • Ss begin to read at early age./Ss will never communicate in L2.
     • Written language over oral language./ Heavily practiced translation.
   • Behaviorist (1940s+1950s) by Skinner and Bloomfield
     • Stimulus- Response- Reaction is circular.
     • Each person can learn the same in the same conditions.
     • All language learning is the establishments of habits (reinforcement/reward).
     • Imitation, practice, reinforcement and habituation.
   • Universal grammar and The Mon itor Model (1960s-1970s)
     • All people were born with the predisposition to language.
     • Monitor Model by Krashen
       • Natural order hypotheses: There is a natural order the things we acquired.
       • Affective filter: Barrier that affects learning. Factors: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety.
       • Monitor: System of self-correctness. Time, knowledge about the rule and focus on form.
       • Acquisition: is passive, unconscious, incidental, implicit. It requires focus. Learning: is active, explicit, conscious and intentional.
       • Input: so that learning takes place input has to be slightly aboove i+1.
     • At the age of 5, children are fluent in L1.LAD ia innate that consists of hypothesis marker, linguistic universal and evaluation procedure.
   • BICS AND CALP by Cummins (1980s)
     • Basic Interpersonal Communicative skills BICS
       • 10% of the overall proficiency of an academically competent learner.
       • L1 and L2 are interdependent , and L1 is the foundation of the other one.
       • English for everyday life.
     • Cognitive academic language proficiency CALP
       • More cognitively demamding. Academic English.
       • Essential to succeed in school. Higher-order thinking skills. Compare, classify, synthesize, evaluate and infer.
   • Social Interactionism (1990s-present) Vygotsky
     • Interaction to generate communication. Through social interaction learning is fostered.
     • Mediation tools: negotiation, critical thinking and collaborative work.
     • ZPD: Zone of proximal development. Space between what the Ss already know without help and what they can reach.
     • Scaffolding: method to give Ss assistance and foster autonomy. Phases: lowest level, the mid-range level and highest level.

3. Methodologies

   • Traditional-Grammar
     • Master grammatical structures without context. Cannot be engaged in social interactions.
   • Structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield
     • Importance the language as a system. Drill and practice methods. (Boring and tedious). Focus on form.
     • Morphemes, words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
   • Natural Approach by Krashen and Tracy Terrell (1980´s)
     • Low anxiety with the environment. Practice using the language.
     • Provide comprehensible input. Target language is spoken by teacher and students.
     • Engage SS with topics of personal interest. Homework: formal grammar work.
     • Feedback . Pre-production: listening. Early production: Use the language focus on meaning. Extending production: open-eneded dialogues, to promote fluency and communicative competences.
   • Communicate Approach
     • negotiation, interaction, trying to say things differently
     • Real practical communication.
     • Using authentic material. According to Xia, 2014: teacher is a diagnostician, provider, manager and organizer.
     • There is nor agreed classification about the functions of the language. No clear what language functions to teach.
   • Audiolingual Approach- Army method
     • To speak L2 to communicate with native speakers. To be orally proficient.
     • Mimicking, memorization, accuracy in production tapes, language labs
     • Mechanical drill- complete control over ss´ response. / Meaningful drill: still control over ss´response. /Communicative drill: Ss have the control (open questions)
   • Direct Method
     • be submerged in the L2. Oral methodology (pronunciation). Grammar inductively. Accuracy causes anxiety. Vocab presented in communicative contexts.

4. INTERLANGUAGE

   • Fossilization: It doesn´t affect L1. Mistakes that become permanent.
   • Strategies used by students to improve interlanguage.
     • Language transfer: From L1 to L2. (cognates and false friends).
     • Transfer of training: Apply something learned, but in a wrong way.
     • SLlearning strategies: cognitive, metacognitive, memory, compensation, social and affective.
     • Strategies second language communication: generalization, approximation, circumlocution and paraphrase
     • Overgeneralization of target language -linguistic material.
   • A unique and individual version of the L2 that is in constant process of evolution because learners always learn new things.
   • Ways teachers help to improve interlangauge:
     • Teach reasons about the rules. Use authentic materials.
     • Peer correction- self correction.
     • Scaffolding/ Exploit a lot of activities.
     • Explain the usefulness of what they learn. Move to the different modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretative and presentational.
     • Goal to make improvements in the language, not in an exam. Explain and practice enough.

5. Error Analysis

   • Reading
     • Level 1: Graphical-phonological./Lexical (grammar) / Syntactic (word-order).
     • Level 2: Arrangement (word-order). Selection: word-choice. Omission. Over-incllusion: something extra.
     • Level 3: language transfer. Transfer of training. Strategies learning and communication and overgeneralization.
     • Types of error
       • vocabulary, identifying implicit and explicit info, explaining a fact, transcoding info to a diagram, understanding grammatical or semantic reference.
   • Writing
     • Causes
       • Intralingual : Lack of knowledge.
       • Interlingual: It is tranferred from L1.
     • Types of errors
       • spelling, articles, grammar, word missing, word choice, literal translation, redundancy, collocations, sentence structure, capitalization and puctuation.
   • Speaking
     • Causes
       • Intralingual
       • Interlingual
     • Types
       • Overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, lack of vocab, pronunciation, phonological sounds.
     • Strategies
       • Message abandonment, approximation, circumlocution, literal translation, appeal for assistance, language switch.
   • Listening
     • causes
       • Ss do not differentiate between hearing and listening.
       • Lack of knowledge in L2 language rules.
     • Types of errors
       • no habit of watching or listening, translating in the head, consulting the dictionaries too often, lack of listening strategies, converting listening info in the written form.
   • Error is due to lack of knowledge and mistake involves other factors like anxiety.
   • Errors and mistakes have to be corrected. Corrective feedback leads to learning.
   • Error-correction drills
     • Exemplification: wrong input intentionally
     • Drill: classroom technique that includes repetition and substitution.
     • Mechanical practice: decision-making.

6. Multilingual Context

   • Multilinguism: several languages that coi¿exist in a given society. Plurilingualism: A person who speaks different languages in different situations.
   • CLIL: Content and language integrated learning improves language skills. Develop multilingual interests and attitudes. Promote Language learning through a subject matter.
     • Content. thematic. Cognition: HOTS. Culture: international understanding, intercultural awareness. Commuication Language Skills.
     • AAA for lesson planning: Analyze: language of learning. Add: language for learning. Apply: language through learning.
     • Full immersion in the target language. A balance between content and langauge. Authentic material. Learn by doing. Lack of linguistic competences, lack of materials Ss can get demotivated.