THEORIES AND FOUNDATIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION M

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THEORIES AND FOUNDATIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITIONMÀSTER DE FORMACIÓ DE PROFESSORAT
DE SECUNDÀRIA BATXILLERATS I EOIs
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN MULTILINGUAL CATALONIA

• Helena Roquet Pugès
• Departament de Traducció i Ciències
  del Llenguatge
• Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Oct 2013
• Grup dAdquisició de Llengües des de la Catalunya
  Multilingüe (ALLENCAM)

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OUTLINE

• Foreign Language Acquisition paradigms (L2/L3)
• Structuralist Behaviorist period
• Contrastive analysis
• Chomskyan period
• Acquisition studies. Interlanguage.
• Environmentalist period
• Language and communication THE COMMUNICATIVE
  APPROACH

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LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS

• Structuralist/ Behaviorist period
• Contrastive analysis
• Chomskyan period
• Acquisition studies
• Environmentalist period
• Language and communication

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Structuralist/Behaviourist (1)

• Skinner. 1957. Verbal behaviour
• L learning is a process of habit formation, a
  stimulus-response-reaction mechanism
• Imitation, repetition, memorisation, practise and
  reinforcement
• Properties of L1 influence L2 learning
  Positive/negative transfer (interference). Errors
  are avoided!
• CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ERRORS

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Structuralist/Behaviourist (2)

• Positive contribution
• Attention to oral language (emphasis on spoken L
  and pronunication)
• Identification of factors present in LA
• Imitation
• Repetition
• Memory of strategies
• Explanation of some types of errors
• Transfer errors
• Language distance (affecting achievement)

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Structuralist/Behaviourist (3)

• Negative contribution
• Attention to form and not to meaning
• Learner is a passive recipient
• Learning proceeds by analogy
• Creativity is not allowed

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LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS

• Structuralist/ Behaviorist period
• Contrastive analysis
• Chomskyan period
• Acquisition studies. Interlanguage
• Environmentalist period
• Language and communication

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The Chomskyan period (1)

• N. Chomsky. 1957. Syntactic Structures. 1959
  Review of Verbal Behaviour
• Acquisition Rule-governed behaviour
• Learning by analysis and not by analogy
• Creativity in L Generate an infinite number of
  sentences from a finite number of rules

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The Chomskyan period (2)

• I goed.
• I eated it.
• She no can go.
• She doesnt wants to go.
• I saw these mans.
• She cans come.

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The Chomskyan period (5)

• Research strands
• 1. Stages of acquisition and INTERLANGUAGE
• 2. Variability (Sociolinguistic approaches)
• 3. Input studies
• 4. Linguistic universals (Aurora Bel)

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INTERLANGUAGE (1)

• Each of the stages the learner goes through on
  his/her way towards mastery of the target
  language. Each stage is a linguistic system in
  its own right, with specific features which
  characterize it, known as interlanguage.

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INTERLANGUAGE (2)

• It is different from the target language.
• It has its own internal structure.
• Errors are systematic.
• It is permeable to input.
• At each given moment a particular stage of
  acquisition is apparent.
• Each stage includes forms typical of a previous
  stage and forms anticipating the next one
  (Variability).

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Past morpheme interlanguage development

• John eat a banana yesterday.
• (ref. past no morf.)
• She went. She broke. She jump. She walked.
• (sporadic use)
• She goed. She eated. John breaked.
• (overegularitzation)
• She went. She walked
• (correct use)

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Legacy of the period

• Several models among which
• Krashen (1983. The Natural Approach) Monitor
  model.
• Based on 5 principles
• Comprehension precedes production
• Production emerges in stages (students are not
  forced to speak before they are ready)
• Communicative goals (classroom activities
  organised by topics, not by grammatical
  structures)
• The instructor must create a good atmosphere

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The Natural Approach (1983, Krashen)

• 5 hypothesis
• The Acquisition/Learning hypothesis
• The Monitor hypothesis
• The Natural Order hypothesis
• The Input hypothesis (emphasis on what the L
  learners here before they try to produce L)
• The Affective Filter hypothesis

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LA RESEARCH PARADIGMS

• Structuralist/ Behaviorist period
• Contrastive analysis
• Chomskyan period
• Acquisition studies. Interlanguage
• Environmentalist period
• Language and communication

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Environmentalist period (1)

• Language acquisition
• Complex interaction between the linguistic
  environment (input) and the learner's internal
  mechanisms, with neither viewed as primary.
  Verbal interaction is of crucial importance

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Sociolinguistics (2)

• Hymes (1971) Different levels of competence
  involved in language
• Structural
• Discourse
• Communicative
• Strategic
• ALL USED IN CONTEXT Situation where discourse
  arises

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Discourse Analysis (3)

• Austin (1975) Speech act theory
• How language is used to do things
• YOU CAN SAY ONE SAME MEANING WITH A VARIETY OF
  FORMS, AND ONE SAME FORM CAN HAVE A VARIETY OF
  MEANINGS

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• LANGUAGE IN USE IS COMMUNICATIVE
• Real communication is based on interaction. It
  gives information which the person engaged in
  conversation with the speaker does not have.
• Real communication is always with a purpose.
• Real communication contains an element of
  unpredictability of choices of words. Only in
  very restricted formulaic expressions language is
  predictable.

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The Communicative Approach

• Language is seen as a tool for communicating
• Real language practice in the classroom
• To develop communicative competence in real
  communicative context
• To develop communicative strategies through
  interaction
• Language is communicative as well as linguistic
  
• grammar pronunciation social
  rules
• Focus on functions, not on structures
• View that students acquire a language when
  focusing on meaning, not only in form

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The role of grammar in the CA

• COMMUNICATIVE TEACHING
• Focus on meaning
• Group work interaction
• Genuine questions
• Opportunities to use lang. creatively
• Opportunities to participate in task
  negotiations of topics

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ENVIRONMENTALISM

• Interaction
• Negotiation of meaning
• Noticing new forms in the input

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Instructional Implications?

• Use of authentic materials and tasks
• Communicative activities such as games and role
  plays
• Group and pair work
• Small number of students interacting
• Emphasis on functions and meaning, not forms
• Tolerate errors of form

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CONCLUSION

• Learning a second/foreign language it is not
  completely different from learning a first
  language, yet it is not entirely the same..