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MODULE TWO

ACQUISITION OF THE FIRST AND THE SECOND

LANGUAGE

LESSON 1
Contents
 Learning a first language
 Stages of children’s language functions
 Second language
 Foreign language
 Language acquisition language learning
 Adults and children when learning a second language.

Aims

 Read “Learning a first language” and “ Stages of children’s language functions” and identify the
important details.
 Compare second and foreign language
 Create the difference between language acquisition language learning
 Differentiate between adults and children when learning a second language

INTRODUCTION
In this second chapter we are going to deal about how a first language is acquired and how a second
or foreign language is achieved . Before each part there is a task to solve, so it will be easier for you
to grasp what is being explained.

Task one: Read the text “Learning a first language”and do a synoptic chart.

I. Learning a first language (Brewster , J., Ellis, G. and Girard, D. ,2003).

Recent studies have shown that babies may become familiar with aspects of their future L1 (first
language) while they are still in the womb! After birth, learning a language starts with a baby
producing its first noises and cries. Babies are even able to mirror their parents’ use of intonation
and stress, for example, by waggling their hands in time to the parents´ use of stressed syllables,
or cooing with similar intonation patterns to those they have just heard. There are a number of
stages through which children pass in the process of acquiring their first language. In the stages
below you can find out more about the aspects of the language system they acquire and some of
the processes involved.
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1. Babbling: From birth to around eight months babies can hear and produce a wide range of
noises and sounds. Some of the sounds will later be phased out as not present in the child´s L1.

2. The first ‘word’: At about eleven months infants put names (in their own fashion) to the
objects and people around them. During the second year, the earlier random vocalizations
begin to take on the aspect of genuine communication. Certain sound combinations, such
asmama and dada, tend to be rewarded very positively, even though initially they are
produced purely by chance. Through constant exposure to words and by imitating examples
heard, the infant learns to associate certain objects with certain sounds.

3. Two words: Between eighteen months and two years, they enter a genuinely syntactic phase
of acquisition by placing two words together (e. g. there, look, want, more, all, gone) to create
a new meaning e.g. look Daddy, Mummy gone, there doggy.

4. Phonological, syntactic and lexical norms: The third and fourth years are periods of great
creativity, when the essential language elements are put in place. The successive grammatical
systems which children construct begin to resemble closely the norms of the adults who
surround them. Children will have learned all the vowel and consonant sounds of their L1 by
school age but some children may have a few problems with individual sounds or consonant
clusters. English native speaker children are most likely to have problem with the consonant
clusters in thrill, shrill, school, ship or church. Problems with individual sounds are likely to
occur with /r/ /s/ or /z/. By the age of five many children will draw on a vocabulary of several
thousand words.

5. Syntactic and lexical complexity and richness: Between six and twelve, children continue to
expand their reading vocabulary and to improve their understanding of words. For example,
English-speaking children under eight still respond to ‘Tell me your name’ and ‘Ask me my
name’ in the same way. School-age children who are helped to see the relationship between
words and who notice common word structures develop larger vocabularies than those
without such training. With regard to grammar, six- to seven-year-olds tend to confuse by
certain irrelevant information, complexconstructions and the implied meaning of certain
words. Chomsky (1969) presented five-year-olds with a blindfolded doll and asked if the doll
was ‘easy to see’ or ‘hard to see’. Most of the younger children were misled by the blindfold
and responded with ‘hard to see’. By nine and ten none of the children were confused by the
blindfold. A complex construction like ‘John asked Bill what to do’ may not be understood until
a child is ten of eleven. As children become older they are able to give more abstract and less
self-oriented definition of words. Six- to twelve-year-olds like learning chants, poems, song
lyrics and love tongue twisters or jokes. Groups of children often make up secret languages or
codes.

6. Conversational skills: In interactional tasks, young children may not know that they do not
understand that directions they are given are incomplete and unclear. They may simply
continue without showing incomprehension or asking questions. Older children are more likely
to realize that something is unclear and may try to identify the problem and suggest an
alternative. As children get older they are more able to take another person´s perspective and
are better by using persuasive arguments to get what they want.
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Task two: Read the next text and do a process chart.

Stages of children’s language functions (Brewster , J., Ellis, G. and Girard, D. ,2003).
In terms of language functions, or what children want to do with language, Wells (1986) found
that young children generally pass through five stages before they reach school age. (Although he
found that all children passed through these stages, they did this at different ages.) These stages
are as follows.

1) First utterances are used to get attention, direct someone’s attention to an object or event, get
something they want, make requests and simple statements e.g. Doggy gone. With such
limited resources much meaning is conveyed by intonation.
2) Children begin naming and classifying things, asking questions, using Where? Or Wassat
(what`s that?). They also begin to talk about locations changing e.g. using down or up,
adjectives e.g. hot, cold, big, small and using possessives e.g. Mummy’s bag.
3) Children then ask many different kinds of questions, often using intonation with statements
e.g. doggy gone, Mummy? They express more complex desires using I want, refer regularly to
events in the past and can talk about on-going actions using still or the present continuous e.g.
Daddy doing it, Mummy still in bed.
4) Children use increasingly complex structures to make a wider range or requests, explain things
or ask for explanations, using why? They have mastered the used of the auxiliary verb do to
ask questions, followed by can and will.
5) Children can use the language they need to give information, ask and answer questions of
various kinds, make direct and indirect requests, make suggestions and offers, state intentions
and ask about those or others, express feelings and attitudes and ask about those of others.
They can talk about cause and effect e.g. if you do that then it will… and are aware if things
that are habits repetitive or just beginning.

This list provides useful insights about children’s need and concerns as well as their growing
conceptual development. It is interesting to speculate how far these findings have influenced the
design of ELT syllabuses for young children.

Task three: Read the next text and answer these questions.
 What is the second language?
 What is a foreign language?
 Are there any differences between a second and a foreign language?
 What is the difference between language acquisition and language learning?
 What is the difference between adults and children when learning a second language?

II. Learning the secondand/or a foreign language

Different questions arise when we think of how we acquire a second or a foreign language, for
instance: How is a second language acquired? Does our first language interfere with the learning
of the second or foreign language?Etc.
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A second language or L2 is any language learned after one's first language. Some languages, often

called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua franca.The defining
difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is the age the person learned
the language. In most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension
in their second languages as in their first language. The speed for acquiring a second language can
be a lifelong learning process for many. Despite persistent efforts, most learners of a second
language will never become fully native-like in it, although with practice considerable fluency can
be achieved. Being successful in learning a second can seem like a daunting task. A good language
learner uses positive learning strategies, is an active learner who is constantly searching for
meaning. Also good language learner demonstrates a willingness to practice and use the language
in real communication. He also monitors himself and his learning, has a strong drive to
communicate, and has a good ear and good listening skills.(Wikipedia, 2013a)

A foreign language is a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to, i.e.
an English speaker living in Japan can say that Japanese is a foreign language to him or her.
(Wikipedia, 2013b)

There are not any major differences between foreign language and second language. The second
language refers to a language that plays a major role in a particular country or region though it
may not be the first language of many people who use it. For example, the learning of English by
immigrants in the US or the learning of Catalan by speakers of Spanish in Catalonia isa case of
second (not foreign) language learning, because those languages are necessary for survival in
those societies. A "foreign language" is a language which is not the native language of large
numbers of people in a particular country of region, is not used as a medium of instruction in
schools and is not widely used as a medium of communication in government, media etc. They
note that foreign languages are typically taught as school subjects for the purpose of
communicating with foreigners or for reading printed materials in the language

So, the distinction between 'second language' and 'foreign language' is a geographical and
environmental distinction. We can mention 'second language situation' and 'foreign language
situation' as two situations of learning, not two kinds of languages. The two situations (learning
second language and learning foreign language) can be considered as a continuum. At one
extreme, we may find learners learning without external help and direction purely from exposure
to the non-native language through living in the target language environment (second language
learning) and at the other we find learners learning the non-native language exclusively in
language teaching setting and classrooms (foreign language learning).

The purposes of second language learning are often different from foreign language learning.
Second language is needed for full participation in the political and economic life of the nation,
because it is frequently the official language or one of two or more recognized languages. It may
be the language needed for education. Among the purposes of foreign language learning are
traveling abroad, communication with native speakers, reading foreign literature or scientific and
technical works. (Wikipedia, 2013b)

There is often a distinction between acquisition and learning in linguistic and pedagogic
literature. Children are described as 'acquiring' their native language, where there is no previous
information and knowledge in their mind. On the other hand, adults are said to 'learn' a non-
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native language. Acquisition is viewed as a natural, unconscious, untaught and probably

unteachable process, while learning is somewhat artificial, usually conscious and possibly
dependent on instruction and study.(Wikipedia, 2013b)

Adults who learn a second language differ from children  learning their first language in a
number of ways. One of the most striking of these is that very few adult second-language learners
reach the same competence as native speakers of that language. Children learning a second
language are more likely to achieve native-like fluency than adults, but in general it is very rare for
someone speaking a second language to pass completely for a native speaker.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Brewster , J., Ellis, G. and Girard, D. (2003). The primary English teacher’s guide. England: Penguin
English Guides.

Schmitt, N. (ed.). (2010). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics. London: Hodder Education

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(2013a). Second language. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_language

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(2013b). Foreign language. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(2013c). Second language acquisition. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition