UNIVERSIDAD INDUSTRIAL DE SANTANDER

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS

Theories of Second Language Acquisition
Maria Fernanda Espinel Rodriguez
Survey’s results and reflection.

This survey collects information about students’ conceptions on teaching and learning

a language and it is conducted within the context of a classwork in the subject of

Theories of Second Language Acquisition in charge of Professor Johana Murcia

Valderrama. The professor is the person who conducts the survey. It consists of 17

questions related to two different topics, which were separated on purpose for the sake

of the activity. The questions were answered by a group of twenty students from the

mentioned class.

Teaching a language involves many aspects connected to several theories, hypothesis

and so on. The students’ responds in the sentences related to this practice tell us about

their conception of it. The results show that almost all the students agree that the

earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the greater the

possibilities of success. It can also be noticed that motivation does play an essential

role for them in being successful at learning and acquiring a second language. But

their opinions about how teachers should approach student´s errors and the materials

they should use are very different. Almost all of them agreed that imitation is essential

for learning a language; however, there were a few students that do not agree with

that. Students input about pronunciation reflects their concern about producing each

individual sound of the second language. When it comes to the order of language

structures or rules, most students believe that teachers should go from simple to
complex structures; teaching and practicing grammatical rules one by one before

moving forward. Student´s answers also suggest that only few of them do not consider

that 1000 words and basic language structures would enable a person to have

conversations with native speakers.

For the questions concerning the process of learning a language, students’ response

allows an interpretation of the main ideals they have towards that process. In the

statements related to correction students’ opinions are divided, most of them do not

agree with the idea of parents correcting the grammatical errors of their children.

Even though, most of them also agree that language learners’ errors should be

corrected right away for the teacher. Some common thoughts among students are that

they can learn both language and academic content if the subject matter is taught in

that second language. Also, that reading is the best way to learn vocabulary and that

highly intelligent people are not necessarily good language learners. Although almost

every student think that the mistakes second language learners make are due to the

interference from the first language, also most of them do not consider that group or

pair activities lead them to copy each other’s mistakes. The responds also showed that

students opinions are partially divided when answering if students learn what they are

taught.

Finally, after reflecting on these results one can concludes that students are aware of

the majority of aspects that affect their process of learning but still, they are

influenced by their former errors, mistakes or traumatic experiences. It also can be

noticed in some cases that conceptions or strong ideals towards teaching a language

and the best strategies, theories or models to do so are closely related to the subject
experience as a learner and user of the language. What one has been and what one is

play a highly important role in the construction of one’s own identity as teacher,

hence we must revise, reflect and constantly reframed those aspects.