Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Presented by Group 3
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1. Nguyễn Văn Vui
2. Nguyễn Quốc Toàn
3. Trần Thị Hà
4. Nguyễn Thị Nhung
5. Hồ Thị Hoàng Ngân
6. Phan Thị Mỹ Hạnh
7. Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hiền

I. BUILDING A THEORY OF SLA
1. Domains and Generalizations
2. Hypothesis and Claims
3. Criteria for a Viable Theory
II. AN INNATIST MODEL: KRASHEN’S INPUT
HYPOTHESIS
1. The Acquisition – Learning Hypothesis
2. The Monitor Hypothesis.
3. The Natural Order Hypothesis
4. The Input Hypothesis
5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

III. COGNITIVE MODELS
1. Mc Laughlin’s Attention – Processing Model
2. Implicit and Explicit Models
IV. A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL:
LONG’S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
V. FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

• SLA , among other things, not unlike first language
acquisition, is a subject of general human learning,
involves cognitive variations, is closely related to
one’s personality type, is interwoven with second
culture learning, and involves interference, the
creation of new linguistic systems, and the learning
of discourse and communicative functions of
language.
All of these categories and the many subcategories
subsumed under them form the basis for structuring
an intergrated theory of SLA
Second Language Acquisition
Second New
Cognitive Communicative
culture linguistic
variations functions
learning system

Second language learning is a complex
process.
Complexity means that there are so many

separate but interrelated factors within one
intricate entity that it is exceedingly difficult to
bring order and simplicity to that “chaos”
(Larsen- Freeman, 1997)

1. Domains and Generalizations
* Classification of learners variables (Yorio,1976)
• Age
• Cognition
• Native Language
• Input
• Affective Domains
• Educational Background

SET OF DOMAINS OF CONSIDERATION IN A
THEORY OF SLA:
1) A theory of SLA includes an understanding, in
general, of what language is, what learning is, and
for classroom contexts, what teaching is.
2) Knowledge of children’s learning of their first
language provides essential insight to an
understanding of SLA.
3) A number of important differences between adult
and child learning and between first and second
language acquisition must be carefully accounted
for.

1) Second language learning is a part of and adheres to
general principles of human learning and
intelligence.
2) There is tremendous variation across learners in
cognitive style and within a learner in strategy
choice.
3) Personality, the way people view themselves and
reveal themselves in communication, will affect
both the quantity and quality of second language
learning.

1) Learning a second culture is often intricately
intertwined with learning a second language.
2) The linguistics contrast between the native and
target language form one source of difficulty in
learning a second language. But the creative
process of forming an interlanguage system
involves the learners in utilizing many facilitative
sources and resources. Inevitable aspects of this
process are errors, from which learners and teachers
can gain further insight.

1) Learning a second culture is often intricately
intertwined with learning a second language.
2) The linguistics contrast between the native and
target language form one source of difficulty in
learning a second language. But the creative
process of forming an interlanguage system
involves the learners in utilizing many facilitative
sources and resources. Inevitable aspects of this
process are errors, from which learners and teachers
can gain further insight.

1) Communicative competence, with all of its sub-
categories, is the ultimate goal of learners as they
deal with function, discourse, register, and
nonverbal aspects of human interaction and
linguistic negotiation.

2. Hypotheses and Claims
A theory of SLA is really an interrelated set of

hypotheses and/or claims about how people become
proficient in a second language.

In summary of research findings on SLA, Lightbown
made of following claims:
(1) Adult and adolescents can “acquire” a second
language.
(2) The learners creates a systematic
INTERLANGUAG as (those of) the child learning
the same language as the first language, as well as
others that appear to be based on the learner’s own
native language.
(3) There are predictable sequences in acquisition so
that certain structures have to be acquired before
others can be integrated.
(4) Practice does not make perfect
(5) Knowing a language rule does not mean one will be
able to use it in communicative interaction.
(6) Isolated explicit error correction is usually
ineffective in changing language behavior.
(7) For most adult learners, acquisition stops –
fossilizes- before the learner has achieved nativelike
mastery of the target language.

(8) One cannot achieved nativelike (or near - nativelike)
command of a second language in one hour a day.
(9) The learner’s task is enormous because language is
enormously complex.
(10) A learner’s ability to understand language in a
meaningful context exceeds his or her ability to
comprehend decontextualized language and to
produce language of comparable complexity and
accuracy.

Here are some other “popular”ideas:
(1) Languages are learned mainly through imitation.
(2) Parents usually correct young children when they
make errors
(3) People with high IQs are good language learners
(4) The earlier a second language is introduced in
school programs, the greater the likelihood of success
in learning.
(5) Most of the mistakes that second language learners
make are due to interference from their first language

(6) Learners’ errors should be corrected as soon as they
are made in order to prevent the formation of bad
habits
All such claims are the beginnings of theory

building. As we carefully examine each claim, add
others to it, and then refine them into set of tenable
hypotheses, we begin to build a theory.

Freeman(1997) suggested several lessons
from chaos theory that help us to design a theory
of SLA. Below are her comments:
Freeman’s comments:
1. Beware of false dichotomies.
2. Beware of linear, causal approaches to
theorizing
3. Beware of overgeneralization
4. Beware of reductionist thinking

Michael Long offered 8 criteria for a
comprehensive theory of SLA:
1. Account for universals
2. Account for environmental factors
3. Account for variability in age, acquisition rate,
and proficiency level
4. Explain both cognitive and affective factors

5. Account for form- focused learning, not just
subconscious acquisition.
6. Account for variables besides exposure and
input
7. Account for cognitive/ innate factors which
explain interlanguage systematicity.
8. Recognize that acquisition is not a steady
accumulation of generalizations.

2. The Monitor Hypothesis

- Adult second language learners have two means for
internalizing the target language
 The first is “acquisition”, a subconscious and intuitive
process of constructing the system of a language, not
unlike the process used by a child to “pick up’’ a
language.
 The second means is a conscious “learning” process in
which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are
generally aware of their own process.

 The Acquisition – Learning Hypothesis
- “Fluency in second language performance
is due to what we have acquired, not what
we have learned.”
- Our conscious learning processes and our
subconscious acquisition processes are
mutually exclusive: learning cannot
“become” acquisition.
2. The Monitor Hypothesis
- The “monitor” is involved in learning, not in
acquisition.
- It is a device for “watchdogging” one’s
output, for editing and making alterations or
corrections as they are consciously perceived.

We acquire language rules in a predictable
or “natural” order. (Following the earlier
morpheme order studies of Dulay and Burt
and others.)

- An important condition for language to occur is that the
acquirer understand (via hearing or reading) input
language that contains structure “a bit beyond” his or
her current level of competence.
- Example: If an acquirer is at stage of level i, the
input he or she understands should contain i+1.

- Speaking not be taught directly or very early

in the language classroom.

- The best acquisition will occur in environments

where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent,
or in contexts where “affective filter” is low.

1. Mc Laughlin, a psychologist, commented:
“… the terms conscious and unconscious in second language
theory are too laden with surplus meaning and too
difficult to define empirically to be useful theoretically.
Hence, my critique of Krashen’s distinction between
learning and acquisition – a distinction that assumes that
it is possible to differentiate what is conscious from
what is unconscious.”

2. A second criticism of Krashen’s views arose out of the
claim that there is no interface – no overlap – between
acquisition and learning.
As Gregg(1984:82) pointed out: “Krashen plays fast and loose
with his definitions. … If unconscious knowledge is capable
of being brought to consciousness and if conscious
knowledge is capable of becoming unconscious – and this
seems to be a reasonable assumption – then there is no
reason whatever to accept Krashen’s claim, in the absence
of evidence. And there is an absence of evidence.”

3. “Comprehensible input is the only causative variable in
second language acquisition.”
In other words, success in a foreign language can be
attributed to input alone.
- It is important to distinguish between input and intake.
- Krashen(1983) did suggest that input gets converted to
intake through a learner’s process of liking forms to
meaning and noticing “gaps” between the learner’s current
internalized rule system and the new input.

- Mitchell & Myles (1998) have noted that processes “are not
clearly operationalized or consistently proposed.”

- Seliger (1983) offered a much broader conceptualization of
the role of input that gives learners more credit (and blame)
for eventual success: High Input Generators (HIGs) and
Low Input Generators (LIGs)

- Krashen (1997) staunchly maintained that in the language
classroom “output is too scare to make any important
impact on language development.”
- Swain & Lapkin (1995) offered convincing evidence that

their Output Hypothesis was at least as significant as
input.

- De Bot (1996) argued that “output serves an important role
in second languages acquisition … because it generates
highly specific input the cognitive system needs to build up
a coherent set of knowledge.”

III. Cognitive models
McLaughlin’s attention-processing model
Implicit and explicit models

1. McLaughlin’s attention-processing model
 Processing mechanisms: controlled and automatic
 Categories of attention: focal and peripheral

to form 4 cells

Attention to
formal Information processing
properties
of language
Controlled Automatic
Focal ( cell A) ( cell B) Performance
Performance based on in a test situation
formal rule learning
(cell C) performance (Cell D) performance

Peripheral based on implicit in communication
learning or analogic situations
learning

Controlled and automatic processes
Controlled processes Automatic processes
 “ capacity limited and  “relatively permanent”

temporary”
 Processing in a more
 as typical of anyone learning a accomplished skill- The “ hard
brand new skill in which only a drive” of your brain can
very few elements of the skill manage hundreds and
can be retained thousands of bits of
information simultaneously.
aCopyright
process©of restructing
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• Both two processes can occur with either focal or
peripheral attention to the behavior in question.
• Many controlled processes are focal, some are

peripheral. (child first language learning or the
learning of skills without any instructions).
• Many automatic processes are peripheral, some
are focal. (in the case of an accomplished pianist
performing in a concert or an experienced driver
paying particular attention to the road on a
foggy night)
• Every act of performing something, focal and peripheral
attention actually occur simultaneously
e.g. A very young child says to a parent “ Nobody don’t like
me”
• Focal attention: conveying emotion, mental anguish or
loneliness
• Peripheral attention: words and morphemes underlie the
central meaning

Practical applications of McLaughlin’s attention- processing model
CONTROLLED: new AUTOMATIC: Well trained,
skill, capacity limited practiced skill capacity is
relatively unlimited
A. Grammatical explanation B. “Keeping an eye out” for

of a specific point something
FOCAL - Word definition - Advanced L2 learner
intentional - Copy a written model focuses on modals, clause
attention - The first stages of “ formation, ect.
memorizing” a dialog - Monitoring oneself while
- Prefabricated patterns talking or writing
- Various discrete-point - Scanning
exercises - Editing, peer-editing
C. Simple greetings D. Open-ended group

PERIPHERAL - The later stages of work
“memorizing” a dialog - Rapid reading, skimming
- TPR/ Natural Approach - Free writes
- New L2 learner - Normal conversational
successfully completes a exchanges of some length
brief conversa`tion
• Child second language learning may consist of
peripheral ( cells C and D) attention to language
forms.
• Most adult second language learning of language

forms in the classroom involves a movement from
cell A through a combination of C and B, to D
(Dekeyser 1997)
Peripheral, automatic attention- processing
of the bits and pieces of language is a mainly
communicative goal for language learners

IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MODELS
Implicit knowledge Explicit models are the

is information that facts that a person
is automatically knows about language
and the ability to
and spontaneously articulate those facts in
used in language tasks some way.
e.g. children implicitly learn phonological, syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic rules for language, but do not
have access to an explanation, explicitly of those rules
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MODELS
 Implicit processes enable a learner to perform language

but not necessarily to cite rules governing the performance
 Bialystok later (1982) equated implicit and explicit with the

synonymous terms unanalyzed and analyzed knowledge.

 “Unanalyzed knowledge is the general form in which we
know most things without being aware of the structure of
that knowledge”; on the other hand, learners are overtly
aware of the structure of analyzed knowledge.
 These same models feature a distinction between
automatic and non- automatic processing, building on
McLaughlin’s conception of automaticity. Automaticity
refers to the learner’s relative access to the knowledge.
Knowledge that can be retrieved easily and quickly is
automatic. Knowledge that takes time and effort to
retrieve is non- automatic.

IV. A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL: LONG’S
INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
Two preceding theories
Krashen’s Input The cognitive model of

Hypothesis Second Language
Acquisition
Focus to a considerable extent of

the learners Copyright © Wondershare Software
The Social constructivist perspectives

emphasize the dynamic nature of the
interplay between learners, their peers
and their teachers and others with
whom they interact
The interaction between learners and

others is the focus of observation and
explanation Copyright © Wondershare Software
Michael Long (1985-1996) takes up

where in a sense Krashen left off. He posits
in what has come to be called the
interaction hypothesis, that comprehensive
input is the result of modified interaction.

Learners learn new forms in a language through
the negotiation around meaning that occurs when
they engage in communication and
communicative learning activities.

IV. A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL:
LONG’S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
Modified Interaction
* Interact between native speakers
For example: Babies imitate their parents:” The
cat fat”
Parents might correct: No we don’t say that. We
say:”The fat cat”
Or parents may modify their speech to children
“Mommy go bye bye now”
*Interact between native speakers with
Second Language learners
But the native speakers often slow down speech to second
Language learners (modifications also include
comprehension checks) .
Ex: “Go down to the subway – do you

know the word Subway ?” and they
explain the word “Subway” means.
Or “I went to a new Year’s Eve party,
you know, the night before the first
day of a new year. Copyright © Wondershare Software
IV. A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL: LONG’S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
In Long’s view:
-Interaction and Input are two major players
in the process of acquisition.
- Conversation and other interactive
communication are the basic for the
linguistic rules.
Further, Long’s hypothesis center us on the
language classroom that :
not only as a place where learners of varying
abilities and styles and background mingle
but also as a place where the contexts for
interaction are carefully designed
INNATIST COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVIST
(Krashen) (McLauglin/Bialystok) (Long)
•Subconcious •Controlled/ automatic •Interaction

acquisition superior to processing (McL) hypothesis
“learning” &
•Focal/pheripheral •Intake through
“mornitoring”
attention (McL) social
•Comprehensible input interaction
(i+1) •Restructuring (McL)
•Output
•Low affective filter •Implicit vs. explicit (B) hypothesis
•Unanalyzed vs. (Swain)
•Natural order of
acquisition analyzed knowledge(B) •HIGs (Seliger)
•“zero option” for •Form-focused •Authenticity
grammar instruction instruction
•Task-based
instruction
Theories are constructed by professors
and researchers who hypothesize,
describe, measure and conclude things
about learners and learning and the
teachers.

Who are
practitioners?

Practitioners are thought of as teachers
who are out there in classroom
everyday stimulating, encouraging,
observing and assessing real-live
learners.

The custom of leaving theory to
researchers and practice to teachers
has become dysfunctional (Clarke)
A practitioner/teacher is made to feel

that he or she is the recipient of a
researcher/theorist’s findings and
prognostications, with little to offer in
return.
Researcher give many skills to teacher
in: program developing, textbook
writing, observing, measuring
variables of acquisition applying
technology to teaching.

When are you doing some
theory building?

Relevance of Cognitive style
age factors variations
The o ry building
Strategic Intercutural
competence communicatio
n
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
1. Similarities and differences of statements or claims
of Lightbown, Lassen Freeman and Yorio in a theory
of SLA?
• Similarity: into consideration in a theory of SLA
• Differences:
6. Yorio: domains of consideration (9 statements)
7. Lightbown:

2. What are Krashen’s 5 input hypotheses?
They are
The Acquisition – Learning Hypothesis
The Monitor Hypothesis
The Natural Order Hypothesis
The Input Hypothesis
The Affective Filter Hypothesis
3. If an acquirer is at stage of level i, the input he or she
understands should contain i+1. Why?
The language that learners are exposed to should be just far
enough beyond their current competence that they can
understand most of it but still be challenged to make progress.
The corollary to this is that input should neither be so far
beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed (this might be,
say, i + 2), nor so close to their current stage that they are not
challenged at all (i + 0)
4. What is the interaction hypothesis of Michael Long?
Learners learn new forms in a language through
the negotiation around meaning that occurs when they engage in
communication and communicative learning activities.
5. What are cognitive models?
They are
- McLaughlin’s attention-processing model
- Implicit and explicit models


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Presented by Group 3

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V. FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

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Complexity means that there are so many

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A theory of SLA is really an interrelated set of

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All such claims are the beginnings of theory

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- Speaking not be taught directly or very early

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- The best acquisition will occur in environments

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- Swain & Lapkin (1995) offered convincing evidence that

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McLaughlin’s attention-processing model

Implicit and explicit models

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 Processing mechanisms: controlled and automatic

 Categories of attention: focal and peripheral

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(cell C) performance (Cell D) performance

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Controlled processes Automatic processes

 “ capacity limited and  “relatively permanent”

• Many controlled processes are focal, some are

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A. Grammatical explanation B. “Keeping an eye out” for

C. Simple greetings D. Open-ended group

• Most adult second language learning of language

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Implicit knowledge Explicit models are the

 Implicit processes enable a learner to perform language

 Bialystok later (1982) equated implicit and explicit with the

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Copyright © Wondershare Software