EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 9

Social Context of Second Language Acquisition and Its The discussions about second language
Implementation of English Teaching acquisition are always initiated by the questions around
what exactly the L2 learner comes to know, how the
learner acquires this knowledge, and why some
The recent development of English language
learners are more successful than others.
teaching has proposed the Communicative Approach.
This approach in some degree has replaced the use of
the grammatical approach as the classical one.
For instance, linguists answered the questions
by grammatical approach, which believe that the goal of
second language acquisition lies in gaining grammatical
The grammatical approach was seen as failing
competence. Furthermore, learners gain this
to interconnect between psychological competence;
competence through the exposure of grammar. Thus, a
grammatical competence, and social competence;
successful learning is resulted from an adequate
discourse and strategic competence. Thus, the
exposure of grammar. In contrast, a less successful
searching for an approach that accommodates the goal
learning is resulted from the lack of the exposure.
has arrived at the recent approach namely
communicative approach.
However, sociolinguists offer answers for those
questions from their social perspective. In spite of
The proponents of this approach tend to see
believing that the goal of English teachings lies in the
the goal of language teaching is not the grammatical
achievement of grammatical competence, they believe
competence, rather the communicative competence.
that a successful learner is the one who is successful in
The competence facilitated by a strategy, later called as
communication.
strategic competence, allows someone to use every
language potential inside his/herself for achieving a
meaningful and successful communication. The
In English teaching field, it is said that a
communicative approach is originally based on the
successful English teaching is achieved when the
Sociolinguists’ view on Second Language Acquisition.
learners have gained communicative competence.
Sociologists tend to view that language is acquired
Moreover, the process of language acquisition is
through the medium of input and interaction.
mediated by input and interaction. The more one is
involved in live communication with L2, the more
successful he/she will be in the process of learning. 
Furthermore, the input and interaction are
modified in some cases, such as when the competence
of a speaker is in different level with the hearer. Those Further discussions below will examine
modification occurs in order to gain a successful communicative competence and aspects surrounding it
communication. Accordingly, social environment where in more detail. It includes the discussions about models
the interaction takes place has a significant role in the of communicative competence, aspects of SLA which is
process of acquisition. Thus, the core of communicative seen from sociolinguistics perspective, and the
teaching lies on the process of interaction is social life. implication of the view on English teaching field.

How do sociolinguists view second language Communicative Competence

acquisition? 
As stated earlier, communicative competence
What is the implementation of the view on English becomes the goal of English teachings. However, the
teaching field?  term communicative competence itself remains unclear
without examining another definition of the term
What is the strength and the weakness of the view? 
competence from another field of study.

Social Context of Second Language Acquisition

For instance, Chomsky as a linguist defined
competence as static knowledge lies in mind, a state of
product that excludes any notion of “capacity” or

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EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 9
“ability”. Furthermore, competence becomes
performance when the competence is put in use.
Therefore, he distinguished between competence, a
static knowledge, and performance, an active use of the
knowledge.  The model shows us that competence is not
Instead of seeing the competence as a static
knowledge, the proponents of communicative approach
believe that “competence” covers both the static
knowledge and the active use of the knowledge. In
addition, the term competence is also accompanied with
the notion of communication. Thus, it is necessary to
define the notion of communicative competence in a
comprehensible definition. Accordingly, some models of
communicative competence has been proposed in
order to meet the comprehensible definition.
The Model of Communicative Competence
The model which will be presented here is the
model proposed by Canale & Swain (1980). It is the first
proposed model, and it posited four components of
communicative competence
Grammatical competence
- the knowledge of the language code
(grammatical rules, vocabulary, pronunciation,
spelling, etc.).  communicative contexts in which it has been
Sociolinguistic competence
- the mastery of the sociocultural code of
language use (appropriate application of
vocabulary, register, politeness and style in a
given situation).  Input and Interaction
Discourse competence
- the ability to combine language structures into
different types of cohesive texts (e.g., political
speech, poetry).  for essentially linguistic and/or cognitive
Strategic competence
- the knowledge of verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies which enhance the
efficiency of communication and, where
necessary, enable the learner to overcome
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difficulties when communication breakdowns
occur.
merely a static knowledge, but also it covers an active
skill initially known as performance.
As a matter of fact, discourse competence is an
active ability in combining language structures into
different types of cohesive texts, while grammatical
competence is a static knowledge about language code.
Therefore, the model is comprehensive enough to
explain the competence from sociolinguists point of
view.
Aspects on Second Language Acquisition in Social
Context 
Variation on Learner Language 
- The variation also occurs in L2 learners, some
learners are more successful than others.
- In explaining this phenomena, sociologists
argue that variable feature occurs in the
production of any one speaker (native or
language learner) depends largely on the
learned and is used.
- Furthermore, the extent of using English in
communication becomes a factor influencing
the acquisition of L2.
 
- The process of acquisition is influenced by
some aspects such as language input and
interaction.
- Language input is considered as primary “data”
process.
- In other words, it is the source of data which in
turn is further processed in the interaction to
gain more advanced knowledge.
The Implication of the Social Context on Teaching
Methodology
EL 204 – PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING LESSON 9

achievement has inadequate support from empirical

study. 
Communicative Language Teaching
This approach fails to explain some autodidact
- The goal of communicative competence lies on
learners who teach themselves without having an
the gaining communicative competence, which
exposure of communication.
has been explained earlier.
In fact, there are a lot of learners who are
- The process of teaching and learning in the successful in learning English without such kind of
classroom also concerns with activities communicative exposure. The implementation of this
facilitated by the modification of input and approach is weak when it comes to young learner
interaction education. 
Moreover, the teacher is actively involved in the
- Specifically, classroom activities using
activities, and becomes the facilitator and motivator,
communicative language teaching are guided
while students are expected to be comfortable with their
by some considerations below
peer. Therefore, the activities tend to be in the form of
classroom or pair discussion.
Fluency activities:
- one of the goals of CLT is to develop fluency in Furthermore, interaction is generally seen as
language use rather than accuracy.  essential in providing learners with quantity and quality
of external linguistic input which is required for internal
Mechanical, meaningful, and communicative practice: processing. Therefore, language input and interaction
- language practices that moves from controlled play important roles in the process of acquisition.
ones to free ones. 
 
Information-gap activities:
- it refers to the fact that in real communication
people normally communicate in order to get
information they do not possess. 

Jig-saw activities 

The Strength and Weakness of the Approach

Strength:
This approach is not guided by strict rules as
grammatical/linguistic approach. Thus, it allows learners
to feel free in learning English. 
The implementation of this approach is
potential to build learners’ sustainable learning. It is due
to the fact that activities guided by this approach are
flexible, fun, and more student centered. 
The implementation of this approach gives
teachers more flexible roles in the classroom.
Accordingly, teachers have a chance to modify teaching
procedures in more interesting way. 

Weakness
This approach fails to explain the learners’
mental development in a systematic way. The
explanation of the variation occurs in learners’
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