English 390

23/11/2018
Mecaj Klisjo
Instructor: Eleni Godi
Advisors: Nenopoulou-Georgiou Georgia
Nicola Kondoyiannis

Research Topic: Examining the Stages and Difficulties of acquiring English as a Foreign Language,
through Krashen’s Theory. What are the Factors that Aid Students to Reach Native Level?

Literature Review

The acquisition of a foreign language has always interested people due to the numerous benefits of
knowing a language. The advantages of knowing plenty of languages begin from exchanging cultures,
meeting people out of your country, to protection against cognitive decline that comes with age.
However, there are numerous factors that cause pupils to give up on a learning a language due to the
difficulties. Krashen’s theory suggests several hypotheses that will help the students to acquire a second
language if the teacher applies them in his class
Firstly, the five hypotheses that consist the natural approach theory start with the acquisition learning
theory, which is the one of the most fundamental parts of the natural approach theory and it refers to
the subconscious learning of the new language, which could be compared to the process that children
learn their first language. It requires meaningful interaction and authentic material in the target
language. The second is the Monitor hypotheses which is the result of the learned grammar, where the
monitor acts as a planning, editing and correcting function, but if the students are monitored too much
they will focus too much on accuracy rather than fluency and not practice speech. Additionally, there is
the natural order hypothesis which describes that a teacher should be more lenient and not constantly
correct the mistakes that students make, especially the students who are still in the early stages of
language acquisition. That means that teachers have to present the language in a relatively easy order
for the students to comprehend and not get confused in the huge amount of material. (Krashen and
Terrell, 1995). Next is the input hypothesis, that explains how pupils should be exposed to the
comprehensible input plus one step beyond the student’s current knowledge in order to properly acquire
the presented material and progress with their language development. The Affective hypothesis, that
focuses on the feelings such as motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. The emotion aspect has a huge
impact on the performance of a student which also leads to the fact that there must be a positive
environment in the classroom. . (Keblawi, F., 2000). Finally, there is the Reading hypothesis, which is
quite simple and states that the more one reads in the foreign language the richer his vocabulary will be.
(Kristmanson, 2000). Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition is a book that describes the
stages that every learner experiences in the process of learning a language according to plenty of
linguist, inlcuding Stephen Krashen begin with the Silent period which could last from several hours to
several months and an individual only listens to speech while absorbing and learning a few words until
he feels ready to speak them. The next phase is the early production stage that lasts about six months
and the learner knows about one thousand words even though he is unable to speak more than just a
few phrases or be grammatically correct. The third stage is the Speech Emergance where the learners
gain greater comprehension of the language, they start reading, writing and their vocubalary expands up
to three thousand words. The last two stages intermediate fluency and advanced fluency illustrate the
progress of the student by the fact that he can even use complex sentences at that point, but in the end
a person always has to engage in conversations in order to stay fluent in a language. (Gass, M Gass and
Schachter, 1989). Age is a factor that affects the process of second language acquisition. Lenneberg
(1967) claims that during a certain period, which is called the critical period hypothesis in language
acquisition children possess an innate ability to acquire a language that is determined by biological
factors and which period lasts from the age of two roughly until puberty. (Kristmanson, 2000). This ability
of learning a language stops when after lateralization, where learners lose their ability to imitate the
accent of the native speakers, since they already have the accent of their first language. (Muñoz, 2006).
The question that arises for many learners is, “What does it mean to learn a foreign language”. The
majority of the people usually mean to be able to use the language in comparable ways to those in which
it is used by natives. However, native level requires years of practice and studying of the language which
is extremely hard. The fact is that people in general do not distinguish between smattering of a language
and a real knowledge of it