QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY

DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

LESSON 2: Overview of Language Acquisition

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, the learners should be able to:
1. demonstrate an understanding on the key concepts of language acquisition; and
2. relate personal experience with regards to language acquisition.

Hi, I am here to guide you in your exploration and discovery on the

very Teaching English to Elementary grades.
Answer the activities in this learning task and be able to explore your
potential as an exemplary teacher.

Can a dog tell another dog a joke?

Or can a cat (other than Garfield) describe an experience so vividly
that it makes the other cats feel like they just ate the same barbecue?

Feeding the mind!

Language. It’s an exclusively human condition. Other species

definitely do communicate through movements and sounds, but they’re definitely not in the
same class as humans.

A poet can write lines that can make any woman swoon. A 140-character fb post can
spark a revolution. Even children can tease an acquaintance to tears.

But how did we acquire all these skills and abilities?

We’ll look into that here in module 1. We’ll examine the differences between first language
and second language acquisition, as well as some of the leading theories presented on the
topic.

Have you always wondered what terms like “syntax,” “semantics” and
“phonology” are really about? They won’t be so mysterious after this
lesson. We’ll peak behind the curtain and talk about the five
characteristics of languages.

Finally, to finish things up, we’ll touch on the four language skills you
need to speak a language. So, ready to go? Let’s begin.

Language Acquisition
Have you had the wonderful experience of gazing at a newborn baby through a hospital
nursery window? You know full well that those babies can’t appreciate your soulful
admiration, right? They can’t understand a word you say, much less talk to you.
But what kind of awesomeness happens in so short a time, that turns this ball of pure
cuteness into a determined fellow pointing at everything in the grocery store, having a fit
when you don’t get him what he wants?

Language acquisition is that process of building the ability to understand a language,

using it to communicate with others. It is the process of going from a wordless wonder into
somebody who cannot stop talking during class.

That’s language acquisition or, more specifically, first language or native language
acquisition. Since you were born in the Philippines to parents who speak Ilocano with you,
you’ll naturally end up talking Ilocano. The same goes for whatever native language you’re
taught.

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 1
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Another type of language acquisition is the one that happens after you’ve acquired your
native tongue—aptly named “second language acquisition.”

There’s a lot of difference between native language and second language acquisition.
When you learned your native tongue, you weren’t given a long list of vocabulary words to
memorize or a thick grammar textbook to sink your teeth into. You were just with mom and
dad, who always told you what to eat and when to sleep.

Second language acquisition, on the other hand, happens at a very different time and
place. Here in the Philippines, English is considered as our second language, or third
language for the others whose, first language is not Tagalog/Filipino.

If Ilocano or Ifugao is the language that you are most comfortable with, then that is your
first language. Your second language, might be Tagalog, and your third language is English.
But for the purpose of our class, let us refer to English as Second Language or ESL.

The 5 Characteristics of a Language

1. Syntax
Syntax is really just another word for grammar. Languages are
governed by rules. Without them, language would be a jumbled mess
of words, phrases and concepts that would be very difficult to
understand and therefore barely useful.

Each language has a specified arrangement of words and

phrases. Because of the specific ways the elements are arranged, we
can decipher meaning and understand each other. Syntax doesn’t
exist so that “Grammar Nazis” can oppress those who don’t know the codified rules.
Grammar is there to facilitate meaning and help us communicate the correct information
or message to each other.

Without syntax, we’d have sentences like: Robert Susan killed dog the pet of. Whoa,
what happened in this sentence? Who killed whom? Without a consistent arrangement
of words, we can never figure it out.

2. Semantics
Semantics is all about meaning in a language—what words, phrases and sentences
actually mean. Semantics works hand in hand with syntax because different
arrangement of words can create different meanings. For example, we have a sentence:

“She tapped him on the shoulder.”

Let’s say we’ll insert the word “only” somewhere in the statement. Notice
how this changes the whole meaning and complexion of the statement,
depending on where exactly we place a single word.

Only she tapped him on the shoulder. (Nobody else did.)

She only tapped him on the shoulder. (She didn’t punch him.)
She tapped only him on the shoulder. (Nobody else got a similar treatment.)
She tapped him only on the shoulder. (Not on his head or anywhere else.)
She tapped him on the only shoulder. (What sort of a man is this?!)

Meaning can change depending on how you arrange specific words. And not only
that, meaning can also change depending on the form of individual words. Let’s talk
about that next.
VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 2
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

3. Morphology
Morphology is about the form of words. It’s best observed in the written form of a
language. Change in form often brings with it a change in meaning.

Root words—the most basic word forms—can be decorated with a bunch of prefixes
and suffixes to form new words, each with a different meaning. A single root word can
give birth to many new words, and that’s where the linguistic fun begins.

Take the root word “drive.”

Add “r” at the end and you have “driver.” From a verb, your word has become a
noun, a person.
Next, add “s” to your newly formed word and you have “drivers.” You’ve just
performed magic and cloned a lone person by using the plural form of the word.
Change “i” to “o” and you have “drove.” From a verb in the present tense, you
introduced a time change and turned it into a past tense.

You can do many things with the root word “drive” and come up with new words
like:
driven
driving
drivable
drivability
overdrive
Microdrive

And so on. That’s what morphology is all about. Different meanings come from
different word forms. Speaking of forms, when spoken, each of these new words will
inevitably sound different. That’s what the next language characteristic is all about.

4. Phonology
Phonology is the study of linguistic sounds. And if ever you want to be considered
fluent in your target language, you have to be very familiar with the intonations,
stresses, pauses, dips and tones of the language.

To sound like a native speaker, you have to pronounce words, phrases and
sentences like they do. There are specific sounds and sound patterns that exist in a
language. For example, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese have rolling “R’s” that give some
English speakers a heck of a time.

In languages like Italian, you oftentimes only need to look at how a word is spelled
(morphology) in order to know how it should be pronounced. In other words, in those
languages there is a close correspondence between the language’s written form and its
spoken form. In the case of French, though, you’d practically have to be dead drunk
with French wine to figure out how to correctly pronounce “houx.” You can stare at it
all day long, but those silent letters won’t speak to you.

5. Pragmatics
Speaking of silence, the next linguistic characteristic deals with that part of the
language that isn’t spoken. This is sort of the wink-wink, nudge-nudge aspect of a
language.

Because language happens in a specific context, we can actually be ambiguous and

still deliver perfectly clear communication. We can go beyond the literal and structural
forms of the language. We can say one thing and actually mean another.

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 3
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Pragmatics is concerned with how meaning is negotiated between speaker and

listener. When your teacher, after reading your submitted proposal, tells you, “This
won’t work. Go back to square one,” you begrudgingly know what he means. You don’t
take his words literally and look for “square one.” You start again.

Or when you’re hours late for a group meeting with your classmates and they ask
you, “Do you know what time it is?” you know better than to give them the exact time.
You know a rhetorical question when you hear one.

Pragmatics lends languages levity, so we don’t get stuck with being so literal all the
time. You know you’re fluent in a language when you understand idiomatic expressions,
sarcasm and the like.

Now that we know about the five characteristics of languages, we get to the four
modalities in which language acquisition can be judged: listening, speaking, reading and
writing.

The Four Language Skills

When we learn a language, there are four skills that we need for complete
communication. When we learn our native language, we usually learn to listen first, then to
speak, then to read, and finally to write. These are called the four "language skills". The five
skills of language (also known as the four skills of language learning) are a set of four
capabilities that allow an individual to comprehend and produce spoken language for proper
and effective interpersonal communication. These skills are Listening, Speaking, Reading,
and Writing. In the context of first- language acquisition, the four skills are most often
acquired in the order of listening first, then speaking, then possibly reading and writing. For
this reason, these capabilities are often called LSRW skills.

English Language has 5 main skills and each skill has other sub-skills and skill
activities. The main skills are all basic and very important. They are called the Macro skills.
Macro skills refer to the primary, key, main, and largest skill set relative to a particular
context. It is commonly referred to in English language. The four macro skills are reading,
listening, writing, and speaking. You have to perfect them in order to use your English
language properly. Listening and speaking are brain input skills but reading and writing are
brain output skills. Of course, there other skills such as pronunciation, grammar,
vocabulary, and spelling all play a role in effective English communication.

Receptive vs Productive

Languages are generally taught and assessed in terms of the ‘four skills’: listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are known as ‘receptive’ skills while
speaking and writing are known as ‘productive’ skills. Listening to and reading content in
the language is a great way to develop vocabulary and comprehension.

Developing your speaking skills will involve gaining fluency in spoken interactions with
others, as well as practicing pronunciation. To practice pronunciation reading aloud or
repeating after a recorded text, trying to reproduce the pronunciation and intonation of the
original must be explored. As in the first language, ones writing will be improved by becoming
a critical reader - trying to think actively about how texts are structured and what kinds of
phrases or vocabulary are used for different purposes (e.g. introducing a topic, describing,
comparing and contrasting, writing conclusions).

1. Listening is understanding the main ideas of most speech in a standard dialect. One
should demonstrate an emerging awareness of culturally implied meanings beyond
the surface meanings of the text.

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 4
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

2. Speaking is being understood without difficulty by natives, and converse in a clear

and participatory fashion. One should be able to initiate, sustain, and bring closure
to a wide variety of communicative tasks. One should be able to narrate and describe
concrete and abstract topics using sustained, connected discourse.
3. Reading is easily following the essential points of written text. One should be able to
understand parts of texts which are conceptually abstract and linguistically complex.
4. Writing is being able to address a variety of topics with significant precision and detail.
One should be able to write competently about topics relating to particular interests
and write clearly about special fields of competence. One should be able to organize
writings with a sense of theoretical structure.
5. Viewing is the fifth macro-skill today. It refers to perceiving, examining, interpreting,
and construction meaning from visual images and is crucial to improving
comprehension of print and nonprint materials. This is the skill to be taught as the
learners are exposed on multimedia. To make it possible, they should have strong
media and visual literacies.

Wrap-up

You learned in this lesson the prominent theories as they relate to teaching and learning
how language is acquired. It also discusses a child acquires his/her first and second
language. Moreover, you also learned about the 5 Characteristics of a Language syntax,
semantics, morphology, morphology, phonology and pragmatics. You were also re-
acquainted with the essential language skills, listening, speaking, reading, writing and
viewing.

REFERENCES

Barrot, J. S. (2016). Current principles and concepts in the teaching of macroskills. www.national-
u.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JSTAR-6_Barrot.pdf , Language Skills.
http://www.bchmsg.yolasite.com/skills.php

What Is Language Acquisition? Here’s Everything You Need to Know!

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/what-is-language-acquisition/

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 5