INTRODUCTION.

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Aprendizaje y adquisición del inglés como lengua extranjera

3º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

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 INTRODUCTION
Formal learning: educational systems exist to promote formal learning, which follows a syllabus and is
international in the sense that learning is the goal of all the activities learners engage in. Learning outcomes
are measured by tests and other forms of assessment. If the course is based on an analysis of the learners’
needs, it will follow a syllabus that specifies the communicative repertoire to be achieved by successful
learners. The nature and scope of that repertoire should be reflected in whatever forms of assessment
accompany the course.

Examples: classroom instruction, web-based training, remote labs, e-learning courses, workshops, seminars,
webinars, etc.

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Non-formal learning: it takes place outside formal learning environments but within some kind of
organisational framework. It arises from the learner’s conscious decision to master a particular activity, skill
or area of knowledge and is thus the result of intentional effort. But it need not follow a formal syllabus or be
governed by external accreditation and assessment. Non-formal learning typically takes place in community
settings: swimming classes for small children, sports clubs of various kinds for all ages, reading groups,
debating societies, amateur choirs and orchestras, and so on. Learners engage in non-formal language
learning when they participate in organised activities that combine their learning and use of their target
language with the acquisition of a particular skill or complex of knowledge.
Example: swimming classes for small children, sports clubs of various kinds for all ages, reading groups,
debating societies, amateur choirs and orchestras, etc.

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Informal learning: takes place outside schools and colleges and arises from the learner’s involvement in
activities that are not undertaken with a learning purpose in mind. Informal learning is involuntary and an
inescapable part of daily life; for that reason, it is sometimes called experiential learning. Learning that is
formal or nonformal is partly intentional and partly incidental: when we consciously pursue any learning target
we cannot help learning things that are not part of that target. Informal learning, however, is exclusively
incidental.

Example: educational videos and articles, self-study, social media interaction, on-the-job mentoring, or even
team activities and games.
LINGUISTICS AND SLA

Second Language Acquisition tries to answer these three main questions:

- What constitutes knowledge of the language? The prime goal of linguistics is to describe the language
contents of the human mind; its task is to represent what native speakers know about language - their
linguistic competence. Achieving this goal means producing a fully explicit representation of the
speaker’s competence, that is to say, a generative grammar of a ‘particular language’. From the outset,
this question defines linguistics as based on the internal reality of language in the individual mind
rather than on the external reality of language in society.
- How is knowledge of the language acquired? A second goal for linguistics is discovering how
knowledge of language comes into being - how linguistic competence is acquired by the human mind.
Chomsky proposes to achieve this goal by describing how innate principles of the child’s mind create
linguistic competence, that is to say how the child’s mind turns the language input it encounters into
a grammar by usings its built-in capabilities. Phrased in another way, knowledge of language is not
only created by the human mind but also constrained by its structure.
- How is knowledge of the language put to use? Discovering how knowledge of language is used means,
according to Chomsky, seeing how it relates to thinking, comprehension and communication. This

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 involves both the psychological processes through which the mind understands and produces speech,
and the processes through which speech is adapted to an actual moment of speaking in a particular
context of situation. To some, this area of use is covered by the speakers’ “communicative
competence” - their ability to adapt language to communicate with other people; to others, use is
covered by ‘pragmatic competence’ - knowing how language relates to situation for any purpose the
speakers intend.

The Second Language Acquisition research is supported by First Language Acquisition. At the same time, it
refers to all languages, which is why it answers these questions:

- What constitutes knowledge of languages? A person who knows two languages knows two grammars;
two systems of language knowledge are present in the same mind. One goal of second language

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research is to describe grammars of more than one language simultaneously existing in the same
person.
- How is knowledge of languages acquired? A person who knows two languages has been through the
acquisition process twice. Second Language research must explain the means by which the mind can
acquire more than one grammar. It must decide whether the ways of acquiring a second language
differ from those for acquiring a first, or whether they are aspects of the same acquisition process.
- How is knowledge of the languages put to use? People who know two languages can decide how to
use them according to where they are, what they are talking about, who they are talking to, and so
on. Describing their language use means showing how knowledge of two or more languages is used
by the same speaker psychologically and sociologically.

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The three questions are central to the relationship between linguistics and second language research. A
related distinction that underlies much linguistics is that between ‘competence’ and ‘performance’. In an I-
language.
Competence: The I-language tradition in linguistics is concerned with mental reality and with knowledge, in
short with representing the internal aspects of the mind: it is based on linguistic competence. In an I-language
theory the speaker’s knowledge of language is called ‘linguistic competence’. Competence is a state of the
speaker’s mind separate from performance. The knowledge that constitutes linguistic competence is only
available to the speaker through processes of one type or another; it is put into practice through performance.
Performance: The E-language tradition is concerned with behaviour and social convention, in short with
language as an external social reality; hence is methodology is based on collecting large samples of spoken
language data. The grammar of the language is derived by working out the patterns in these data. The
knowledge that constitutes linguistic competence is only available to the speaker through performance. “the
actual use of language in concrete situations” (Chomsky).
BASIC TERMS IN SLA

L2: a language other than the mother tongue that a person or community uses for public communication,
especially in trade, higher education, and administration.
Foreign language: A foreign language is a language not widely spoken and used by the people of a community
/ society / nation. For example, Spanish is a foreign language in Canada.
L1: A child's first language usually refers to the language the child learned from birth (before the age of 3) and
heard most often in their environment. However, some children may have more than one first language: this
is the case with children learning two languages at the same time, from birth.
Target language: a language other than one's native language that is being learned.
Target culture: the culture of the second language community.

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 SLA: Second language acquisition (SLA) is the study of how second languages are learned and the factors that
influence the process.
SLL: Second language learning (SLL) is concerned with the process and study of how people acquire a second
language, which is often referred to as L2 or target language, as opposed to L1 (the native language).
SLA Research: area of applied linguistics concerned with the acquisition of L2s.

LINGUISTICS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING: APPLICATION-ORIENTED RESEARCH

Application-oriented research: [...] disciplines - conditioned by the pressure of application - take up a certain
still diffuse practical issue, define it as a problem against the background of their respective theoretical and

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methodological paradigms, study this problem and finally develop various application oriented suggestions
for solutions. In this sense, applied science, on the one hand, has to be conceived of as a scientific strategy for
problem solving - a strategy that stars from mundane practical problems and ultimately aims at solving them”
(Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antons).

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