References of colors

Rosario: purple
Antonella: red
Melina: blue
Luján: orange
Milagros: green
Lucía: light blue
THEORIES OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

*What must they take into account?

*What conditions must be considered?

-Second Language Acquisition, or SLA, has two meanings. A general and a specific
one. Explain them.

The primary factor driving SLA appears to be the language input that learners receive.
Learners become more advanced the longer they are immersed in and exposed to the
language they are learning. The input hypothesis developed by Krashen makes a distinction
between language acquisition and language learning (acquisition-learning hypothesis)
claiming that acquisition is a subconscious process, whereas learning is a conscious one.
According to this hypothesis, the acquisition process in L2 is the same as L1 (Language 1)
acquisition. The learning process is consciously learning and inputting the language being
learned. However, this goes as far as to state that input is all that is required for acquisition.
As a result, we are able to talk about different acquisition/ learning theories.

*Nativist Theories
*Input-based Theories - Monitor Theory or Creative Construction theory
*Environmental Theories
*Cognitive Theories

Nativist Theories: What do they explain? Linguist/s in association

Noam Chomsky
These theories explain that all human languages are fundamentally innate and that the same
universal principles underlie all of them. It is claimed that children are biologically
programmed for language: language develops in the child in the same way as other
biological functions do.
For this linguist, language is a unique faculty to humans and works in a specific module of
the brain, and that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically
preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited. In this sense, all humans share
the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences. On
the one hand, this is a direct rejection to the theory of Behaviorist Psychology by B.F.
Skinner, who considered language as a behavior, as a learned product of the interactions
between organisms and their environments (to be explained by Lu). On the other hand, note
the capitalised words in the first slide. Human is capitalised because this theory states that
the ability of acquiring and speaking one or more languages is a unique evolutionary feature
of the development of human species and their modes and means of communication, which
is unseen in any other animal species. The next word that’s capitalised is Innate, which
stands for the idea of language being inborn in the child and implies what we have
mentioned before: that children only learn certain language-specific features of their
native languages. These language-specific features of their mother-tongue is what
accounts for our next capitalised words: Universal Principles. We’ll get to that.

-What is the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?

The LAD is a specific innate system with which children are born. It’s a mechanism by
means of which children discover, on their own, the underlying rules of a language system
on the basis of the samples of a natural language they are exposed to. It’s a set of mental
structures that enables children to use language input to form subconscious rules for how
language works. Over time, humans develop an internal grammar, a set of rules they can
use to understand and produce one or more languages. The internal grammar includes a
syntactic component along with a knowledge of phonology, morphology, semantics and
pragmatics. This theory is backed up by the “poverty of the stimulus”, which is a gap
between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic
competence they attain. Even when being exposed to only a very small and finite subset of
syntactic variants within their first language, children acquire the organised and systematic
ability to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences in that language, including
ones that have never been uttered before in that language, as when they babble. In this
sense, the primary linguistic data must be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity,
said Chomsky.

-What happens when the device is activated?

When acquiring a new language, this device would prevent the child from pursuing all sorts
of wrong hypotheses about how that language system might work. Since children are
equipped with LAD and are able to recognize which structures their own language has, then
what they have to learn is the ways in which the target language they are acquiring makes
use of these Principles & Parameters. For instance, they will be able to distinguish between
a noun or a verb; or they will realize whether their mother tongue is a language that
demands for an overt subject to be at the beginning of the sentence or whether the target
language allows the subject to be covert, as in Spanish, in that sense, they will be able to tell
whether a sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical. Examples like these compound the
Principles (all languages have subjects and verbs) and Parameters (some languages
demand the subject to always be overt) inside Universal Grammar.

-What is Universal Grammar (UG)?

Universal Grammar (UG) is a theoretical concept proposed by Chomsky that claims that the
human brain contains an innate mental grammar that helps humans acquire languages. This
mental grammar is based on theory of P&P (Principles and Parameters), which states that a
person’s syntactic knowledge is modeled within two formal mechanisms:

A finite set of fundamental principles common to all languages, for example: that a
sentence must always have a subject even if it’s not overtly pronounced.

A finite set of parameters that determine syntactic variability amongst languages, for
example, a binary parameter that determines whether or not the subject of a sentence must
be overtly pronounced (Pro-drop parameter).
As P&P are common to all human beings, they overcome any genetic condition. What is
more, P&P do not need to be learned by exposure to language. Rather, exposure to
language merely triggers the parameters to adopt the correct setting.

Another feature found in all human languages is that there are structural relationships
between components of a sentence. Knowledge of the language depends on knowledge of a
deeper internal structure to the sentence. This is known as structure-dependency. Other
examples of theorized principles are:

● Structure preservation principle

● Trace erasure principle
● Projection principle

Examples of theorized parameters are:

● Ergative case parameter

● Head directionality parameter
● Nominal mapping parameter
● Null subject parameter
● Polysynthesis parameter
● Pro-drop parameter
● Serial verb parameter
● Subject placement parameter
● Subject side parameter
● Topic prominent parameter
● Verb attraction parameter

-Which is the metaphor associated to Innatism?

it’s all in your mind

-Can you connect the previous ideas with its metaphor?
This metaphor is associated with Innatism due to the mental feature of this theory. These
linguists claim that our mind is a sort of computer working inside our brains, in the module of
the brain that accounts for language, that this computer has many switches, each
corresponding to a certain language, which are switched on and off according to the
structures of the language we are tackling. Therefore, by stating that it is all in our mind, we
would be able to learn any language we set our minds to, since we would have a previous
knowledge or schemata of what kind of syntactic structures can be found and how they work
in that specific language.

-Which is the role of the environment?

Chomsky compares language acquisition to the acquisition of other biological functions. For
example, every child will learn to walk as long as adequate nourishment and reasonable
freedom of movement are provided. The child does not have to be taught. Most children
learn to walk at about the same age, and walking is essentially the same in all normal human
beings. Language acquisition is very similar. The environment makes only a basic
contribution – in this case, the availability of people who speak to the child. The child, or
rather, the child's biological endowment, will do the rest. Input is needed, but only to ‘trigger’
the operation of the language acquisition device. Children acquire their mental grammar
spontaneously and without formal training. Children of the same speech community reliably
learn the same grammar. Exactly how the mental grammar comes into a child’s mind is a
puzzle. Children have to deduce the rules of their native language from sample sentences
they receive from their parents and others.

Chomsky’s claim is that humans are born with the ability to develop language naturally. This
claim is generally accepted when applied to young children acquiring a first language or
even to acquiring more than one language at an early age. The question is whether older
children and adults have the capacity to acquire additional languages in the same way that
young children acquire their first language or languages.

Input based theories (also somewhat nativist): What do they hold? Linguist/s in
association.

The first theory we are going to dive into is also the “base theory” or the most important out
of all five Input- based theories by Krashen. According to him, there’s two major devices of
L2 performance; the acquired system & the learned one. The first device also known as
‘acquisition’ is really similar in process to when a child acquires their first language in the
way that it is subconscious and that it requires meaningful interaction in the target language.
These meaningful interactions can be natural communication whether it’s with their parents
or teachers; constantly listening to it and mimicking it. On the other side, we have the
“learned system” as the phrase says it needs to be learned, formally instructed by creating a
conscious process which results in the access to the LTM (long term memory). This device
encores a more structural view of language with a deductive approach. A clear example of
this device would be the teaching and learning of grammar rules that will later lead to the
acquisition of L2. The teacher is an authority figure and the participation of the student is
predominantly passive. The student will be taught how to form interrogative and negative
sentences, will memorize irregular verbs, study modal verbs, learn how to form the perfect
tense, etc., but hardly ever masters the use of these structures in conversation.

Differences between them:

LEARNING ACQUISITION

Artificial. Natural.

FORMAL SITUATIONS FORMAL SITUATIONS

Technical. Personal.

Prioritizes written language. Priority on spoken language.

 Theory centered. Practice language in use.

Formal instruction. Meaningful interaction.

Conscious process. Subconscious process.

EXPLICIT IMPLICIT

SIMPLE TO COMPLEX ORDER OF STABLE ORDER OF ACQUISTION

LEARNING

Preset syllabus. Learner centered.

Deductive approach. Inductive.

USES GRAMMATICAL RULES USES GRAMMATICAL FEEL

Uses translation. No translation to L1.

Activities ABOUT the language. Activities IN the language.

Focused on form. Focused on communication.

Creates knowledge. Creates an ability.

DEPENDS ON APTITUDE DEPENDS ON ATTITUDE

Now that the differences between these two stages or aspects are clear, it’s much easier to
understand the correlation that they have in the process of acquiring a second language and
how important it is that they coexist to create a successful learning environment. Languages
are complex and arbitrary and full of irregularities; so the pure grammatical structures aren’t
of use to us if we don’t learn the functionalities of them, languages in use.

"Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication -

in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages
they are conveying and understanding." (Stephen Krashen)

The next tenet we’re concerned with is deeply tied with the prior one of acquisition and
learning. It is THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS. It explains the relationship between ACQ & L
and defines the influence that learning has on acquisition. The monitoring function is based
on learned grammar. According to Krashen, the acquisition is the utterance initiator while
learning “monitors and edits” that language. The monitor can plan, correct and edit when the
following three conditions are fulfilled:

· The second language learner has sufficient time at their disposal.

· They focus on form or think about correctness.

· They know the rules.

The role of conscious learning is limited in the second language. And the use of the monitor
can vary. Some learners over- use the monitors due to lack of self-confidence and some
under-use it due to perfectionism or introversion. The role of the monitor is to silently
supervise the learning environment with sometimes a correction to polish the knowledge.

Another theory we’re going to deal with is the one regarding The Natural Order of
Language Acquisition, also proposed by Krashen. It discusses that the acquisition of
grammatical structures occurs in a predictable “natural” order. This idea about
“order” applies both to L1 and L2, but, with the main difference that their “orders”
are different. For example, all second language learners usually follow the same
order; acquiring structure of yes- no questions before wh- questions. This order
remains prevalent regardless of explicit teaching or instruction. In this hypothesis
errors are seen as signs of naturalistic developmental processes.

The last hypothesis we’re going to describe is the INPUT HYPOTHESIS. This theory
tries to describe how the learner acquires the second language and how this
acquisition takes place. It is only concerned with acquisition and not learning.
*According to Krashen, the learner thrives in a l2 natural order when they receive a
l2. “input” that is one level beyond their current status of knowledge. This type of
input is known as comprehensible input or "i + 1," where "i" refers to the learner's
interlanguage. Natural communicative input is essential in the syllabus- designing
process. Now, this input has to be meaningful, comprehensible, sufficient (not too
long or too short). Also it has to be of interest to the students. The input is a verbal
experience, visual or auditory, which may consist of language in use, as when
listening to someone during a conversation, colorful visual aids, in low anxiety
situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. Krashen claims that
real acquisition happens only as a result of exposure to comprehensible input.
According to this Hypothesis, listening comprehension and reading is of primary
importance in the language program.

The Affective Filter theory encapsulates Krashen's belief that a variety of 'affective
variables' facilitate but do not cause second language acquisition. Motivation,
self-confidence, anxiousness, and personality traits are among the variables. Learners
with high drive, self-confidence, a positive self-image, low anxiety, and extroversion,
according to Krashen, are better equipped for success in second language learning.
Low motivation, low self-esteem, anxiety, introversion, and inhibition can all raise the
affective filter and create a "mental block" that inhibits intelligible input from being
used for learning. In other words, when the filter is turned on, it obstructs language
learning. Positive affect, on the other hand, is necessary, but not sufficient, for
acquisition to occur.

CHECK THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACQUISITION AND LEARNING

Behaviourist theory

-What does this theory hold?

This theory explained learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit
formation on second and foreign language teaching in the 1940s and 1970s, specially in the
United States. It was a psychological theory that stated that all behaviors are learnt through
interaction with the environment rather than the innate and inherent factors.
Behaviourism is primarily concerned with observable behaviour.
B.F. Skinner, the best-known proponent of this theory.
Classroom activities emphasized “mimicry” and “memorization” in which students learnt
dialogues and sentences patterns by heart.
Languages acquired through “imitation”
-Linguists in association, popular in …(decade, year)

-Metaphor in association
“SAY WHAT I SAY”
This metaphor is related to one of the interactions this theory implies. This has to do with the
idea of “imitation”. If there is a positive reinforcement then the behaviour is repeated.

-Stimulus, response and reinforcement. What do they refer to in language teaching?

Behaviorism as a response to environmental stimuli. It is concerned with observable
stimulus-response behaviors, as they can be studied in a systematic and observable
manner.
POSITIVE REINFORCENT: when the student reapeas correctly.
The positive reinforcement can be in the form of a smile approval, a praise or a “good job”.
If the teacher has to make a correction then the student changes the behaviour. The teacehr
reinforces the correct behaviour.
“CONDITIONING”

-What is language?
Language is a unique characteristic of human beings. The most impressive characteristic of
human development.
Language development was viewed as the formation of habits, the ones formed in the first
language. These would interfere with the new ones needed for the second language.
Behaviorism viewed “imitation and practice” as the primary process in language
development. “Imitation” has to do with word-for-word repetition of all or part of someone
else’s utterance.
As regards practice, the repetitive manipulation of form is taken into account.
-What does it help us understand about learning?
This theory offers a reasonable way of understanding how children learn about regular and
routine aspects of language, especially at the earliest stages.
-Why is it related to the ‘chunking theory’?
It is related to the process of creating a new chunk, which can be seen as a collection of
elements that have associations with one another. These are used by memory and cognitive
systems.
-Role of the environment
Environmental factors have an active role and a strong influence in behavior.

COGNITIVISM

It´s connected with a shift …why?

‘Cognitive shifting’ Is the ability to adapt to changes in the environment when a person
undergoes a new experience. Cognitive shifts can occur with or without the aid of an
externally ingested psychoactive (like LSD or peyote).

For example: when you're getting ready to have breakfast and you realize that there's no
milk left. What do you do? Do you get mad and go to school or work without eating? Do you
go to a café and eat there? Do you have something else for breakfast? Cognitive shifting
allows you to think about other options when your original plan is altered with an unexpected
change.

Key Concepts
 - LEARNING IS EXPLAINED as a recall of stored information.

- LEARNER is proactive (‘taking action by causing change and not only reacting to
change when it happens’).

- SCHEMA/SCHEMATA allow learners to reason about unfamiliar learning situations

and interpret these situations in terms of their generalized knowledge.
- In cognitive and educational psychology, schema-based learning is grounded in
capturing and using expert-generated schemas as frameworks for teaching and
learning. Schemas can be learned to promote the acquisition of new scientific
knowledge and skills. It allows the brain to work more efficiently.
There are 4 main types of schemata:
● Objects help to interpret inanimate objects. They inform people’s
understanding of what objects are, how they should function, and what
someone can expect from them.
● The self used to describe the knowledge that people accumulate about
themselves by interacting with the natural world and with other human beings.
In turn, this influences peoples' behavior towards others and their motivations.
(Lemme 2006)
● Roles invoke knowledge about how people are supposed to behave, based
on their roles, in particular social situations (Callero, 1994).
● Events describe behavioral and event sequences and daily activities. These
provide a basis for anticipating the future, setting objectives, and making
plans.

Schemas can be changed or reconstructed throughout a person’s life. The two

processes for this are:
● Assimilation (new information becomes incorporated into pre-existing
schemas. Piaget 1976)
● Accommodation (existing schemas may be altered or new ones formed as a
person learns new information or has new experiences.This may lead to the
creation of new schema altogether).

HOW DOES LEARNING OCCUR?

Cognitivist theories stress the acquisition of knowledge and internal mental structures and,
such as, are closer to the end of epistemology continuum (bower & hilgard 1981). Learning
is equated with discrete changes between states of knowledge rather than with changes in
the probability of response. Cognitive theories focus on the conceptualization of students’
learning processes and address the issues of how information is received, organized, stores,
and retrieved by the mind. Learning is concerned not so much with what learners do but with
what they know and how they come to acquire it (Jonassen 1991). Cognitivism is a learning
theory that focuses on how information is received, organized, stored and retrieved by the
mind.

-How is knowledge seen?

Knowledge acquisition is described as a mental activity that entails internal coding and
structuring by the learner. (very active participant in the learning process).
Knowledge is seen as something that is actively constructed by learners based on their
existing cognitive structures. Therefore, learning is relative to their stage of cognitive
development, and understanding the learner’s existing intellectual framework is central to
understanding the learning process.

-How is learning defined?

‘Learning’ is seen as a mental process that involves activating pre-existing (prior)

EWSknowledge and gathering information from previous experiences to make sense of our
world. While thinking upon learning we need to think upon knowledge as a change in the
learner's schemata.

-Metaphor in association

The metaphor is the mind seen as a computer. comparing language acquisition to the
capacities of computers for storing, integrating, and retrieving information. Some draw on
neurobiology, seeking to relate observed behavior as directly as possible to brain activity.
The mind is basically an internal processor that uses our internally stored information and
connects it to external factors in order to create new learning.

-Importance of mental processes

Mental processes are very important in this theory. Because it basically focuses on the
mental processes that occur in the brain of people when it comes to acquiring
knowledge.The name of the theory comes from the word ‘cognition’ that is the process of
gaining knowledge and understanding through senses, experience and through the senses,
experience and thought. It merges cognition and learning to explain the different processes
involved in learning effectively.

According to Piaget and the Awareness Theory, there is linguistic development if there
is a cognitive foundation. Which is the connection with Piaget's stages of cognitive
development?

The awareness Theory ‘It suggests that intelligence changes as children grow up. A child's
cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge, the child will develop or
construct a mental model of the world. Cognitive development occurs through the interaction
of innate capacities and environmental events, and children pass through a series of stages.’
(Jean Piaget)

Within learners’ minds is all the information, all the knowledge they possess, they have
‘schema’. All the schemas together are said to be the schemata, is the knowledge
possessed. While thinking upon learning we need to think upon knowledge as a change in
the learner's schemata. A change in learners' mental constructions, ‘change’ because new
information is being added to the schemas that are already in their mind, they will have to
accommodate their pre-existing schema and add the new ones.

According to Piaget and the awareness theory, there is linguistic development if there is
cognitive foundation.

Interactionist theories: what do they hold? What do social interactionists stress?

Interactionist - developmental theories combine the innate and environmental aspects
to explain language learning. According to this theory, children learn the language out
of a desire to communicate with the world around them. Language emerges from and
is dependent upon, social interaction. The interactionist approach claims that if our
language ability develops out of a desire to communicate, then language is dependent
upon whom we want to communicate. this means the environment you grow up in will
heavily affect how well and how quickly you learn to talk. Also, this theory recognizes
a powerful learning mechanism in the human brain so we can say that language is
considered both a social and biological process.

Social interactionist stress:

● the importance of a child’s interactions with parents and other caregivers
● the importance of motherese that is the way the caretaker speaks to the child
● contributions of context and world knowledge
● the importance of goals

-Linguists in association
Vygotsky conclude that language develops primarily from social interaction and that
in this interaction language is essentially internalized speech, and speech emerged.
He also considers that the conversations that children have with adults and other
children are important because these conversations are the origins of language and
thought.
-What is particular among speakers while interacting?
When faced with learning English as a second language, the student is essentially an
infant. They cannot communicate with the teacher except through non-verbal
communication. Therefore, it is up to the teacher to act as the adult in the infant-adult
relationship. He or she is responsible for leading all interaction at first, and as the
student becomes more familiar with the English language and able to communicate,
the control of the interaction can be relinquished a bit and the students can take more
control of their own language learning. Also, if students are encouraged to
experiment with the language and learn that it is okay to make mistakes, they will be
able to discover for themselves how to combine words and phrases to form full
sentences and dialogues.
learners can benefit from taking part in interaction because of a variety of
developmentally helpful opportunities, conditions, and processes that interaction can
expose them. These include input, negotiation, output, feedback, and attention.
-What is modified interaction? Why is it important?
Modified interaction is the technique to make language comprehensible while
students speak between them. It is usually in the form of clarification requests,
confirmation checks, repetition, and among others
Motherese/teacherese. What is it? Characteristics. Importance.

GIVE and TAKE input. it is related to communication, the coming and going
information. it has to be with the bidirectionality of language
Input is provided by the caretaker or other adults.
If the language is used by the caretaker it is called MOTHERESE
If the language is used by a teacher it is called TECHEARESE, and the teacher in
order to help the students to develop the language use:
- repetition
- simple sentence structure
- paraphrasing
- Slow pace
- Diminutive
- reduplicative (onomatopoeia words)
- Affectionate speech
- Concrete meanings (things they know, things that are present, things they can
perceive with their senses)
-
Adults often repeat the content of a child’s utterances, but they expand or recast it
into a grammatically correct sentence. it is a kind of affectionate speech because you
are trying to create an emotional bond with the child, the purpose of using this kind of
language has to do with teaching the child the basic structure of language,
responding to someone else, and at the same time the question of creating an
emotional bond necessary to have this sense of respect towards the child and the
sense of love.

Developmental psychology: Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner. How do children learn?

Vygotsky.

-How does he see the child?

The child as social; he gives importance to language and to other people in the child’s world.
The development of the child's first language in the second year of life is held to generate a
fundamental shift in cognitive development. Language provides the child with a new tool,
opens up new opportunities for doing things and for organizing information through the use
of words as symbols. Young children can often be heard talking to themselves and
organizing themselves as they carry out tasks or play, in what is called private speech. As
children get older they speak less and less aloud, and differentiate between social speech
for others and "inner speech", which continues to play an important role in regulating and
controlling behavior.
Vygotsky distinguishes the outward talk and what is happening in the child's mind
considering the early speech of infants and its development into language. The infant begins
with using single words, but these words convey whole messages: when a child says juice,
s/he may mean I want some more juice or my juice has spilt.

-Which are the key factors?

Private speech
Speech for others
Outwards talk and what is happening in child’s mind

-Which is the role of adults?

Adults play important roles in helping children to learn, bringing objects and ideas to their
attention, talking while playing and about playing, reading stories, asking questions. They
mediate the world for children and make it accessible to them. We can use the idea that the
adult tries to mediate what next it is the child can learnWith the help of adults, children can
do and understand much more than they can on their own.

-Where do development and learning take place?

Vygotsky says that development and learning take place in a social context, I.e in a world full
of other people, who interact with the child from birth onwards.

-ZPD: what is it? Importance

Vygotsky used the idea of the ZPD (zone of proximal development) to give a new meaning to
"intelligence". He suggested that intelligence was better measured by what a child can do
with skilled help. Different children at the same point in development will make different uses
of the same help from an adult.

-Contrast/ compare Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s perception of the child.

For Piaget the child is an active learner alone in a world of objects, and for Vygotsky the
child is an active learner in a world full of other people.

BRUNER
-Scaffolding. What is it? Importance in teaching…How does it help learners?
For Bruner, language is the most important tool for cognitive growth. Based on the way
adults use language to mediate the world for children and help them solve problems, there
has been a replica inside the classroom. This use of language is called Scaffolding and it is
carried out by means of a supportive talk for a child who is carrying out an activity. Bruner
has provided a further useful idea for language teaching in his notions of formats and
routines. These are features of events that allow scaffolding to take place, and combine the
security of the familiar with the excitement of the new. Bruner's most useful example of a
routine is of parents reading stories to their children from babyhood onwards. Routines will
open up many possibilities for developing language skills. Empirically sustained by
experiments with American mothers, scaffolding has been translated to the classroom in the
following way:

Teachers can help children to By

attend to what is relevant suggesting

praising the significant

providing focusing activities

adopt useful strategies encouraging rehearsal

being explicit about organization

remember the whole task and goals reminding

modelling

providing part-whole activities