LEARNING AND ACQUISITION

1. The main way that children acquire L1: by exposure to it, i.e. by hearing
and/or reading it all around us and without saying it. Then they pick it up
automatically, i.e. learn it without realizing.
2. A subconscious process: = no conscious attention to lg. forms.
3. Acquisition is more important for natural, fluent communication.
4. Lrs should be exposed to comprehensible input.
5. How learners learn L2: three ways
we learn L2 by picking up language, interacting and
communicating, and focusing on form.
6. Learners listen to and read items of language for a long time before they
begin to use them. (a silent period)
7. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural
communication - in which speakers concentrate not in the form of their
utterances, but in the communicative act.
8. In non-technical language, acquisition is 'picking-up' a language.
9. LEARNING : A conscious process of study and attention to form & rule
learning.
10. Lrs. are given formal instruction, they may know rules but fail to apply
them
11. Learning refers to the 'learned system' or 'learning' is the product of
formal instruction of a second language and it comprises a concious
process which results in conscious knowledge 'about' the language:
knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about
them.
12. According to Krashen, 'learning' is less important than 'acquisition'.
13. Input: What students hear or read. Output: what Ss speak or write.
14. Comprehensible/roughly-tuned input: forms and structures which
are just beyond the learner’s current level of competence in the lg/ 'input'
that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence.
15. the Input hypothesis is only concerned with 'acquisition', not
'learning'.
16. Krashen suggests that natural communicative input is the key to
designing a syllabus
17. Evidences for the input hypothesis can be found in the effectiveness of
caretaker speech, of teacher talk, and of foreigner talk.
18. Baseline talk is the kind of talk a native speaker addresses other native
speakers.
19. Modified input= Adjusted speech
20. 1st lg: child-directed speech/ caretaker talk/mother talk/motherese/baby
talk
21. 2nd lg: foreigner talk/teacher talk
22. Caretaker talk/motherese/mother talk/baby talk is the way parents talk to
little children
• Features of caretaker talk:
o slower rate of speech
o higher pitch
o more varied intonation
o shorter, simpler sentence patterns
o frequent repetition
o paraphrase
o topic of conversation are limited
23. Foreigner talk/teacher talk : Native speakers (NS) modify their
speech when communicating with Non-native speakers (NNS)
24. Two types of Foreigner Talk: grammatical and ungrammatical
25. comprehensible input ( i+1) [ right level of input is attained
automatically when interlocutors succeed in making themselves
understood in com. , using context + kinds of input modifications
found in FT]
26. According to Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis, L2 acquisition takes place
when a learner understands input that contains grammatical forms that are ‘ i+I
 ’(i.e. are a little more advanced than the current state of the learner’s
interlanguage)
27. According to Krashen, then, L2 acquisition depends on comprehensible
input.
28. Michael Long’s interaction hypothesis also emphasizes the importance
of comprehensible input but claims that it is most effective when it is modified
through the negotiation of meaning.
29. Learners can signal that they have not understood. This results in
interactional modifications as the participants in the discourse engage in
the negotiation of meaning.
30. Michael Long proposed that input modification and interaction
modification when combined facilitates second language acquisition more
efficiently than other alternatives.
31. Asking for a clarification, rephrasing and confirming what you have
understood are all strategies for the negotiation of meaning.
32. The language input they received had to be comprehensible, even if it was
slightly above their productive level, and the students had to be exposed to it
in a relaxed setting. (roughly-tuned input/ comprehensible input)
33. The finely-tuned input of much language instruction, where specific
graded language has been chosen for conscious learning. Roughly-tuned
input aids acquisition, Krashen argued, whereas finely-tuned input
combined with conscious learning does not.
34. Finely-tune input is the language right at learner's level.
35. Roughly-tune input is the language beyond learners' level.