Second Acquisition Ch.

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1. Background to Second Language Acquisition Research and
Language Teaching

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Introduction

• An L2 affects people’s careers and possible futures, theirs lives and

their very identities.

• In a world where more people speak two languages than one, the
acquisition and use of L2s are vital.

• In essence, monolinguals are almost an endangered species.

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1.1 The Scope of the Course

1. To communicate to language teachers some ideas how people acquire L2s.

2. To understand the results from the disciplines of SLA research.

3. To guide the teachers and learners what to do in the classrooms.

4. To adopt the ideas of the multi-competence perspectives.

5. To use English as an L2 because it is the chief language investigated in SLA.

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1.2 Common Assumptions of Language Teaching

Assumption 1 – The basis for teaching is the spoken, not the written language.

Cuba (1999)
•“The principle of the primacy of spoken language” – the emphasis on the spoken language
•Spoken language must be presented from tape before the students saw the written form.

1.Communication in the communicative method is usually through speech rather than

writing.
2.The Total Physical Response (TPR) method uses spoken, not written, commands and
storytelling, not story reading.
3.Tasks are directed at oral skills, particularly speaking.
4.Speech is the primary form of language and writing depends on speech.
5.Writing is not the presentation of speech sound. Writing has its own grammar,
vocabulary, and conventions.

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1.2 Common Assumptions of Language Teaching

Assumption 2 – Teachers and students should use the L2 rather than the L1 in the classroom.

The use of L1 in the classroom is undesirable.

1.In England, ‘the natural use of the target language for virtually all communication
is a sure sign of a good language course.’

2.In Japan, ‘in principle, English should be selected for foreign language activities.’

3.In almost every teaching manual, ‘the need to have students practicing English,
rather than their L1’, remains paramount.

4.Coordinate bilingualism: two languages are separate  not supported by SLA

research.
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1.2 Common Assumptions of Language Teaching

Assumption 3 – Teachers should avoid explicit discussion of grammar.

Grammar could be practiced through drills or incorporated with communicative

exercise but should not be explained to students.

1.Grammatical rules can be shown through tables or cues, but actual rules should
not be mentioned.

2.Knowing some grammar of language consciously is no guarantee that you can use
it in speech.

3.Speaking by consciously using all the grammatical rules means each sentence may
take several minutes to produce.

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1.2 Common Assumptions of Language Teaching

Assumption 4 – The aim of language teaching is to make students like native speakers.

1. This assumption has been taken for granted: the native speaker’s competence,
proficiency, vocabulary …

2. Being like a native speaker is the ultimate test of success.

3. But ‘why do you want to be like a native speaker in any case?’

4. This 130-year-old Assumption 4 has come under increasing attack in recent years.

5. A native-speaker goal is not appropriate in all circumstances and it is unattainable by

the vast majority of students. But this assumption is still part of the basis of language
teaching, but the winds of proper view may blow.

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1.3 What ‘Is’ Second Language Acquisition Research?

Contrastive Analysis (CA): This research method compared the descriptions of L1

and L2 in grammar and pronunciation to predict the differences between them.

•If L1 lacks ‘th’ or ‘f’, then learners may have problems with English ‘this’ or
‘five’.

Error Analysis (EA): This research method looked at the differences between L2
speech and that of native speakers, to investigate any characteristics.

•All L2 learners go through similar stages, but the speed is different.

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According to various L2 research:

1. School children who are more exposed to English read their L1 better.

2. People who speak an L2 are more creative and flexible at problem-solving than monolinguals.

3. L2 users think differently and perceive the world differently than monolinguals.

4. Children learning L2 English go through stages of (1) only -ing at 5, (2) at 7, regular verb inflections and
then irregular ABC verb inflections, (3) at 9, irregular AAA verb inflections.

5. L2 learners go through similar stages of development of an L2 whether in grammar and in pronunciation.

6. The knowledge of the L1 is affected in subtle ways by the L2 that you know.

7. L2 users no longer have the same knowledge of their first language as the monolingual native speaker.

8. L2 leaners rapidly learn the appropriate pronunciations ‘going’ and grammar ‘What’s up?’ for their own
gender. This kind of element is important to their identity in the L2.

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1.4 What a Teacher Can Expect from SLA Research?

Understanding the Students’ Contribution to Learning

1.All successful teaching depends on learning. There is no point in providing any kinds of excellent
language lessons if students do not learn from them.

2.With the exception of young bilingual children, L2 learners have fully formed personalities and
minds (i.e. motivations) when they start learning the L2.

3.The different ways in which students handle learning also affect their success. What is happening
in the class is not equally productive for all the students because their minds work in different ways.

4.However advanced they are, students will find that their memory works less well in the new
language, no matter how and what they try to do.

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Understanding How Teaching Methods and Techniques Work

1.Grammar-translation teaching emphasizes explanations of grammatical points for conscious

knowledge.

2.Communicative teaching methods require the students to talk to each other for the give-and-take of
communication.

3.More information about how learners actually learn helps the teacher to make any method more
effective.

4.The reasons why a teaching technique works or does not work depend on many factors like
‘technique implementation’, ‘student types’, ‘classroom situations’, etc.

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Understanding the Goals of Language Teaching
1.The reasons the L2 is taught depend on overall educational goals, which greatly vary from
countries to every individual and from one period to another.

2.Goals: exam, job, travel, thinking, treatment, immigrate, communicate, etc.

3.This information is vital when considering the viability and implementation of goals for a
particular group of students.

4.The choice of what to do in a particular class or lesson depends on the teacher’s assessment of the
factors involved in teaching ‘those’ students in ‘that’ situation.

5.SLA research reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of a particular teaching method or
technique and it provides information that can influence and guide teaching.

6.Teachers are seldom at liberty to follow their own teaching paths but have to follow those paths
mapped by governments, institutions, books, exam boards, etc.

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1.5 Some Background Ideas of SLA Research

(1) SLA research is independent of language teaching.

1.Second language: L2 for immediate use within the country of L2 where L2 is learned with native speakers.

2.Foreign language: L2 for long-term future use and usually within the country of L1, where L2 is learned in a place it
is not used.

3.However, much SLA discussion does not accept the distinction between SL and FL. A lot times, L2 can mean either
of the two.

4.A more idiosyncratic use is the distinction between L2 user and L2 learner.

5.To SLA researchers, grammar mostly means some knowledge in the mind which learners use for constructing
sentences.

6.To teachers, grammar means a set of rules on paper which can be explained to students. Then which grammar is vital
to humans?

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(2) L2 learning is independent of L1 acquisition.

1.Learning a first language is learning how to mean – discovering that language is used for relating to other people and for
communicating ideas.

2.People learning a second language already know how to mean and know that other people have minds of their own.

3.L2 learning is inevitably different in this respect from L1 learning, except of course for the early simultaneous bilingual.

4.The two forms of learning may well be rather similar, in others quite different – after all the outcome is often very different.

5.L2 learners in fact are different from children learning a first language since there is already one language present in their
minds.

6.L2 learners cannot become a monolingual native speaker by definition.

7.The presence of the first language is the inescapable difference in L2 learning.

8.One difference is that in L2 acquisition, learners may have to imitate sentences, but ‘imitation’ is almost impossible in L1
acquisition.

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(3) L2 learning is more than the transfer of the first language.

1.L1 transfer: the effects of L1 on L2 for pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, gesture …

2.Common linguistic elements in L1 and L2 help L2 learners, and different ones hinder them.

3.L1 transfer indeed turns out to be important for L2 learning.

(4) Learners have independent language systems of their own.

1.L2 learner tries to say “I am not going to school” but “Me go no school”

2.A Korean L2 learner intends to say “We are Koreans” but utter “Us is Korean”.

3.What happened? Has the learner not acquired the grammar or is it L2 transfer?

4.The assumption is that the student’s sentence should be compared to one produced by a native speaker,
because people assume that native-like speech is often a goal for the students.

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5. But that is what many students want to be, not what they are at the moment. Students are being judged by the
perspectives of native speakers. But they are not native speakers.

6. SLA research insists that learners have to be judged by the proper standards, not by those speech produced by
native speakers.

7. Those erroneous ‘mistakes’ are actually regular patterns in the students’ own knowledge of English. They are only
wrong when measured against native speech.

8. Learner sentences related to their own present language systems when they produce (say or write) the sentence, not
related to the native’s version of English.

9. Learner sentences come from the learners’ own language system. Their L2 speech shows rules and patterns of its
own, and different from native English.

10. L2 can be idiosyncratic and constantly changing, they are in fact systematic. Very systematic!

11. The Independent Language Assumption – Learners are not distorting the native system of a language on purpose,
but they are inventing a language system of their own.

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1. The interlanguage concept had a major impact on teaching techniques in the 1970s.

2. Students’ mistakes were considered to be serious under the teaching methods that used drills and grammatical
explanations. Mistakes due to not properly learning the ‘habit’ of speaking; not understanding the grammatical
rules.

3. In communicative language teaching methods of the 1970s and 1980s and the task-based learning of the 1990s …
learner sentences reflect the temporary language systems, not some kind of imperfect or defective production of
the native language.

4. If a student makes a ‘mistake’, it is not the fault of the teacher or the student, but an inevitable and natural part of
the learning process.

5. Students’ mistakes are in fact only minor irritants rather than major hazards.

6. Not fully adopted in SLA research, but we have the knowledge of our first language and also the knowledge of
interlanguage. These two languages coexist in the same mind.

7. Multi-Competence: the knowledge of two language systems in the same mind.

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[Questions]

1. What teaching methods do you believe in? What evidence do you have for the success?

2. If the native speaker is not the model, what should an L2 learner aim at?

3. What would you do to a student in the class who is not motivated to learn an L2?

4. How would you correct the spoken sentences for students?

•Me go no school.
•I love my mom. He is so nice.
•I had lice for lunch.
•She don’t like me.
•Give me hamburger two, cola one.

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The End of Ch.1

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