Second Language Acquisition Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Fita Ariyana 2201410075 Rombel 7 (Thursday 9 am)

Chapter 1 Introduction: describing and explaining L2 acquisition

‘second language acquisition’? What is ‘second language acquisition’? the study of the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or outside of a classroom

What are the goals of SLA? Description => describing how L2 acquisition proceeds Explanation => identifying the external and intenal factors that account for way learners acquire an L2 in the way they do

The input that learner’s receive External Factors The social milieu in which learning takes place => social conditions of native speakers (language and attitudes) influence the learners The input that learner’s receive => the samples of language to which a learner is exposed

Internal Factors Learners possess cognitive mechanisms which enable them to extract information about the L2 from the input Learners bring an enormous amount of knowledge to the task of learning an L2 - knowing the mother tongue - possessing general knowledge about the world to understand L2 input - possessing communication strategies to make effective use of L2 knowledge Learners are equipped with knowledge of how language in general works

Two Case Studies A case study is a detailed study of learner’s acquisition of an L2 Typically longitudinal, involving the collection of samples of the learner’s speech and writing over a period of time

A Case Study of an Adult Learner Through the result of Richard Schmidt’s research about Wes that is a ‘naturalistic’ adult learner – someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it, we know that: Wes had not really acquired the grammar of English, e.g. in using progressive –ing ‘So yesterday I didn’t painting.’

But, in fact, Wes was adept at identifying the fixed phrases, e.g. ‘Hi! How’s it?’ ‘So, what’s new?’, etc. => those phrases help Wes develop fluency in using English

A Case Study of Two child Learners Another study is a case study of two child learners in a classroom context in London that are J and R. The research was focused on performing requests for services and goods. The result of the research were: Their requests tended to be very direct, e.g. making requests by asking questions or giving hints. ‘This paper is not very good to color blue.’ (wanting other colored piece of paper)

The learner’s requests were generally very simple, e.g. ‘Give me a paper.’ The learners used the same range of request strategies, e.g. they said the same request for their teacher or their friends.

What do those case studies show us? raising a number of important methodological issues relating to how L2 acquisition should be studied raising issues relating to the description of learner language. Pointing to some of the problems researches experience in trying to explain L2 acquisition

Methodological Issues The learner acquired the ability to perform a single language function. The learner has acquired a feature of the target language. => conflating what learners know with what they can do, e.g. Wes might know how to make plurals although he does not always add an -s to a plural noun

Determining whether learner has acquired a particular features. => using fixed expressions or formulas without having acquired the ability to use the feature productively. Trying to measure whether acquisition has taken place concerns learner’s overuse of linguistic forms => e.g. the incorrect grammatical feature of using the form of the present progressive.

Issues in the Description of Learner Language Learners make errors of different kinds => e.g. one might make omission and overuse errors, and others make sociolinguistic errors. L2 learners acquire a large number of formulaic chunks => to perform communicative functions

The role that the formulas play => enhancing learners’ performance and acquisition of an L2 Whether learners acquire the language systematically or not

Issues in the Explanation of L2 Acquisition The acquisition in the learners of the research were incomplete, it is because perhaps: The learners needed more time to learn. L2 learners, unlike children acquiring their L1, just stop learning. Learners are only motivated to learn L2 to the extent that they are able to satisfy their communicative needs.

The learners did not wish to belong to the community of native speakers. They did not start very young when their brains are open to language. They did not receive direct instruction in them about difficult language feature.

Thank you…