Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition

The Five Hypotheses

Acquisition-Learning Distinction

Acquisition-Learning Distinction

We acquire language in only one way: when we understand messages; that is, when we obtain Comprehensible Input. Language acquisition is effortless. It involves no energy, no work. All an acquirer has to do is understand messages. Language acquisition is involuntary.

Difference of Acquisition and Learning

• Language acquisition: Subconscious process.
• Language learning: Conscious knowledge. Acquisition is slow and subtle, while learning is fast and, for some people, obvious.

Why Direct Instruction Can’t Account for Literacy Development

1. Language is too vast and complex to be taught or learned.
   • Appear to have the same meaning often refer to slightly different concepts or are used in slightly different ways.
2. Literacy development can occur without formal instruction.
3. The impact of direct instruction is typically small or nonexistent.
   • There’s no significant correlations between the amount of explicit vocabulary instruction and gains in reading comprehension and vocabulary.

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Natural Order Hypotheses

Natural Order Hypotheses

TABLE 2.1 “Average” order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes for English as a second language (children and adults)

The acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a predictable order. Child first language order != child second language order = adult second language order.

The natural order cannot be changed. It is immune to deliberate teaching. We cannot alter the natural order by explanations, drills, and exercises.

Examples of Natural Order

Negative Sentence Forming

1. Negate sentences by placing a negative marker (such as “no”) outside (No the sun is shining). 
2. Puts the negative marker between the subject and the verb (I no want envelope). 
3. Use the word “don’t” for negation (You don’t want some supper). Where the “don’t” is used as an equivalent for “no.”
4. The negative system approaches the native speaker standard, and don’t is reanalyzed.

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Monitor Hypothesis

Monitor Hypothesis

Acquisition “initiates” our utterances in a second language and is responsible for our fluency. Learning has only one function, and that is as a Monitor, or editor.

Fig 2.1. Acquisition and learning in second language production.

Second language performers can use conscious rules only when three conditions are met:

1. Time
2. Focus on form
3. Know the rule The conditions are necessary and not sufficient.

Individual variation in Monitor use

• monitor over-users: Attempt to Monitor all the time. Constantly checking their output. Cannot speak with any real fluency.
• monitor under-users: Prefer not to use their conscious knowledge, even when conditions allow it. Self-correction only works by using a “feel” for correctness, and rely completely on the acquired system.
• optimal monitor users: Use the Monitor when it is appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication (e.g. writing, planned speech, and grammar test).

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Input Hypothesis

Input Hypothesis

Compelling Comprehensible Input

We acquire language and develop literacy when we understand messages. For optimal acquisition, input should be more than interesting: it should be compelling.

Motivation to acquire another language or improve in aspects of literacy (e.g., increase one’s vocabulary or writing ability) becomes less important, or may even become unimportant, when what is heard or read is compelling.

A necessary (but not sufficient) condition to move from stage i(now) to stage i+1(a little beyond) is that the acquirer understand input that contains i+1, where “understand” means that the acquirer is focussed on the meaning and not the form of the message. The best input is so interesting and relevant that the acquirer may even “forget” that the message is actually encoded in a foreign language.

Modified Inputs

Caretaker-speech aims to be comprehensible, and the here and now property provides extra-linguistic support (context). Modified inputs (foreigner-talk, teacher-talk, interlanguage-talk) have similar property of the caretaker-speech. Characteristics of foreigner talk: slowing down, repeating, restating, changing wh-questions to yes or no questions.

Interlanguage is meant for communication and might contain input at some acquirers’ i+1. However, there is a question whether the ungrammaticality of much interlanguage talk outweighs these factors. Also, much interlanguage talk input might be too simple and may not contain i+1 for the more advanced acquirer.

Readers are able to acquire more vocabulary from altered (Rewritten to be more “facilitative” or “considerate”) texts, readers still acquire an impressive amount from original, unaltered texts.

Silent Period

Child is building up competence in the second language via listening, by understanding the surrounding language. Speaking ability emerges on its own after enough competence has been developed by listening and understanding.

L1 plus Monitor Mode

Performers who are asked to produce before they are “ready” (forced output) will fall back on first language(L1) rules, that is, they will use syntactic rules of their first language when a second language rule is needed in production but is not available. It may temporarily enhance production, but may not be real progress in the second language.

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Affective Filter

Affective Filter

Fig 2.2. Operation of the “affective filter.”

Affective Variables

1. Motivation: Performers with high motivation generally do better in second language acquisition.
2. Self-confidence: Performers with self-confidence and a good self-image tend to do better in second language acquisition.
3. Anxiety: Low anxiety is helpful to second language acquisition, whether measured as personal or classroom anxiety.

Effects of Affective Filter

• More prone to interaction and thus get more input
• Let the input in for further language acquisition.

Insisting on too-early production before the student is “ready” raises the filter. A safe procedure is simply not to force production and let the student decide when to start talking. It raises the filter by attempting to correct errors, especially in beginning stages and especially in spoken language. It makes student try to avoid mistakes, avoid difficult constructions, focus less on meaning and more on form. Therefore, it is safe simply to eliminate error correction entirely in communicative-type activities.

The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. He had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed like such an easy language to me that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Ah yes,” the major said, “Why then, do you not take up the use of grammar?” So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my mind. (E. Hemingway, Men Without Women, 1997)

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The Causative Variable in Second Language Acquisition

Pronunciation

1. The acquirer’s first language (speakers of Arabic and Farsi were superior to speakers of Japanese and Thai).
2. The amount of interaction with English speakers.
3. Performance on a test of phonetic ability.
4. The degree of concern the speaker had about his accent. The amount of formal classroom training did not relate to pronunciation ability, even when courses were specifically aimed at teaching pronunciation.

Age

1. Adults proceed through the early stages of second language development faster than children do.
2. Older children acquire faster than younger children.
3. Acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as adults.

Older acquirers were better at encouraging speech and at getting the native speaker to modify it for greater comprehensibility. They could, for example, ask for help, change the topic, and direct the conversation better. They had, in other words, more “conversational competence”. Thus, despite the simpler input directed at the younger children, it is likely that older acquirers actually get more comprehended input, and this may be a key factor in their faster initial progress

Providing Input for Acquisition

The Role of Language Classroom

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The Role of Output

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Optimal Input

Optimal Input

Acquisition curves for conversational, printed, and informal input.

It is practically impossible for someone to acquire a second or foreign language merely by listening or watching to the radio or the TV, unless the acquirer speaks a very closely related language, because the input would be only “noise”.

Ways can Promote Comprehension

Linguistic Ways

1. Slower rate and clearer articulation. (It helps identify word boundaries and allows more processing time)
2. More use of high frequency vocabulary, less slang, fewer idioms.
3. Syntactic simplification, shorter sentences. Consciously referring to these “rules” might be helpful on occasion, but we make these adjustments automatically when we focus on trying to make ourselves understood.

Non-linguistic Ways

• providing extra-linguistic support (e.g. physical props, and pictures) for beginning classes is a very important for encouraging language acquisition.

Quantity Requirements for Higher Levels of Proficiency

FSI estimate of the amount of class time necessary to achieve an FSI 2+ (about B2) rating: 720h for European languages and 1950h for Exotic languages (Arabic, Korean, Chinese).

Level	Hours (Accumulated)	Sample Texts
2K	22	Graded readers
3K	33 (55)	Graded readers
4K	56 (111)	Boxcar Children, Sweet Valley Kids
5K	112 (223)	Goosebumps, Agatha Christie novels
6K	167 (390)	Sweet Valley High, Twilight, John Grisham novels
7K	222 (612)	Tom Swift, The Master Spy (Gask)
8K	278 (890)	Zane Grey novels, Hunger Games
9K	333 (1223)

Level: K = 1000 word families Cumulative hours of reading required for each 1000 word level. (Nation, 2014)

Texts that can be read at 98% coverage at a given 1,000 word family level are used to help readers acquire words in the next 1,000 word level.

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Conversational Competence

Conversational Competence

Conversational competence can help the acquirer gain more Comprehensible Input.

Techniques that increase input quantity

• Memorizing routines for starting a conversation, and use some fillers (e.g., “um”, “uh”, “well”, “you know”, “I mean”, “let me see”).

Miguel: Hi! How are ya? NS: Okay. Miguel: What’s new? NS: Not much. Had a test today. Miguel: Oh that’s too bad. What test?

Techniques that make input more comprehensible

• Asking the native speaker for help (Focussing on a single problem word by repeating it and utterances such as “What?”, or “I don’t understand”)

NS: Salvador Dali also put out a cookbook because he is a great expert on cuisine. Miguel: (looking confused): Cookbook? NS: (picking up a cookbook): Recipes from Maxime’s, places like that.

• Provide evidence that the conversational partner is following the conversation.
• Changing the subject to something easier to understand or more familiar

NS: … I like classical music too—Beethoven, Schubert—you know that kinda stuff. Miguel: You play the piano? Joe: Yeah. Miguel: Me too.

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The Role of Grammar

The Role of Grammar

Grammar can be used with some profit as a Monitor. Also, it can be used as subject-matter, or for “language appreciation”.

What Can be Monitored

The third condition of for Monitor use (Know the rule) drastically limits Monitor use. Rules of English $⊋$ Formal linguists’ knowledge $⊋$ Applied linguists’ knowledge $⊋$ Best teachers’ knowledge $⊋$ Rules taught $⊋$ Rules actually learned by the best students $⊋$ Rules used in performance For this reason, even the best students will be able to learn and utilize a small part of the grammar of a language as a conscious Monitor.

Rule Learnability

	Simple Form	Complex Form
Simple Meaning	third-person singular ending capitalize the first letter of every sentence	forming a “wh- questions”
Complex Meaning	definite and indefinite article	uses of the comma and semicolon
The Matrix of Rule Learnability

Rules to be learned should thus meet these three requirements:

1. Learnable (simple form and simple meaning).
2. Portable (readily accessible knowledge).
3. Not yet acquired.

Permutations and movements of constituents from one part of a sentence to another are quite difficult to do “in your head” while in the middle of a conversation or even when writing for content. For example, forming a “wh- questions” involves following operations:

1. Placing the “wh- word” first (She reads what → What she reads).
2. Performing subject-auxiliary inversion, unless there is a helping verb (No auxiliary is present).
3. Performing “do-support” (What she reads → What do she reads).
4. Inflecting “do” correctly for tense and number (What do she reads → What does she read?).

Table 4.1 4.2 Morpheme order obtained in monitor and monitor-free condition (Order: relative accuracy)

Morpheme	Free I	Edited I	Free II	Edited II
ing	0.87	0.85	0.88	0.82
copula	0.79	0.95	0.86	0.85
plural	0.82	0.82	0.77	0.78
article	0.86	0.85	0.76	0.83
auxiliary	0.82	0.79	0.77	0.76
irregular past	0.69	0.81	0.82	0.77
third person singular	0.54	0.61	0.32	0.65

• Free: “write as much as you can” in five minutes.
• Edited: “pay careful attention to grammar and spelling and take your time”. Table 4.3 Accuracy differences in free and edited conditions for grammatical morphemes

Accuracy of Self-correction

Fig. 4.1. Self-correction accuracy.

When performers focus on form they can increase accuracy in unacquired but learned parts of grammar. However, the effects of self-correction on accuracy is modest. Second language performers can typically self-correct only a small percentage of their errors, even when deliberately focussed on form.

Error correction

Error correction affects learned competence by informing the learner that his or her current version of a conscious rule is wrong. It can be effective on written work and grammar exercises, though not in free conversation. This process can work if the rules are learnable, portable, and not yet acquired. In addition, frequency, contributions to communication, and irritability may be relevant

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Approaches to Language Teaching

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