2 EXPLAINING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

Knowing a language may be an advantage in the sense that they have and idea of how languages
work. On the other hand, knowledge of other languages can lear learners to make incorrect guesses
about how the second language works and this may result in errors. Young learners begin the task of
first language acquisition without the cognitive maturity or metalinguistic awareness. On the other
hand, cognitive maturity and metalinguistic awareness allow older learners to solve problems and
engage in discussions about language.

One condition that appears to be common to learners of all ages is exposure to modified or adapted
input. This adjusted speech style has been called either child-directed speech or Foreigner talk or
Teacher Talk.

Behaviourism

Learning in terms of imitation, paractice, reinforcement and habit formation. Development of

Audiolingual teaching materials and in teacher training. Classroom activities emphasized mimicry
and memorization and students learned dialogues and sentence patterns by heart.
Behaviourism was often linked to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis , where the first language
and the target language are similar, learners should acquire Targe Language structures with ease,
where there are differences, learners should have difficulty,

The Innanist perspective: Universal Grammar

Chomsky argued that innate knowledge of the principles of Universal Grammar permits all children
to acquire the language of their environment during a critical period of their development. Lydia
White and other linguistics have argued that Universal Grammar offers the best perspective from
which to understand second language acquisition. Others think that although UG is a good
framework for understanding first language acquisition, it is not a good explanation for the
acquisition of a second language, especially by learners who have passed the critical period. This
means that second language acquisition has to be explained by some other theory, perhaps one of
the more general psychological theores described below. Others point out that even though many
learners fail to achieve complete mastery of the target language, there is still a logical problem of a
second language acquisition. We need to find an explanation for the evidence that learners
eventually know more about the language that they could reasonably have learned if they had to
depend entirely on the input they are exposed to. Some of the theorists who hold this view claim
that the nature and availibility of UG are the same in first and second language acquisition.

Krashen's affective filter hypothesis. The affective filter is a metaphorical barrier that prevents
learners from acquiring language even when appropriate input is available. Affect refers to feeling,
motives, needs, attitudes and emotional states. A learner who is tense, anxious or bored may filter
out input, making it unavailable for acquisition.

Current psychological theories

Cognitivist/developmental perspective

Learners have suggested that learners have to pay attention to any aspect of the language they are
trying to understand. Pay attention is accepted to meaing using cognitive resourced to process info.
However, there is a limit to how much info a learner can pay attention to. Learners use more of their
attention on processing the meaning of individual words. The information processing model
suggests that htere is a limit to the amount of focused mental activity we can engage in at one time.
Information processing approaches have been explored by others as skill learning. Most learners
start with Declarative Knowledge. Through practice, declarative knowledge becomes Procedural
Knowledge.
According to transfer appropriate processing information is best retrieved in situations that are
similar to those in which it was acquired. On the other hand, if, during learning, the learner's
cognitive resources are completely occupied with a focus on meaning in communcative activiesm
retrieval of specific language features such as grammatical markers or word orders may be more
difficult.

Connectionism

See no need to hypothize the existence of a neurological module dedicated exclusively to language
acquisition. Attribute greater importance to the role of the environment than to any specefici innate
knowledge. What is innate is the ability to learn. Learterns gradually build up knowledge of
language through exposure to the thousands of instances of the linguistic features they eventually
hear. They develop a stronge network of connections. Language is partly learned in chunks .

The competition model

It is also based on the hypothesis that language acquisition occurs without the necessity of a learners
focused attention or the need for any innate brain module that is specifally for language.
Explanation that takes into account not only language form but also meaning and use. Proposed as
explanation for first and second language acquisition.

Second language applications: interacting, noticing and processing

-The interaction hypothesis

Conversational interaction is an essential condition for second language acquisition. Researchers
have studied the ways in which speakers modify their speech and their interaction patterns in order
to help learners participate in a conversation or understand some info. Long focused on the question
of how input could be made comprehensible. Modified Interaction is the neccessary mechanism for
making language comprenhensible. What learners need is not necessarily simplification of the
linguistic forms but rather an opportunity to interact with other speakers, working together or reach
mutual comprehension. There are no cases of beginner-level learners acquiring a second language
from native-speaker talk that has not been modified some way. It works like this: 1 Interactional
modification makes input comprehensible. 2 Comprehensible input promotes acquisition. Therefore
3 Ineractional modification promotes aquisition.
Modified interaction does not always involve linguistic simplifications. It may also include
elaboration, slower speech rate, gesture, or the provision of additional contextual cues. Some
examples of converstaional modifications are: 1 Comprehension checks (efforts by the native
speaker to ensure that the learner has understood) 2 Clarification requests (efforts by the learner to
get the native speaker to clarify something that has not been understood) 3 Self-repetition or
paraphrase (the native speaker repeats his or her sentence either partially or in its entirety)

-The noticing hypothesis

Nothing is learned unless it has been noticed. It is the essential starting point. Schmidt hypothesized
that second language learners could not begin to acquire a lanaguge feature until they had become
aware of it in the input.

-Input processing
Learners have limited processing capacity and cannot pay attention to form and meaning at the
same time. They tend to give priority to meaning

-Processability theroy
The sequence of development for features of syntax or morphology was affected by how easy these
are to process. Ease of processing was found to depend to a large extent on the position of those
features in a sentence. Features that typically occurred at the beginning or end of a sentence are
easier to process than those that are in the middle. Pieneman argues that learners do not simply
transfer features from their first language at early stages of acquisition. Instead, they have to
develop a certain level of processing capacity in the second language before they can use their own
knowledge of the features that already exist in their first language.

The SOCIOCULTURAL perspective

Sociocultural theory views speaking and thinking as tightly interwoven. Speaking mediate thinking,
which means that people can gain control over their mental processes as a consequence of
inernalizing what others say to the, and whay they say to others. Learning occurs when an
individual interacts with an interlocutor within their zone of proximal develpment, in a situation in
which the learner is capable of perfoming at a higher level because there is a support from an
interlocutor. PZD is based on private speech.