Discussion:

What do you think you will

study in the course?
What are your expectations of
this course
 Chapter 1. Second
Language Acquisition: An
Overview
Objectives: By the end of the lesson, the
participants will be able to
❑ Apply knowledge of SLA overview in their teaching

❑ Practise their critical thinking skills, group work skills

❑ Demonstrate their enthusiasm, passion for their learning

❑ Demonstrate their academic honesty, standard manner and style in work

Outline
❑ Introduction
❑ Defining ‘second language acquisition
❑ A brief history of SLA
❑ Summary
Introduction
❑ Distinction between Second Language Acquisition (L2) vs SLA
❑ L2 acquisition is a complex process involved numerous factors
❑ L2 acquisition takes place after L1 acquisition, it is influenced by the
first language.
❑ L2 acquisition can take place at any age following the onset of first
language acquisition through into old age
❑ SLA: new academic discipline started in the 1960s
Defining ‘second language acquisition’
❑ Competence: mental grammar
❑ Performance: the use of language for comprehension &
production
❑ Explaining the L2 learner’s competence—especially grammatical
competence.
❑ Performance, however, involves much more than grammar.
What is a ‘second’ language?
❑ Second language acquisition: as an all inclusive term for learning
any language subsequent to first language.
❑ Second language acquisition: the learning of another language in
a context in which the language is used as a means of wider
communication e.g. The US, the UK, Canada, etc.
❑ ‘Foreign language acquisition’: the learning that typically takes place
in a classroom through instruction
❑ L2 acquisition: learning taking place in both contexts
What is ‘acquisition’?
❑ Acquisition: incidental, unconscious process, through
real communication
❑ Learning: intentional, through instruction
❑ Acquisition and learning: used interchangeably as cover
terms for both naturalistic ‘acquisition’ and instructed
‘learning’
Investigating L2 acquisition
❑ Consider whether whether a learner has ‘acquired’ or
‘learned’ some L2 feature e.g. understanding meaning
or produce it
❑ Distinguish between implicit knowledge (acquired) vs
explicit knowledge (i.e. learned)
Summing up
❑ ‘SLA’: the field of study (i.e. body of research and
theory that has investigated L2 acquisition)
❑ ‘L2 acquisition’: Acqusition or learning another
language in addition to our mother tongue
❑ Implicit and explicit knowledge
A brief history of SLA
❑ Taking the inputs from these different
disciplines
❑ Rich and exciting field but difficult for new
comers
Order and sequence in L2 acquisition
❑ Mastery of morphemes in more or less the same fixed order
e.g. L2 learners typically acquired plural -s (as in ‘boys’) before
third-person -s (as in ‘comes’).
❑ Interlanguage: the mental grammar that a learner constructs
and reconstructs
❑ Fossilization: the fact that learners stop learning even though
their interlanguage does not fully conform to the target
language system.
❑ Controversial: the extent to which fossilization actually occurs
 Investigating the order of L2 acquisition: the starting point for SLA research
▪ Numerous studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s but no longer common
now
▪ Early work: essentially descriptive in nature i.e. involving collecting and
analyzing samples of learner language
▪ Later work: more theoretical driven e.g. investigating specific hypotheses
regarding why one grammatical feature is acquired earlier than another
(Pienemann, 1998)
▪ Different research has claimed different findings e.g. Coder (1967, 164)
Second language learners like first language learners have a ‘built-in syllabus’
that directs when the grammar of second language is acquired; Tarone and
Liu (1995) what learners acquire and when they acquire it depends on the
social context in which they are learning the second language
Variability in learner language
● At any stage of development, learners shows variability in the use of the
second language e.g. drawing on well-formulaic chunks (I don’t like);
constructing utterances on the basic of their current language rule ( I no
like)
● Variability occurs because learners do not abandon old form when they
acquire new ones e.g. Where the book is? (Questions without inversion
at the initial stage) and then later “Where is the book?”
● Tarone (1983) and R. Ellis (1985) by and large variability is systematic,
responsive to the situational context; linguistic context e.g. she lives in
London but my mother live in London
Rethinking the role of the first language
General assumption: difficulties facing the L2 learners caused by L1 interference
● Positive transfer: similarity between L1 & L2
● Negative transfer: difference between L1 & L2
● Different researchers have various arguments e.g. Burnt (1975) negative
transfer played a relatively mirror role in L2 acquisition; Selinker (1972) it
played a significant role; Kellerman (1983) proposed a number of factors e.g.
language distance, avoidance of structure; conceptual transfer (how concepts
associated one language affect the linguistic choice made in another
language)
Input and interaction
● Input: samples of the oral or written language a learner is exposed
to; constitutes the data that learners have to work with to construct
their interlanguage
● Interaction: the oral exchange a learner participates in – with native
speakers or with other learners – which provide both ‘input’ and
opportunity for output e.g. use of L2 in production
● Early focus: foreign talk – modifications to normal talk when
communicating with non-native speakers e.g. speak more slowly;
pause; use high frequency words, use full form instead of
contractions, etc.
 Krashen (1985) modifications make input
‘comprehensible’ to learners, and controversially
that comprehensible input is all that was needed
to activate learners’ built-in syllabus
The Input hypothesis, The Comprehensible
output hypothesis and the Interaction hypothesis:
enormous influence on SLA
Consciousness of L2 acquisition
● Noticing hypothesis – crucial question for Schmidt ‘Can there be
learning without attention?’
● Noticing did not imply intentionality on the part of leaners; it
occurs incidentally
● Noticing: facilitative of acquisition
● Long’ (1996) revised Interaction hypothesis and Swain’s (1995)
later account of Comprehensible Input have incorporated the idea
of Noticing
Implicit and Explicit learning
● Implicit learning: taking place naturally, simply and without
consciousness
● Implicit learning: incidental
● Explicit learning: Taking place with more consciousness (Ellis, 1990)
● Explicit learning: more intentional
● Distinction between implicit learning and explicit learning: important
for understanding the role played by form-focus instruction in L2
acquisition; whether teaching learners rules → learners’ implicit
knowledge or explicit knowledge; what type of instruction is needed
to facilitate implicit learning