CHAPTER 1LANGUAGE LEARNINGAND TEACHING.

CURRENT ISSUES IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)

1-Who?Who does the learning and

teaching?Questions about learners

and teachers.2-What?-What must the leaner learn

and the teacher teach?-What is communication ?-What is language?3-How- How does learning take

place?-How can a person ensure

-success in language learning?

3- When?-When does second

language learning take place?

-Questions about age & time.

4 Where?- Within the cultural and

linguistic situation.- Or within artificial

situation.- 5 Why?

-Why are learners attempting to acquire the second language ?

-What are their purposes ?

-Are they motivated by the achievement of a successful career.

-by passing a foreign language requirement.

-by wishing to be identified closely with the culture  and people of the target language.

LANGUAGE

The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia defines language as a system of communication by vocal symbols.

Pinker’s definition (p.5) Possible definitions: a system of communication operates in speech

community or culture. It’s essentially human although possibly not

limited to humans. It’s acquired by all people in which the same

way. Language and language learning both have universal characteristics.

Language is a set of arbitrary symbols which are primarily vocal and visual. These symbols have conventionalized meaning to which they refer.

•Fields of Language study related to each definition

**Learning:It is acquiring or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study, experience, or instruction.

1 -Learning is acquiring or getting.2 -Learning is retention of information or skill.

3 -Retention implies storage system, memory, cognitive organization.4 -Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events

outside or inside the organism5 -Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting.

6 -Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.7 -Learning is a change in behavior

*Related fields of study. **Teaching:

It is showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge causing to know or understand.

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.

Constructivis

m

Rationalis

mStructuralism

Structural Linguistics and Behavioral PsychologyThe structural or descriptive school uses the scientific principle

of observation of human language.* Only the publicly observable responses could be studied.-It described human languages and their structural

characteristics -It explained that languages differ from each others without

limit.-It ignored attitudes ,mind, spirit (unobservable=metalistic). -It explained that languages can be divided into pieces or units.-Behaviorists and structuralists use the empirical

approaches tostudying human language and behavior.

RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

-In the decade of the 1960s, the generative

transformational school of linguistics emerged through the influence of Noam Chomsky.What was his idea?

He was interested not only on describing language (achieving the level of descriptive adequacy) but also arriving at an explanatory level of adequacy in the study of language.

Chomsky’s distinction

Competence

Performance

What is the difference between competence and performance?

WHAT DID THE COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGISTS ASSERT?

Meaning,understanding &knowing were important data for psychological study.

-Both Cognitive and generative linguists sought to discover underlying motivations and deeper structures of human behavior.

How?.. By using a rational approach.* What is the difference between

empirical and rational approaches?

CONSTRUCTIVISM-It emerged in the last part of the 20th C.-Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are names

often associated with constructivism.-Constructivists argue that all human

beings construct their own version of reality. They focus on individuals engaged in social practices.

--Piaget stressed the importance of individual cognitive development as a relatively solitary act. Social interaction only trigger development.

-Vygotsky maintained that social interaction was fundamental in cognitive development and rejected the notion of predetermined stages.

GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHODThe major characteristics

of this method: 1-The student takes the

class in the mother language and little in the second language.

2-The vocabulary taken as a list of individual words.

3-In grammar subject:The learner learns how to

put the words together, it focuses on the form of the word and the order of the sentence.

GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD4-Long explanation of

grammar.5- Reading a difficult

context and little attention is paid to the content of texts.

6-There are drills and exercises on translating from TL to the mother tongue.

7-Little attention is given to pronunciation.

DISADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD It depends on the

teacher's skill. It doesn’t help the

student to communicate in the language.

It is a method where there is no theory.

It has an endless list of vocabulary and grammar rules.