First Language Acquisition

Native language

Mother tongue

L1

ARTERIAL LANGUAGE

What are they?

• The language(s) a person has learned from birth or speaks the best. It is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity.

• Sometimes, there can be more than one mother tongue. Those children are usually called bilingual.

• By contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than one's first language.

Language acquisition

The process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate.

This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary.

It is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other organisms.

A range of theories has been created to explain this: innatism, opposed to the other theories in which language is simply learned.

The basic capacity to learn language is innate, while the particular form/meaning connections of individual languages are acquired through prolonged exposure to a specific speech community.

Three theoretical approaches

Cognitive theory. Jean Piaget (1896-1980).

A child first becomes aware of a concept, such as relative size, and only afterward do they acquire the words and patterns to convey that concept.

Imitation and positive reinforcement.

Children learn by imitating and repeating what they hear.

Innateness of certain linguistic features.

Connected with Noam Chomsky. Children are born with an innate capacity for learning human language.

Stages in child language acquisition:

Pre-speech:

• Infants learn to pay attention to speech, intonation and the rhythm of speech long before they begin to speak.• Respond to speech more keenly than to other sounds. • Children learn to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the language they hear from birth long before they are able to pronounce them.

Babbling stage:

• Begins at several months of age. • Many native speech sounds may be absent. Very few consonant clusters and repeated syllables are common.

Combining words:

• 18 months - 2 years. By two and a half years most children speak in sentences of several words, but their grammar is far from complete. • By six the child's grammar approximates that of adults.

One word (holophrastic) stage:

• Infants may utter their first word as early as nine months: usually mama, dada (these words resemble babbling).

  Child Language acquisition is a natural consequence of human society.

The outcome of first language acquisition will be the same regardless of individual differences in intelligence.

Although the basic ability to acquire language is innate to the child, no specific structural property of language has yet been proven to be innate.

Universally accepted facts

Second Language Acquisition

• L2 acquisition proceeds according to predictable stages.

• Children acquire language best in low-anxiety environments.

• Culture is closely related and essential.

• Focus on meaning rather than on grammar.

• Involve many senses.

• Meaning is stablished through visual cues.

• Meaningful context is essential.

• Learner-centered instruction facilitates L2 acquisition.

Krashen’s Theory The acquisition Vs. Learning Hypothesis.

Acquisition: the product of a subconscious process that occurs in a natural environment out of the learner’s need to communicate.Learning: the product of formal instruction and it comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge.

The Natural Order Hypothesis.

Ss go through a series of stages. Particular grammatical structures are acquired in stages, certain structures will be acquired early and others late.

The Monitor Hypothesis.

Acquisition, not learning is responsible for our fluency in L2 performance. The monitor has a planning, editing and correcting function.

The Input Hypothesis.

The learner improves and progresses along the “natural order” when he/she receives a sufficient amount of “comprehensible input”.

The Affective Filter Hypothesis.

It is a “mental block”. Learners with high motivation, self- confidence, a good self- image and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in L2 acquisition.

THE NATURAL APPROACH

• One of the most widely methods of learning a second language.• Developed by Krashen and Terrell (1983)• It puts into practice Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition.• Behind this method there is a communicative view of language:

“Language as a set of messages that can be understood”

OBJECTIVES: * It is designed to help beginners to become intermediates.Students: * will understand the speaker of the target language. * will be able to express their requests and ideas. * Do not need to know every word in a particular semantic domain but their production need to be understood. * should be able to make the meaning clear but not necessarily accurate in all details of grammar.

ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL APPROACH, L2 LEARNERS NEED:

VISUALS, PICTURES

REALIA

GESTURES, BODY LANGUAGE

MANIPULATIVES

LISTENING ACTIVITIES

PRACTICE WITH STRUCTURES

MODIFIED TEACHER TALK

COMPREHENSION CHECKS

THE STAGES• PRE – PRODUCTION – FIRST STAGE

• EARLY PRODUCTION – ABOUT A MONTH LATER.

• SPEECH EMERGENCE – A BIT LATER

• INTERMEDIATE FLUENCY – LATER STILL

What happens in the brain while learning language?

References - bibliography

- Brown, Douglas. “Principles of language and learning teaching.”

- Curtain- Pescola. “Languages and children: making the match.”

- Krashen, Terrell. “The Natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom.”

- Krashen. “Second language acquisition and second language learning.”

Thanks for your attention!

Cristina and Natalia