SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Chapter II

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

A.   Description

Second-language acquisition (often abbreviated to SLA) also refers to the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's first language; although the concept is named second-language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth, or subsequent languages. Second-language acquisition refers to what learners do; it does not refer to practices in language teaching. The academic discipline of second-language acquisition is a sub discipline of applied linguistics. It is broad-based and relatively new. As well as the various branches of linguistics, second-language acquisition is also closely related to psychology, cognitive psychology, and education. To separate the academic discipline from the learning process itself, the terms second-language acquisition research, second-language studies, and second-language acquisition studies are also used.SLA research began as an interdisciplinary field, and because of this it is difficult to identify a precise starting date.

B.    Goals of Second Language Acquisition

SLA has two goals, the description- to describe how L2 acquisition proceeds, describing how learner language changes over the time to describe how L2 acquisition proceeds, describing how learner language changes over the time and the explanation- To explain the process of L2 acquisition and why some learners seem to be better than others, identifying the external and internal factors that account for why learner acquire an L2 in the way they do. The description that is what happens in the learning process and the description that is how it happens, taking into account the internal and the external factors, and also why some learners are better than others acquiring a language. One of the external factors is the social contexts, which learning takes place, it is important due to learners have the opportunity to interact with other people and put into practice the knowledge they are acquiring. Another external factor is the input. It is about the instruction that learners receive from an instructor and the materials that are needed to make easier and successful the learning of a second language. Talking about the internal factors it is necessary to mention the cognitive mechanisms which enable learners to extract information about the L2 from the input. One example is the “s” in the third person, and the motivation, the attitude, the aptitude are very important because they have influence in the learning process. These goals are met by collecting samples of learner language that must be analyzed carefully. These samples provide evidence of what learners know about the language they are trying to learn. Making this process you are going to realize the changes that the learners´ knowledge has had over time. Finally, it is important to take into account factors like pronunciation and fluency which have to be better in a real communication. How are these goals met? One way of doing this is by collecting samples of learner language and analyze them carefully. For example, the language learner produces when he/she is using an L2 in speech or writing. This is important because samples provide evidence of what the learners know about the L2 they are trying to learn and let us to find out how learners’ knowledge changes and develops over time.
Another way is by identifying the internal and external factors that explain why learners learn an L2 in the way they do. Some of the external factors are: the social milieu which learning takes place. It refers to the opportunities that learners have to hear and speak the L2 and the attitudes they develop towards it. Another external factor is the input (samples of language to which a learner is exposed) that learners receive.
Some of the internal factors are: the general knowledge that learners possess, that could be used to understand L2 input. Another is the communication strategies that learners have to make a more effective use of the L2. It is also important to consider the learners language aptitude (ability to learn a language) which is a reason of why some learners find L2 learning easier than others.

C.   Case Studies

A case study is a detailed study of a learner’s acquisition of an L2. It is typically a longitudinal, involving the collection of samples of the learners’ speech or writing over a period o time, sometimes years.

1.    A case study of an adult learner

Wes was a thirty-three year-old artist, a native speaker of Japanese. He had a little formal instruction in English, having left school at fifteen. While he remained in Japan, his contacts with native speaker were few and far between. It was only when he began to visit Hawaii, in connection with his work, that he had regular opportunities to use English. Wes, then, is an example of a “naturalistic learner”----- someone who learns the language at the same time, learning to communicate it.

Richard Schmidt, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, studied Wes’s language development over three year period from the time he first started visiting Hawaii, until he eventually took up residence there. He asked Wes to record his English when he went back to Tokyo from his trip. He then made written transcriptions of these monologues; in addition, Schmidt made recordings and transcriptions of informal conversations between Wes and his friends in Hawaii.

After running through some files of Wes’s comprehension in his knowledge of English, and its developments after three years, he then put focus on a small number of grammatical features, such as the use of auxiliary be, plural –s (spoons), third person –s (comes), and regular pat tense (jumped). He observed how Wes used these features in his speech during the near start of his study until the near end.

Strong evidence would be if Schmidt could show that Wes had learned to use grammatical features with the same level of accuracy as native speakers of English. In fact, Wes could already use some of the features with native-like accuracy at the beginning of his study. However, Wes did not succeed in using progressive verbs –ing, the way a native speaker should acquire. Moreover, Wes had little or no knowledge at all in grammatical structures as Schmidt investigated at the beginning of his study. For instance, Wes would still omit –s in the plural nouns, rarely put –s on third person singular of verbs, and never used the regular past tense.

Now, it would be wrong to say that Wes is a complete failure as a language learner, although he did not learn that much in grammar, he did develop in other ways, he used formulas—fixed expressions such as ‘Hi! How’s it?’, ‘So, what’s new?’, ‘I don’t know why.’ Schmidt noted that Wes was adept at identifying these fixed phrases and has practiced them consciously. These helped him develop fluency in speaking English and have made him successful communicator. He became quite a skilled conversationalist and very effective in negotiating complex business deals. He was also highly skilled in repairing communication breakdown.

2.    A case study of a child learner

Whereas Schmidt studied an adult learner in naturalistic surroundings, Rod Ellis investigated two child learners in a classroom context. Both were almost complete beginners in English at the beginning of the study. J was a ten-year-old Portuguese boy, literate in his native language. He was an adventurous and confident learner, willing to struggle to communicate in English, even when he had very limited resources. R was an eleven-year-old boy from Pakistan, speaking, but unable to write, Punjabi language as his native language. Initially, he lacked confidence, using his native language extensively and relying on his elder sister to help him communicate in English. Gradually, however, he became more confident and independent.

Both learners were learning English in a language unit in London. The unit catered exclusively for L2 Learners who had recently arrived in Britain. The goal was to prepare students for transfer to local secondary schools. J spent almost four school terms in the unit or about twelve months. R spent two whole school years in the unit, and in fact, was still there when the study ended. The instructions the two learners received was very mixed. It involved both formal language instructions and more informal instructions. Initially, at least, the two learners had little exposure to the target language outside the classroom.

Rod’s focus of study was requests; he wanted to find out how the two learners acquired the ability to perform requests for services and goods over the period of study. Requests can be performed in a variety of ways in English, for example:

          Give me your pencil.

          Can I have your pencil?

          Would you mind giving me your pencil?

They can be relatively simple, s in the above examples, or they can be quite complex, as when the speaker offer reason the request:

          My pencil is broken. Would you mind giving me yours?

Because English was a medium of communication in these learners’ classroom, there were opportunities for them to hear and perform requests. After analyzing J and R’s request, Rod had found clear evidence of development taking place. Moreover, the two learners appeared to develop in much the same way. Initially, their requests were verbless. For example, when J needs to cut out a big circle, he says, “Big circle.” while R just points to a piece of card to let the teacher know that he wanted him to put staple in it. Sooner, both learners began to use imperative verbs in their requests: Give me. Give me a paper. The next stage of development was marked by a general extension of the linguistic devices they used. Finally, the learners began to use ‘can’ with the range of different verbs.

By the end of the study, therefore, the two learners’ ability to use requests had grown considerably. However, it was equally clear that this ability was limited in a number of respects.

D.   Methodological Issues in Second Language Acquisition

One issue has to do with what it is that needs to be described. Schmidt was concerned broadly with how Wes developed the ability to communicate in an L2, examining his grammatical development, his ability to use English in situationally appropriate ways, and how he learned to hold successful conversations. Rods goal was narrower; he was concerned with how J and R acquired the ability to perform a single language function (requests). In this respect, his study is more typical of SLA. Language is such a complex phenomenon that researchers have generally preferred to focus on some specific aspect rather than on the whole of it.

Another issue concerns what it means to say that a learner has other researchers, defines ‘acquisition’ in terms of whether the learner manifests patterns of language use that are more or less the same as native speakers target language. It might be argued, however, that this conflates what learners know with what they can do. For instance, Wes always be said to know how to make plurals even though he does not always add an –s to a plural noun.

A third problem in trying to measure whether ‘acquisition’ has taken place concerns learners’ overuse of linguistic forms. Schmidt showed that Wes knew when to use the present progressive correctly but he also showed that Wes used this form in contexts that did not require it. In other words, Wes used the form of the present progressive with the wrong function. SLA researchers recognized the need to investigate how the relationship between form and functions in learners’ output compares with that of a native speaker.

E.    Issues in Description of Learner Language

Both of these studies set out how to describe how learners’ use of an L2 changes over time and what this shows about the nature of their knowledge of the L2.

One finding is that learners make errors of different kinds. Wes failed to use some grammatical features at all and used others incorrectly. These are errors of omission and overuse. J and R also made grammatical errors in their requests. In addition, they made sociolinguistic errors. That is, they failed to use requests in a socially appropriate manner.

One of the most interesting issues raised by these case studies is whether learners acquire the language systematically. Schmidt found the order of accuracy of the different grammatical feature that he investigated was the same at the beginning of his study as at the end. Thus, at both times, features like progressive –ing and auxiliary be were used accurately while features like past regular and possessive –s rately. I found evidence to suggest that both J and R followed the same sequence of development in their acquisition of requests.

F.    Issues in the Explanation of Second Language Acquisition

 We can begin with the hypothesis that L2 acquisition involves different kinds of learning. On the one hand, learners internalize chunks of language structure (i.e. formulas). On the other hand, they acquire rules (i.e. the knowledge that a given linguistic feature is used in a particular context with a particular function). In other words, learners must engage in both item learning and system learning. When learners learn the expression ‘Can I have a _________?’ they are engaging in item learning-----they learn the expression as an unanalyzed whole. When they learn that ‘can’ is followed by a variety of verbs and that it can express a variety of functions they are engaging in system learning----they are learning some kind of rule for ‘can’. Learners engage in both types of learning. An explanation of L2 acquisitions must be account for both item and system learning and how the two interrelate.

The systematic nature of L2 also requires explanation. There are a number of possible explanations. One is that, learners follow a particular developmental pattern because their mental faculties are structured in such a way that this is the way they have to learn. These faculties, it is argued, regulate what learners take from the input and how they store the information in their memories. However, as we will see later, this mentalist account of how L2 acquisition takes place is not the only possible one.

G.   Error and Error Analysis

    

There are good reasons for focusing on errors. First, they are a conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of ‘why do learners make errors?’ Second, it is useful for teachers to know what errors learners make. Third, paradoxically, it is possible that making errors may actually help learners  to learn when they self-correct the errors they make. Under the Error and Error Analysis are the Error Description, Error Explanation, and Error Evaluation. These are the steps on how to analyze a learners’ error.

a.       Identifying errors

The first step in analyzing learner errors is to identify them. We need to distinguish errors and mistakes. Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows. To identifying error, the researchers need to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem to be normal or correct sentences in the target language. In identifying errors, we need to distinguish errors and mistakes that the learners have in their language (sentences). It is identified as errors when learners have no knowledge about what is correct, and it is mistake or an accidental slip when learners have knowledge about what is correct. We know it by looking at learners’ consistently in their performance. For instance, when learners are trying to express their feeling or thought in past tense. If they use verb in past form in one part and not in others, it is categorized as a mistake, but when they consistently use present form, it is categorized as errors.

b.      Describing errors (Error Description)

Once all the errors have been identified, they can be described and classified into types. There are several ways of doing this. One way is to classify errors into grammatical categories. Another way might be to try to identify general ways in which the learners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed target-language utterances. Such ways include omission, misinformation, and misordering. Errors can be classified according to grammar categories such as errors in verbs, errors in nouns, pronouns, etc. errors also can be identified by looking at the learners utterances.

c.       Explaining errors (Error Explanation)

The identification and description of errors are preliminaries to the much more interesting task of trying to explain why they occur. Errors are, to a large extent, systematic and, to a certain extent, predictable. Errors are not only systematic; many of them are also universal. Of course, not all errors are universal. Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongues manifest the same linguistic property. In explaining error, we need to know why learners make error. Errors can have different sources of sentence.

d.      Error evaluation

Where the purpose of the error analysis is to help learners learn an L2, there is a need to evaluate errors. Some errors, known as global errors, violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process. Other errors, known as local errors, affect only a single constituent in the sentence and are, perhaps, less likely to create any processing problems. Some errors known as global errors violate the overall structure and others known as local errors, affect only a single constituent in sentences (for example, the verb) and are, perhaps, less likely to  create any processing problem.

K. Developmental Patterns

There are the regularities of L2 acquisition. Acquisition follows a definite order. The order of acquisition describes the process of how language features acquire and how accurately these features are used by learners. The researchers of SLA found evident that learners regularly master some grammatical features before others. Most of the learners they have studied perform progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s most accurately, suggesting that they acquired these features first. Articles and irregular past come next. The most difficult structures are regular past and third person –s.The grammatical features also manifest clear development sequences, involving stages that reflect unique ’rules’ not evident in the input to which learners are exposed. Learners seem to be actively involved in shaping how they acquire an L2. For instance: when they learn verb. First they learn present verb such as eat, then they learn regular verb in past and past perfect, they will change eat into past verb “eated” (overgeneralization). They will produce correct “ate” after they learn irregular past.

1.                     Early Stages of Second Language Acquisition

We can find out how a language is learned as a natural, untutored process by investigating what learners do when exposed to the L2 in communicative settings. When learners do begin to speak in the L2 their speech is likely to manifest two particular characteristics. One is the kind of formulaic chunks which we saw in the case studies. The second characteristic of early L2 speech is propositional simplification. Second-language acquisition can be divided up into five stages:

Preproduction-The first stage is preproduction, also known as the silent period. Learners at this stage have a receptive vocabulary of up to 500 words, but they do not yet speak their second language. Not all learners go through a silent period. Some learners start speaking straight away, although their output may consist of imitation rather than creative language use. Others may be required to speak from the start as part of a language course. For learners that do go through a silent period, it may last around three to six months.

Early production-The second stage of acquisition is early production, during which learners are able to speak in short phrases of one or two words. They can also memorize chunks of language, although they may make mistakes when using them. Learners typically have both an active and receptive vocabulary of around 1000 words. This stage normally lasts for around six months. Speech emergence-The third stage is speech emergence. Learners' vocabularies increase to around 3000 words during this stage, and they can communicate using simple questions and phrases. They may often make grammatical errors. The stage after speech emergence is intermediate fluency. At this stage, learners have a vocabulary of around 6000 words, and can use more complicated sentence structures. They are also able to share their thoughts and opinions. Learners may make frequent errors with more complicated sentence structures. The final stage is advanced fluency, which is typically reached somewhere between five and ten years of learning the language. Learners at this stage can function at a level close to native speakers.

Intermediate fluency and Advanced fluency

2.                      Order of Acquisition

To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers choose a number of grammatical structures to study (for example, progressive –ing, auxiliary be, and plural –s). They then collect samples of learner language and identify how accurately each feature is used by different learners. This enables them to arrive at accuracy orders. That is, they rank the feature according to how accurately each feature is used by the learners. Some researchers then argue that the accuracy order must be the same as the order of acquisition on the grounds that the more accurately learners are able to use particular feature the more likely they are to have acquired that feature early. Researchers have shown that there is a definite accuracy order and that this remains more or less the same irrespective of the learner’s mother tongues, their age, and whether or not they have received formal language instructions.

3.    Sequence of Acquisition

1. Plural -s(Girls go.)

2. Progressive -ing (Girls going. )

3. Copula forms of be (Girls are here.)

4. Auxiliary forms of be (Girls are going.)

5. Definite and indefinite articles the and a (The girls go.)

6. Irregular past tense (The girls went.)

7. Third person -s (The girl goes.)

8. Possessive’s (The girl's book.) 

When learners acquire a grammatical structure they do so gradually, moving through a series of stages en route to acquiring the native-speaker rule. The acquisition of a particular grammatical structure, therefore, must be seen as a process involving transitional constructions, illustrated in Figure 1.1.

Stage	Description	Example
1	Learners fail to mark the verb for past time.	Eat
2	Learner begins to produce irregular past tense forms.	Ate
3	Learners over generalize the regular past tense form.	Eated
4	Sometimes learner produces hybrid forms.	Ated
5	Learners produce correct regular past tense form.	Ate

L.  Variability in Learner Language

Learner language is systematic.  We may be able to explain, and even to predict when learners use one form and when another. Learners vary in the use of L2 according to: Linguistic context, situational context, and psycholinguistic context: whether learners have opportunity to plan their production. That is, at particular stage of development, learners consistently use the same grammatical form, although this is often different from that employed by native speakers. We have also seen that learner language is variable. At any given stage of development, learners sometimes employ one form and sometimes another. Thus, one type of error may alternate with another type:

          Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.

          Yesterday the thief stealing the suitcase.

 Or the error may alternate with the correct target-language form:

          Yesterday the thief steal the suitcase.

          Yesterday the thief stole the suitcase.

These observations do not invalidate the claim that the learner language is systematic since it is possible that variability is also systematic. That is, we may be able to explain, and even predict, when learners use one form and when another.

Chapter III

Conclusion

        Through the study of second language acquisition, we are knowledgeable of the type of process that we are undergoing whenever we learn another language not our own. For example, when I was still in my elementary years, I am not used in speaking English. I then tried to observe several speakers who speak English fluently. Then, I got interested in the language. So, whenever I am at school, I tend to listen more to our English and science subject, because both subjects take English as its medium of instruction. Then, I practiced it through communicating with my co-students and try writing essays using the same language. Though I took up this learning process on my own, I found several ways to enhance it, just like; I joined several English competitions in school. I also learned to love the English dictionaries, and prefer movies with English subtitles. From this moment, I am still under the process of enhancing my English grammar and pronunciation, so that, I can tell that I have successfully reached a goal.

        Now, as a sort of conclusion regarding this topic, Second Language Acquisition is a process wherein we learn another language, although it is L2 acquisition, you can still learn third or fourth language and it still takes the same complex process. All person who go to school, interacts with foreign people or even the call center agents, are a good example of learners of Second Language Acquisition.

References

·         Tya Zakaria’s Second Language Acquisition, [homepage on the internet]. [cited 2013 October 4]. Available from:

http://tya-zakaria.blogspot.com/2013/09/second-language-acquisition-chapter-2.html

·         Imelda Mallipa’s Languages, [homepage on the internet]. [cited 2012 February 16]. Available from:

http://imeldamallipa13.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_7832.html

·         Ellis, R. 1985. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press.

Fabisz N. Analysis of krashen's theory of second language acquisition, [homepage on the Internet]. [cited 2009 Oct 27]. Available from: http://www.geocities.com/pan_andrew/sla.html

·         Krashen, S.D. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Pergamon. Available from:

http://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/explanation-to-second-language-acquisition-english-language-essay.php#ixzz2hQWnxVVJ

·         Romeo K. Krashen and Terrell's “Natural Approach”, [homepage on the Internet]. [cited 2009 Oct 27]. Available from: http://www.stanford.edu/~kenro/LAU/ICLangLit/NaturalApproach.htm