Instituto Superior “Josefina Contte”

Profesorado: Profesorado en Inglés

Unidad Curricular: Adquisición de Segundas Lenguas

Curso y División: 3° U / 2° Turno: Mañana / Tarde

Responsable: Lic. Mariana Sottile

Material adaptado de:

Armendáriz, A. y Sottile, M. Cuadernillo para el Seminario de Adquisición del Lenguaje. (ed. 2005). Ciclo
de Licenciatura en Inglés – Programa de Carreras a Término de la Universidad nacional del Litoral.

SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Some key terms

For a start, our first step will be to define first, second and foreign language.
The first language is a characteristic of the species: it allows the human being to establish identity links
with their primary linguistic community. If a human being lacks a mother tongue, they cannot be
considered to be “normal”. This refers to the oral aspects of language, listening and speaking. We are not
referring to reading and writing, which have been developed by some authors, not all. (The majority of the
languages of the world have no written form.)
A second language is the language that must be learnt if the subject’s language is different. The second
language allows them to work and to study since there is a dominant language which is the current
language of expression and which is different from the home language.
It is said the second language allows people to get to know about a culture which is also their own, though
this is a rather controversial assertion since many people find themselves in a dead-end street without
choice other than learning this language if they want to survive. There are degrees of acceptance of the
dominant culture. This process is known as acculturation.

Task – First languages other than Spanish in your community

Are you aware of languages other than Spanish in your community? Do they “clash” with Spanish? With
English? To what extent?

The foreign language for its part is the one that allows the subject to get to know about a culture which is
not the subject’s. As it is not in current use in the community, the contexts of use are “remote” as it were.

Task – Foreign language learning and teaching

Why have you learned English? Why are you getting trained to become an EFL teacher?
When it comes to learning the three types of language, there are differences.
First language learning is biologically determined. In the literature the terms acquisition, learning,
development and growth are used interchangeably.
We speak of second language learning or L2 acquisition in the case of
(1) adult immigrants who learn or 'pick up' the L2 in their new country,
(2) children of immigrants who grow up in the cultural environment of the L2,
(3) non-migrant minority groups whose L1 is different from the language spoken in the community
(indigenous groups, for instance)
It is typical of both types (1) and (2) that acquisition takes place in the target language context and that the
L2 must be learnt in order to survive in the target culture context. Another characteristic of L2 learning is
that L2 learners mostly do not get systematic error correction by teachers but base their learning mainly on
observation of what other speakers say and do (positive evidence). This is why we speak, in this context,
of untutored or natural L2 acquisition. If learners receive instruction in language schools in the L2 country
we speak of instructed or tutored L2 acquisition.
We have to do with late beginning L2 acquisition in the case of adult immigrants, because their L2 learning
starts only after they have become competent speakers of their L1. In contrast, we have to do with early
beginning L2 acquisition in the case of small children learning two languages in parallel. That happens for
example if their mother speaks language A but their father language B. The same is true of children of
immigrants who speak language A at home, with their parents, but use language B in their social
surroundings at large, with their play mates, for instance, and at school.
Children who learn two languages in parallel usually become bilingual; they acquire a native speaker
competence in their 'two first languages'. In contrast, adult L2 learners usually become fluent users of their
second language, but retain traces of their L1 'accent', mainly in their pronunciation, but also in their
choice of lexical collocations and grammatical constructions. Researchers distinguish an additive
bilingualism and a subtractive bilingualism. As the names suggest, additive bilingualism means that in
addition to the first language a second language is acquired, but without diminishing competence in the
L1; subtractive bilingualism means that the acquisition of native speaker competence in a second
language supersedes and reduces L1 competence, which is the case if, for example, the L2 has a much
higher social ranking or is, for other purposes, much more important for the individual language user.

First and Second Language Learning compared

There are striking similarities between first and second language learning. See for yourself:
 high learning motivation, because users need to learn the L1 or L2 in order to survive and
become respected members of their social environment;
 they both enjoy a rich learning environment which offers many experiences of the use and
function of the words and phrases of the target language used by competent speakers in communicatively
meaningful situations;
 this goes with frequent use of the target language by the learners themselves because they need
to produce comprehensible language output many times a day in order to get what they want;
 L1- and L2-learners manage to learn the L1 and L2 without formal instruction (grammar lessons),
relying mainly on their observation of the communicative function and use of the L1 or L2 by competent
speakers (positive evidence);
 they acquire command of the target language grammar in developmental stages that are
universally similar.

Second and Foreign Language Learning compared

There are significant differences between L1-L2 acquisition/learning as compared with foreign language
learning. Let’s review them:
First, it is typical of foreign language learning that it does not take place in the target language cultural
context but in artificial situations, mostly in schools of the learners home country. In contrast to L2 learning
in a 'natural' environment it offers only contextually impoverished experiences of the use and meaning of
L2 words and phrases.
Second, it is much more difficult for foreign language learners than for L2 learners to throughout maintain
a high learning motivation, even if they start with a high motivation (which in the case of obligatory FLT in
schools is not always the case). The psychological background to that is that there is no essential need for
foreign language learners to use the L2 because all their fellow learners speak the same L1; it is easy for
them to give up and use the L1 when things get difficult. That means that foreign language learners need
great will power and continually have to make conscious efforts to use the L2 in situations that often seem
'boring' because what learners (have to) say does not really have any communicative function apart from
demonstrating that they can produce certain L2 words and phrases and express in the L2 what they could
express in their L1 much more easily and efficiently.
Third, typical of traditional FLT is a syllabus. It manifests itself in a textbook and in units simulating
situations in which the learners most probably will need to use the language they are learning. It makes
them practise the words and phrases typically used in such situations (situational approach). Parallel to
that, however, syllabus constructors place great emphasis on creating structurally graded courses which
put “simple” or “easy to learn” structures at the beginning of the course and leave more complex and
“difficult” ones until later. The philosophy behind that is that learners should “get it right from the
beginning”; errors should be avoided at any time and learners should be corrected for formal errors in their
language productions so that they do not get a chance to develop “wrong speech habits”.
Fourth, typical of that type of FLT is that it is form oriented, and that it organizes the learning items and
work in a cycle of Presentation - Practice - Application (the PPA-Model). The textbook units must be dealt
with in the prescribed order. The idea is that learners should not be confronted with too many and difficult
learning items at a time. It, too, is part of this form oriented approach that it has a built-in cyclic repetition of
vocabulary and grammar to ensure remembrance by repetition.
Fifth, more recently researchers propose a “meaning oriented” in place of a “form oriented” approach.
They suggest that the role of the teacher should change from that of an instructor and error corrector to
that of a facilitator of language learning processes. Up front formal instruction followed by strictly controlled
grammatical exercises and formal tests is rejected in favour of an approach that aims to help learners
make a meaningful use of the L2. The focus shifts to a task based approach that encourages learners to
themselves find a solution to tasks which they have set themselves. Tasks must of course require the use
of the L2. The didactic challenge is to reconcile this new approach with the fact that foreign language
learners need and mostly call for error corrections and instructions that help them understand the rules of
the L2 grammar.
Sixth, foreign language learners have considerably less frequent and 'rich' contact with the L2 than L2
learners. The 'positive evidence' they get is mostly restricted to the written texts of their textbooks and to
what their teacher says, who may not be a competent L2 speaker himself. That means that the language
input they get is poorer than the communicatively enriched input L2-learners enjoy in a target language
surrounding. Modern meaning oriented approaches to FLT are therefore faced with the question how to
enhance the quantity and quality of the language input, that is how to provide learners with a rich learning
environment. Some researchers suggest that modern technologies (video-recordings, multi-media
computers, the Internet) should play an important role in this context.
Seventh, input and a rich learning environment do not automatically guarantee that input turns into intake,
that is, into something that learners understand, remember and can use themselves. There is general
agreement that one of the conditions for input to turn into intake is comprehensible input, another condition
is that learners need the challenge and chance of producing comprehensible output. Only if they
understand what they read or hear can they integrate it into what they know, and only if they use the newly
acquired knowledge regularly will they develop a fluent access to the words and phrases which they
memorized, and only by practice will they learn to mend their errors and make progress in their language
acquisition.
Eighth, in that context the role of grammatical instruction must be reinterpreted. Traditional FLT is
characterized by a graded syllabus which prescribes when (all) learners are taught which grammatical
forms; in contrast L2-acquisition researchers put forward the teachability hypothesis which states that
formal instruction is of use only if learners are cognitively ready for acquiring the rules they are taught. The
difference to traditional FLT is that teachers are now expected to wait for the learners to themselves ask
for help with a specific grammatical construction and to then help them with finding the rules that explain
and produce this construction.
Ninth, an approach that in this way aims to enhance self-directed learning favours learner autonomy. It
should not be confused with a laissez-faire approach, because it is essential that teachers insist on regular
work to be produced. Insistance on the presentation of work done on self-defined tasks is the only valid
substitute for the strong environmental pressures on L2-learners in a natural environment to keep up their
language learning efforts. Learner autonomy means, too, that individualized learning processes take
precedence over the lock-step progression in traditional FLT. That puts high demands on the linguistic,
psychological and pedagogical skills of the teacher because s/he can no longer rely on a textbook that
comes complete with workbook and teacher's handbook to take responsibility for what is taught, how it is
taught, and how it is tested.
Tenth, if the traditional lock-step progression of structurally graded courses is to be replaced by a learner-
oriented approach the learners' ability to help themselves must be enhanced. Some researchers therefore
propose that teachers should start from the learners' knowledge of language and enhance their language
awareness as well as their learning strategies rather than providing them with abstract linguistic rules,
which they often do not understand.

Task (to be done individually and/or in groups) – Differences… and similarities

Go over the list of differences and make a one-sentence summary of each. Then add any other
differences you might consider relevant. Finally, make a list of similarities.

Task – Your linguistic repertoire

Think of your own linguistic repertoire. How would you describe each of the languages you use? Justify
your answers.
Be ready to share your findings with the class.