A presentation focusing on the 1st and 2nd language acquisition.

1. ACQUISITION AND
LEARNING
Jon Henry Bello Ordoñez

2. REFERENCES
 H.D.Brown, Principles of Language Teaching and Learning
 S. Krashen, Secondary Language Acquisition and Learning

3. WHAT TO EXPECT?
 Acquisition vs. Learning
 Three Positions of 1st Language Acquisition
 Issues in 1st Language Acquisition
 2nd Language Acquisition (Krashen)

4. ACQUISITION VS. LEARNING

5. ACQUISITION
 the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process
children undergo when they acquire their first language. It
requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural
communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in the
form of their utterances, but in the communicative act.

6. LEARNING
 is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a conscious
process which results in conscious knowledge 'about' the
language, for example knowledge of grammar rules.

7. “
”
'LEARNING' IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN
'ACQUISITION'.
Stephen Krashen
It is clear that as teachers, we want to maximize our student's
opportunities to acquire language. Consequently, if we accept the
hypothesis then we need to spend more time using real language
with our students as opposed to teaching them explicit grammar
rules.

8. THREE POSITIONS OF 1ST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

9. BEHAVIORISTIC POSITION
Individuals are born without built-in mental content and
their knowledge comes from experience and
perception(tabula rasa).
Assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to
environmental stimuli.
Behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or
negative reinforcement.
Consider effective language behavior to be the
production of correct responses to stimuli. If a particular
response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual, or
conditioned.

10. BEHAVIORIST LEARNING THEORY
is a process of forming habits; the
teacher controls the learning
environment and learners are
empty vessels into which the
teacher pours knowledge.

11. NATIVIST
We have an innate predisposition to learn
language, and learning is in our genetics.
According to Chomsky, this innate knowledge
is embodied in a ¨little black box¨ of sorts, a
language acquisition device (LAD).
All human beings are genetically equipped
with the ability that enables them to acquire
language. (a system of universal linguistic rules
or Universal Grammar)

12. COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY
 emphasized the learner´s cognitive ability, involving reasoning
and mental processes rather than habit formation.

13. FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES
Two emphases emerged
1. Researchers began to realize that language was a cognitive and
affective ability to communicate with all the things including the
self.
2. They dealt with the forms of language, not the deeper functional
levels.

14. FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES
Cognition and Language Development
 Bloom found three possible underlying relationships: agent-
action, agent-object, and possessor-possessed.
 In addition, he concluded that children learn underlying
structures, not superficial word order.
 Piaget insisted that what children learn about language is
determined by what they already know about the world.
 Dan Slobin demonstrated that semantic learning depends on
cognitive development.

15. FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES
Social Interaction and Language Development
 Social constructivist emphasized on the function of language in
discourse.
 Discourse has a special meaning in that language is used for
interactive communication.

16. FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES
The functional context approach to learning
 stresses the importance of making learning relevant to the
experience of learners and their work context.
 The learning of new information is facilitated by making it possible
for the learner to relate it to knowledge already possessed and
transform old knowledge into new knowledge.
 By using materials that the learner will use after training, transfer
of learning from the classroom to the "real world" will be
enhanced.

17. ISSUES IN FIRST LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

18. COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE
Competence:
 Refers to one´s underlying knowledge of a system, event, or fact.
 It is the non-observable ability to do something, to perform
something.
 Competence & Language: it is one´s knowldege of the system of
a language (rules of grammar, vocabulary)-all the pieces of
language and how they fit together.

19. COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE
Performance
 It is the overtly observable and concrete manifestation or
realization of competence.
 It is the actual production (speaking, writing) or the
comprehension (listening, reading) of linguistic events.

20. COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION
 They are both aspects of competence and performance.
 Children seem to understand more than they actually produce
like adults do.

21. NATURE OR NURTURE?
 Even if Nativists insist that a child is born with an innate
knowledge toward language, there are a number of problems.
 The innateness is important, but we should not ignore the
environmental factors.
Language is both acquired and learned

22. UNIVERSALS
 Children go through similar Universal Language Acquisition stages regardless of cultural
and social circumstances.
 Language is universally acquired in the same manner, and the deep structure of
language at its deepest level may be common to all languages.
 According to Maratsos (1988), universal linguistic categories such as word order,
morphological marking tone, agreement, reduced reference of nouns and noun
clauses, verbs and verb classes, predication, negation and question formation are
common to all languages.
 There are principles and parameters which specify some limited possibilities of
variation.
 Parameters determines ways in which languages can vary.

23. SYSTEMATICITY AND VARIABILITY
 Systematicity means that children show a remarkable ability to
infer the phonological, structural, lexical and semantic system of
language.
 However, in the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equal
amount of variability in the process of learning.
 This means that something children once learned may easily be
changed or forgotten due to the perception of new language
systems.

24. LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
 Piaget claimed that cognitive development affects language.
 On the other hand, others claimed that language has an effect
on thought.
 The truth is that language and thought are closely related.

25. IMITATION
 One of the most important strategies a child uses in language
learning is imitation.
 Behaviorists assume one type of imitation, but a deeper level of
imitation is much more important in the process of language
acquisition.
 When children imitate the surface structure of the language, they
are not able to understand what they are imitating.

26. PRACTICE
 A behavioristic model of first language acquisition would claim
that practice - repetition and association – is the key to the
formation of habits by operant conditioning.
 Practice is usually regarded as referring to speaking only. But we
can also think about comprehension practice.
 The child learns not only how to initiate a conversation but how
to respond to another’s initiating utterance and recognize the
function of the discourse.

27. INPUT
 The role of input in the child’s acquisition of language is very
important.
 Children can speak what they hear.
 Adult and peer input to the child is far more crucial that nativists
earlier thought.
 Adult input shapes the child’s acquisition and the interaction
patterns between child and parent change according to the
increasing language skill of the child.

28. DISCOURSE
 Berko-Gleason mentioned that interaction, rather than exposure,
is required in order for successful first language acquisition to take
place and children learn language in the context of being
spoken to.
 Sinclair and Coulthard proposed that conversations should be
examined in terms of initiations and responses.

29. 2ND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
THEORY

30. KRASHEN'S THEORY OF SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION CONSISTS OF FIVE MAIN
HYPOTHESES
 Acquisition-Learning hypothesis,
 Monitor hypothesis,
 Input hypothesis,
 Natural Order hypothesis,
 Affective Filter hypothesis.

31. ACQUISITION-LEARNING HYPOTHESIS
 The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most important of all the hypotheses
in Krashen's theory and the most widely known and influential among linguists
and language practitioners.
 According to Krashen there are two independent systems of second language
performance: 'the acquired system' and 'the learned system'. The 'acquired
system' or 'acquisition' is the product of a subconscious process very similar to
the process children undergo when they acquire their first language.
 The 'learned system' or 'learning' is the product of formal instruction and it
comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge 'about'
the language, for example knowledge of grammar rules.

32. THE MONITOR HYPOTHESIS
 the acquisition system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system
performs the role of the 'monitor' or 'editor.' The monitor helps a person polish
their speech or writing and may be over-used (ex, heavy concern about
mistakes). Usually extroverts are under-users of the monitor, while introverts and
perfectionists are over-users.

33. NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS,
 For any given language, some grammatical structures tend to be
acquired early while others late. This does not mean teachers
should delay introducing those language structures because
students will not reliably reproduce them until later (perhaps
much later). Students need more repeated exposure to natural-
sounding language input over a longer time to acquire these
elements of the target language.

34. INPUT HYPOTHESIS
 The learner progresses along the 'natural order' as he/she
receives second language 'input' that is one step beyond his/her
current linguistic competence. If a learner already has acquired
language competence ‘i,’ they will acquire more language
through exposure to comprehensible input ‘i + 1.’ Krashen
believes natural communicative input will provide all learners with
‘i + 1’ regardless of each learner’s current level of competence.

35. AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS
 Krashen claims that learners with low motivation, low self-esteem,
and/or debilitating anxiety can 'raise' the affective filter and form
a 'mental block’ to their progress. Teachers will want to plan
lessons that reduce these hindrances by providing interesting,
even compelling, content (from the learners’ perspective, not
the teacher’s) and by not shaming learners for errors or over-
using correction techniques that cause anxiety.