Summary SLA Chapter 2

2. The nature of learner language

 

Error and error analysis

Identifying errors

To identify errors we have to compare the sentences learners produce with seem to be the normal or ‘correct sentences in the target language which correspond with them. Sometimes, learners produce sentences that are possible target-language sentences but not preferred ones. At another time, it is difficult to reconstruct the correct sentence because we are not sure what the learner meant to say.

Describing errors

There are several ways to describe and classify errors. 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’. Classifying errors in these ways can help us to diagnose learners’ learning problem at any stage of their development and also to plot how changes in errors patterns occur over time.

Explaining errors

Errors are not only systematic; many of them are also universal. Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue or whose mother tongues manifest the same linguistic property. Errors can have different sources. Some errors seem to be universal, reflecting learners’ attempt to make the task of learning and using the L2 simpler. Learners commit errors of omission. For example, they leave out the articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and leave the –s off plural nouns. They also overgeneralize forms that they find easy to learn and process. The use of ‘eated’ in place of ‘ate’ is an example of an overgeneralize error. Other errors, however, reflect learners’ attempt to make use their L1 knowledge. These known as transfer errors.    

Error evaluation

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.

Developmental patterns

The early stage of L2 acquisition 

In such circumstance, some L2 learners, particularly if they are children, undergo a silent period. The silent period may serve as a preparation for subsequent production. When learners do begin to speak in the L2 their speech is likely to manifest the kind of formulaic chunks and propositional simplification. They difficult to speak in full sentences so they frequently leave words out. In time, learners do begin to learn the grammar of the L2. This raises other question. One concerns the acquisition order. Another question concerns the sequence of acquisition of particular grammatical structures.

The order of acquisition 

To investigate the order of acquisition, researchers choose a number of grammatical structures to study. Some researchers than 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 a particular feature the more likely they are to have acquired that feature early. Other researchers have shown that the order does vary somewhat according to the learners’ first language. Another problem is that the research treats acquisition as if it is a process of accumulating linguistic structures.

Sequence of acquisition

The acquisition of a particular grammatical structure, therefore, must be seen as a process involving transitional constructions. Acquisition follows us U-shaped course of development; that is, initially learners can display a high level of accuracy only to apparently regress later before finally once again performing in accordance with target-language norms. It is clear that acquisition of what looks like a simple grammatical feature such as past tense, in fact, a highly complex affair. When learners begin to use past tense markers, they do not do so on all verbs at the same time. The kind of verb also influences the kind of errors learners make.

Some implication

The discovery of common patterns in the way in which language changes over time provides further support for the conclusions reached from the study of learners errors, namely that L2 acquisition is systematic and, to large extend, universal, reflecting ways in which internal cognitive mechanisms control acquisition, irrespective of the personal background of learners or the setting in which they learn. The work on developmental patterns suggests that some linguistic features are inherently easier to learn that others.

Variability in language

Learner language is systematic and variable. Learners vary in their use of the L2 according to linguistic context. Learners also vary in linguistic form they use in accordance with the situation context. Another important factor that accounts for the systematic nature of variability is the psycholinguistic context—whether learners have the opportunity to plan their production. Learners manifest considerable variability in their production of an L2. Variability in learner language is clearly not just random. It would seem that at least some variability is ‘free’. It is possible that free variation constitutes an essential stage in the acquisition of grammatical structures. Different kinds of variability may be evident at different stages of development. It is possible for individual learners to be at different stages in the sequence for different grammatical features. Not all learners reach the completion stage for every grammatical structure. Many will continue to show non-target language variability in at least some grammatical features. Also, learners may success in reaching target-language norms in some type of language use but not in others.

Questions:

1. Why the acquisition of a particular grammatical structure must be seen as a process involving transitional constructions? And what is the meaning of transitional constructions?
2. Why situational context can vary the linguistic forms that learners use in?

Summary SLA Chapter 1

1.      Introduction: describing and explaining L2 acquisition
 

What is second language acquisition?

In this context ‘second’ can refer to any language that is learned subsequent to the mother tongue. Thus, it can refer to the learning of a third or fourth language. Also ‘second’ is not intended to contrast with ‘foreign’. ‘L2 acquisition’ is defined as the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or outside of a classroom, and ‘Second Language Acquisition’ (SLA) as the study of this.

 
What are the goals of SLA?

The goals of SLA are to describe how L2acquisition proceeds and to explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others.

Two case studies

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

A case study of an adult learner

Wes was a thirty-three years-old, a native speaker of Japanese. He is an example of a ‘naturalistic’ learner—someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it. Richard Schmidt, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, studies Wes’s language development over a three-year period from the time he first started visiting. Schmidt asked Wes to make recording in English when he went on trips back to Tokyo. He then made written transcription of these monologue, which lasted between one and three hours. Schmidt was interested in how Wes knowledge with English grammar development over the three years. He looked to see how accurately Wes used these features in his speech at a time near the beginning of his study and at a time near the end. There were very view verbs which Wes used in both the simple form and the progressive form. He generally used each verb with just one of these form. Clearly, Wes did not have the same knowledge of progressive -ing as native speaker. In fact, Wes has little or no knowledge at the beginning of the study of most of the grammatical structures Schmidt investigated. Moreover, he was still far short of native speaker accuracy three years later.

A case study of two child learners

J was a ten-year-old Portuguese boy, literate in his native language. R was an eleven-year-old boy from Pakistan, speaking (but unable to write) Punjabi as his native language. Both learners were learning English in a language unit in London. The instruction the two learners received was very mixed. It involved both formal language instruction and more informal instruction. Initially, at least, the two learners had little exposure to the target language outside the classroom. The focus of the study was request. By the end of the study, therefore, the two learners’ ability to use request had grown considerably. Whereas native speakers of English vary the way they perform of request with different addresses to ensure politeness, the two learners use the same range of request strategies irrespective of whether they were talking to the teacher or other students. In short, despite ample opportunity to master request, the two learners were still far short of native-like competence at the end of the study.

Methodological issues

One issue has to do with what it is that needs to be described. Language is such a complex phenomenon that researchers have generally preferred to focus on some specific aspect rather than on the whole of it. There is another problem in determining whether learners have ‘acquired’ a particular feature. Another issue concerns what it means to say that a learner has ‘acquired’ a feature of the target language. Both case studies point out that the learners made considerable use of fixed expression or formulas. A third problem in trying to measure whether ‘acquisition’ has taken place concerns learners’ overuse of linguistic forms.

Issues in the description of learner language

Both of these studies set out how to describe how learners’ use of an L2 change over time and what this shows about the nature of their knowledge of the L2. One finding is that learners make error of different kinds. Another finding is that L2 learners acquire a large number of formulaic chunks, which they use to perform communicative function that are important to them and which contribute to the fluency of their unplanned speech. One of the most interesting issues raised by these case studies is whether learners acquire the language systematically. These studies, suggest that learners do acquire aspect of an L2 systematically, and moreover, that they follow particular developmental routes, with some features being acquired before others.

Issues in the explanation of L2 acquisition

On the one hand, learners internalize chunks of language structure. On the other hand, they acquire rules. In the other words, learners must engage in both item learning and system learning. An explanation of L2 acquisition must account for both item and system learning and how the two interrelate. There are three numbers of possible explanations why Wes seems to learn some grammatical items before other, and why J and R learn the different ways of making a request. 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. However, this mentalist account of how L2 acquisition takes place is not the only possible one. Other explanations emphasize the importance of external as opposed as internal factors. None of the three learners in two case studies reached a native-speaker level of performance. Perhaps learners like Wes and J and R, are only motivated to learn an L2 to extent that they are able to satisfy their communicative needs. After all, it is not necessary to learn the full grammar of a language in order to get one’s meaning across.  Perhaps it is only possible to acquire native-speaker competence if learners start very young when their brains are, in some sense, open to language. Perhaps L2 learners can only acquire difficult linguistic features if they receive direct instruction in them.

Questions:

1. In page 5 noticed that L2 acquisition can be explained in part by these external factors but we also need to consider internal factors. So, how the internal factors in explain L2 acquisition?
2. Why an explanation of L2 must account for both item and system learning and how two interrelate? (page 13)