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)