Second Language Acquisition

1. Second Language Acquisition

2. Quiz 14 Name that stage! For each sample utterance, give the most probable earliest age it would occur: 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 9-18 months, 18-24 months, 24-30 months, 30+ months. • Kitty bed • Up! • [nənənənənəbiːːː] • Why that kitty is looking at me? • Kitty ride car. Bonus! Metonym or metaphor? Please keep an eye on that kid.

3. Your first language (L1) Your first language has a huge impact how we think of language and who we are: Phonetics: Our pronunciation and what sounds we are capable of making with proficiency, syllable stresses, tone… Phonology: What patterns of sounds we expect and recognize as words… (Does U‘i look like a word to you?) Morphology: What parts of words mean, how we combine words to form new meanings, case inflections, irregular verbs… Syntax: Word order (SVO, SOV?), the use of determiners (as genders?), auxiliary (to-be) verbs… Semantics: Ambiguities, idioms, homonyms, polysemes, metaphors, metonyms… In other words, your first language affects the way you *think* or conceptualize the world. Learning a new language is, in a sense, like stepping onto a completely alien planet.

4. Fluency To speak a second language with fluency means that natural-sounding speech is produced and understood correctly and without noticeable hesitation. In order to achieve fluency several targets must be reached: • Communicative Competence: Using the language in a way appropriate to the situation • Grammatical Competence: Ability to use grammar • Phonetics/Phonology: An accent is the result of incomplete phonetic transfer from an L1 to an L2 • Morphology: Morphemes like {–ing} and {’s} are acquired at different times than L1 learners • Syntax: Placement and use of complementizers, the use of “null subjects” • Semantics: The denotation and connotation of words • Textual Competence: Creating a well formed text using sentence cohesion and rhetorical organization (transitions, bridging between ideas) • Illocutionary Competence: Understanding a speaker’s intent behind the utterance (Why don’t you open your books?) • Sociolinguistic Competence: Ability to produce and comprehend the appropriate social dialect (using slang, formal/informal speech)

5. Barriers to Learning a Second Language: Age Age, affective factors (particularly motivation), and cognitive factors have an affect on how successful someone is at learning a language. • Age/Critical Period: The “critical period” for an L2 is not quite like an L1—age has an effect on the difficulty of language learning, but it does not have the dramatic syntactical effect that missing the critical period for an L1 has. Children who begin learning a second language before age seven can generally achieve native-like speech. Children 7-14 have mixed results in fluency. Adults can learn a second language, but it very much depends on the other factors of exposure and motivation. If exposure to a language ceases, children and adults lose proficiency very quickly.

6. Barriers to L2 Learning: Motivation • Motivation is probably the most important factor in the success of learning a second language. What is Motivation? “The dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritised, operationalised and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out” (Dörnyei and Ottó). In other words, what motivates any single person changes from day-to-day. It reflects where our priorities are. Some are motivated by money, success, love, career, fitting-in, family, the desire to know…whatever causes the highest levels of motivation is the key to learning a language. Two types of motivation Instrumental (extrinsic): Involving a specific goal like passing a test, or getting a job. Integrative (intrinsic): Involving fitting into a culture and interest in the language and culture itself. Integrative motivation correlates with a higher success rate, but the degree of motivation may matter more than type.

7. Barriers to L2 Learning: Learning Strategies Teaching L2 in a classroom setting has been famously ineffective. Why? Many researchers believe that experimentation with language is far more effective in learning than teaching grammatical rules in a removed context, such as with vocabulary tests and lectures on correct comma placement. If the student doesn’t see the use of the material in context, the material just doesn’t “stick.” Language experimentation may also have a role in cultivating integrative motivation.

8. So what works? • Modified Input? Teachers often modify their speech to non-native speakers in the hope that they will better comprehend the lesson or situation. This has mixed results—is the language use too easy? Too hard? Patronizing? Does it rob the students of learning? • Modified Interaction? Such as comprehension checks (do you understand?), prompting, expansions (“Me red sweater” “Yes, you are wearing a red sweater today, aren’t you?”), and recasting—reformulating an utterance to correct errors. These have some positive impacts to understanding and accuracy. • Focus on Form? Correcting errors. This has been shown to increase some accuracy, but not necessarily fluency in the long run. The benefits to focusing on form happen particularly when: • They compare their own utterances to native speakers’ and become aware of differences. • The correction arises in response to a speaker’s needs rather than abstractly. • The correction is anticipated so that the speaker can prepare. An immediate recast might repeat the error before stating the correction.

9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x2_kWRB8-A