SCHOOL :

1. PSYCHOLOGY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING Languages SCHOOL: NOMBRES: Econ. Ana Gates Lic. Eliana Pinza OCTUBRE – FEBRERO 2008 FECHA: 1

2. The Study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) • The study of the people and of the process • Areas of study are both the formal and informal settings for SLA • The broad questions in SLA are: • What does the second language learner come to know? • How do they come to know it? • Why are some more successful than others?

3. Who is interested in the answers to these questions? • Linguists: • They want to know about the differences and similarities between languages being learned • They want to understand the linguistic competence, or the underlying knowledge and linguistic performance, or what is being produced, at different stages in the language learning process • Sociolinguists: • They are interested in how differences in the learners themselves accounts for their communicative competence, or the ability to successfully communicate in the second language • Social Psychologists: • They are curious about how the social context of learners influences the process

4. Applied Linguists They may take one or many approaches to understanding language acquisition but their final goal is to identify the implications of research findings in the teaching realm. They are our allies, as they help us to be scientifically grounded, and therefore, better teachers

5. So many perspectives… Each field of SLA study approaches the questions from different angles Sometimes findings conflict and contradict Each offers insight to one or more aspects of this very complicated process

6. Part 1 Linguistics of Second Language Acquisition

7. Nature of Language • What do all languages have in common • Languages are systematic • Languages are symbolic • Languages are social

8. How linguists analyze and describe language • Lexicon (vocabulary) • Meaning • Pronunciation, spelling, • Part of speech • Collocations • Phonology (sound system) • Phonemes (sounds that make a difference in meaning • Possible sequences of vowels and consonents • Intonation patterns (stress, pitch, duration) • Rhythmic patterns (starts and stops)

9. How linguists analyze and describe language • Morphology (word structure) • Morphemes • Inflections that have grammatical information • Suffixes and prefixes that change meaning or grammatical category • Syntax (grammar) • Word order • Agreement between sentence elements (nouns and verbs, articles and gender, etc.) • Ways to form questions, negate assertions, etc.

10. How linguists analyze and describe language • Discourse • Ways to connect sentences, paragraphs, etc. • Ways to tell stories, have conversations, etc. • Scripts for interacting and events

11. L1 versus L2 Linguistic Achievements FACTS: Children come to master all these aspects of language by the time they are 6, with further refinement as they mature and gain more experience Second language learners rarely master all linguistics categories

12. Early study of SLA • Contrastive Analysis (CA) • Predicts and explains SL learner problems by comparing and contrasting L1 and L2 • Goal was to improve language teaching and testing

13. CA and Behaviorist Psychology • Assumes language learning to involve mainly habit formation • Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement (S-R-R)

14. Behaviorist Learning Theory • SLA success in part attributed to the differences and similarities of the L1 and L2 • More important are insistences of good or poor habit formation • Warns against attaining fluency too soon in the SLA process

15. Contrastive Analysis Focus • Compares and describes languages level by level in a specific order from smaller to larger units • Phonology • Morphology • Syntax • Lexicon (little emphasis) • Discourse (very little emphasis) • Gives more importance to structure than to meaning for language learning • hence the term Structural Linguistics

16. CA and Transfer • Elements habituated in L1 are applied to the learning of the L2 • Positive transfer (same structures present in both languages) • eg. Plurals indicated by adding an “s” to the end of the noun. This rule is the same in English and in Spanish • Negative transfer (when L1 structures are applied when they don’t exist in the L2) • eg. Page 36 has several examples

17. How Scientists did Contrastive Analysis • Described L1 and L2 at each level • Analyzed comparable segments of the languages in search of things that are likely to cause problems for the L2 learner • These elements were given attention in the development of lessons and determine • What needs to be practiced • What order to present structures

18. What Was Wrong With CA? • CA doesn’t explain how learners know more than they have heard or have been taught (Logical problem of language learning) • CA analysis not always validated by actual learner errors • Some expected errors didn’t happen • Some unexpected errors did • Not as much positive transfer as expected happened • Not very useful as a pedagogical tool • Too language specific, doesn’t work in a multilingual L1 classroom (may work better in EFL classrooms

19. Questions?

20. Error Analysis • Focus on learners creative abilities • Based on actual learner errors, rather than predicted errors • By 1970’s had pretty much replaced CA for the following reasons: • Real learner errors couldn’t be explained by transfer of L1 to L2 • Shift in linguistics focus from surface structures to underlying rules • Behaviorist assumptions called into question • Mentalism (focus on innate capacities) • Shift away from purely teaching concerns • Norm Chomsky’s theories

21. New Assumptions • Inner forces work with environment for language acquisition • Child is active participant in the process, not simply the receiver of stimuli • Child language and SL learner language come to be regarded in their own right

22. Another way to look at errors Not considered bad habits Offer insight to the process of language learning Errors are part of learning itself

23. How Scientists did Error Analysis • Collected of a sample of learner language • Identified errors • Errors vs. mistakes • Described errors • Usually as one of the linguistic categories of language • Explained errors • Interlingual (interference, techniques from CA) • Intralingual • Incomplete L2 knowledge • Over-generalizing L2 rules • Evaluated errors • Seriousness of error in communication

24. Problems of Error Analysis • Ambiguity in classification (how do we really know what has occurred is an error or a mistake?) • Lack of positive data • What the learner knows • Correct use overlooked • Potential for avoidance • Learners avoid difficult language

25. Questions?

26. Interlanguage (IL) Term coined by Larry Selinker in 1972 Refers to language states in progress towards the final state of L2

27. Theories of Interlanguage • Creative process • Inner forces in interaction with the environment • Influenced by L1 and target language • Considered as a language of its own • World English?

28. Characteristics of Interlanguage • Systematic • During stages of L2 development, language is governed by rules or internal grammar • Rules can be discovered by analyzing the grammar used by the learner at any point in L2 development • Dynamic • Rules are frequently changing • Succession of interim grammars • Moves from plateau to plateau • Variable • Different contexts results in different language use • Reduced system • Form • Function

29. Beginning and end points of Interlanguage • Boundaries unclear • Begins when a person first attempts to express meaning in L2 or when some grammatical structures change? • Ends when learning permanently stops

30. What happens when learning stops… • Fossilization • Disagreement about at what level of L2 achievement is considered to complete the process • Accents? • Grammatical errors that don't interfere with communication?

31. Questions?

32. Morpheme Order Studies • Is there a natural order or universal sequence for learning a second language across languages? • If so, does L1 transfer really exist? • Is this natural order that same in L2A and L1A?

33. Study Results and implications L1 and L2 order of acquisition very similar L2 order of acquisition almost identical independent of the L1 of the learner These conclusions provide further evidence of innate language acquisition Later studies made to see if syntactical order the same in L2 acquisition

34. Monitor Model • Assumes a Language Acquisition Device • Made up of 5 hypotheses • Acquisition-learning hypothesis • Monitor hypothesis • What is learned serves only to alter what has been acquired • Natural order hypothesis • Input hypothesis (Comprehensible input) • Affective Filter Hypothesis

35. Monitor Model Influence • This model made a huge impact in the teaching field • Communicative approach • Indirect grammar teaching

36. Criticisms of the Monitor Model Claims not scientifically verifiable Definitions vague and imprecise

37. Important Points of Agreement “What” • What is being acquired in SLA is a rule governed system • Development is progression through dynamic interlanguage which differs from L1 and from L2 • Final state of L2 differs from the native speaker system

38. Important Points of Agreement “How” & “Why” • How SLA takes place? • Creative mental process • Development follows predictable sequences similar for both L1 and L2 acquisition • Why some learners are more successful in SLA than others? • Relative success attributed mostly to the age of the learner

39. Universal Grammar • Norm Chomsky • Two questions still of interest in the linguists field: • What do language learners really know about the language they are learning? • How do learners know more than the input they receive? • Logical problem of language learning =Poverty of the stimulus

40. Universal Grammar Overview • Learner competence only explainable by an innate capacity • Genetically endowed ability-Language Faculty • All children born with the general knowledge needed to learn language • All children already “know” the rules that govern all natural languages • Language Faculty a potential solution to the Logical Problem • Children only need to build upon an already existing system. • Social interaction determines what is built upon the innate system

41. Principles and Parameters So what is happening in the mind of the language learner? Principles are the elements that all languages of the world share Some principles have parameters, or limitations depending on the specific language

42. Principles and parameters explained Since P&P are innate, the child is able to interpret and analyze input to construct the correct grammar UG strictly constrains the process, which explains why children lean so quickly

43. Importance of Vocabulary Lexical items include rich specification of properties These important because needed for parameter setting and other features of grammar and semantics Knowing a word means knowing its meaning, pronunciation, place in the sentence

44. LA Summary According to Chomsky • The Initial State of L1A is UG. • What is acquired in the process is information from input (especially vocabulary) that learner matches with UG options • The Final State of L1A is adult grammar • The Intermediate States are: • The initial state transformed by experience and determined by the processes of maturation • Several stable stages, finally end at about puberty

45. L1A • Natural, instinctive, internal to the cognitive system • Attitudes, motivation and social context (beyond minimal input) play no role

46. UG and SLA • What is the initial state in SLA? • What is the nature of interlanguage? • How does interlanguage change over time? • What is the final state of SLA

47. Initial State At the beginning of L2A, the learner has already gone through the process of L1A Some L1 knowledge is transferred to L2 Circumstances of L2 learning When L1 and L2 parameter settings are the same, positive transfer is likely When L1 and L2 parameter settings are different, negative transfer (interference) may occur

48. UG and L2 Initial State • Disagreement about whether or not L2 learners have access to UG • Four Possibilities • Learners have full access to UG in L2 learning • Learners have partial access • Learners retain indirect access, through what they know in the L1 • Learners have no access, but must learn the L2 through different means

49. Nature and Development of Interlanguage (IL) • Interlanguage=intermediate states of L2 development=interim grammars • If some access to UG is available, IL is a matter of “resetting” the parameters on the basis of input of new language • This happens because new input doesn’t match the L1 parameters • Choices limited and thus new language won’t deviate from UG • If learning principles that are part of the language faculty are still available there is enough information is available to make changes • Positive Evidence: input from natural or formal setting • Negative Evidence: explicit correction

50. And if not….. • If L2 learners don't have access to UG then L2A needs to be explained in a fundamentally different process • Arguments against the no access hypothesis • No evidence that IL violates UG • L1 transfer and L2 input can’t account entirely for the L2A process