The Psychology of Second L anguage A cquisition

1. The Psychology of Second Language Acquisition Kensey Crump, Cindy Cervantes, Cindy Cruz, and Katia del Valle

2. Do you think that people has a natural ability to learn a language within their brain or do you think that all learning is base on the same principles or mechanisms? • Find your match… • Share your Ideas… • Tell the class…

3. Today you will learn about… • Language and the brain • Critical period Hypothesis • The framework most associated in SLA learning. • The different types of learning in the framework. • Associated assumptions • Fossilization • Three IP stages • Theories regarding order of acquisition • Competition model • Connectionist approaches

4. Languages and the Brain Paul Pierre Broca found out that the left frontal lobe of the brain is what allow us to speak. Carl Wernicke discover that an area close by the Broca’s area was responsible for our hearing. http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/12/2207.full

5. Critical Period Hypothesis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUq66tkNjKU

6. Principal hemispheric specializations Left Hemisphere Right Hemisphere • Phonology • Morphology • Syntax • Function Words and Inflections • Tone Systems • Much Lexical Knowledge • Nonverbal (as Babies’ Cries) • Visuospatial Information • Intonation • Nonliteral Meaning and Ambiguity • Many Pragmatic Abilities • Some Lexical Knowledge

7. Think and Share • How independent are the languages of multilingual speakers? • How are multiple language structures organized in relation to one another in the brain? Are both languages stored in the same area? • Does the organization of the brain for L2 in relation to L1 differ with age of acquisition, how it is learned, or level of proficiency? • Do two or more languages show the same sort of loss or disruption after brain damage? When there is differential impairment or recovery, which language recovers first?

8. How independent are the languages of multilingual speakers? • According to the text they are not, totally independent, but they are not totally dependent either.

9. How are multiple languages structures organized in relation to one another in the brain? Are both languages stored in the same areas? we can see that both languages are storage in majority on our left hemisphere. They overlap in some areas and in others they are storage in different parts. the Sylvian fissure in the left hemisphere is a common are of storage for both languages.

10. Does the organization of the brain for L2 in relation to L1 differ with age of acquisition, how it is learned, or level of proficiency? • The answer to this questions is yes. • According to a test realize by Wuillemin and Richards, people how learn a language after the age of 12, tend to use more their right side of their brain, and this also tells us that younger children don’t have the need to use the right side.

11. Do two or more languages show the same sort of loss or disruption after brain damage? When there is differential impairment or recovery, which language recovers first? • On believe was that the last language learn was the first one to go, and if a person knew more than two languages, they would loose in the order their learn those languages, leaving the first one at last. • Another hypothesis said that the language use the most before the damage is the language that can be recover.

12. Frameworks • Information Processing (IP) • Connectionism

13. Information Processing (IP) • More influence on SLA • Essentially like learning any other domain of knowledge • 3 models to (IP) • Multidimensional Model • Process ability • Competition Model

14. IP Assumptions • Language learning is just like the acquisition of learning another skill • Complex skills can be reduced to a set of simpler skills and then scaffolded • Learning demands learners attention and involves controlled processing, which is limited in capacity. • With practice learners will move from controlled processing to automatic processing, causing a need for restructuring • In SLA restructuring of internal representations accounts for increasing levels of L2 proficiency.

15. Controlled Processing • Cognitive • Commands learners attention • Usually new learners

16. Controlled • You have a 3 gallon jug and a 5 gallon jug. You need to measure out exactly 7 gallons of water. How do you do it? • Fill the 5 gallon jug with water, pour it into the 3 gallon jug until the 3 gallon is full, leaving 2 gallons in the 5 gallon jug. Now pour out the water in the 3 gallon jug. Pour the 2 gallons of water (in the 5 gallon jug) into the empty 3 gallon jug. Fill the 5 gallon jug. You now have exactly 7 gallons

17. Automatic Processing • After initial stage of controlled processing • Requires less mental space • Requires less focal attention • More passive

18. Automatic • 2+2= • Who is the president? • What is the speed limit?

19. Fossilization • Cessation of learning • Aspects of L2 may become automatized before reaching target levels which causes learning to stop

20. IP Stages

21. Find the Fib! • Get into groups of 3 or 4 with one sheet of paper. • Write down two facts and one fib. • When we say “Go” switch with a neighboring group and work together to find their fib!

22. Quick Review

23. SLA is… • Learning a second language after a first has been established. • Example: Child who speaks a language other than English at home goes to school for the first time.

24. Stages of Information Processing • Input • Central Processing • Output

25. Input • Perception: the sample of L2 that learners are exposed to, but not available for processing unless learners actually notice it or pay attention to it.

26. Likely contributors to the degree of noticing or awareness are: • Frequently of encounter with items • Individual’s processing ability • Readiness to notice particular items (related to hierarchies of complexity)

27. Central Processing • Fluency is achieved, learning occurs • Learners go from controlled to automatic processing • Restructuring of knowledge takes place • Controlled-automatic processing • Declarative-procedural knowledge • Restructuring

28. Output • Is the language that learners produce in speech, sign or writing.

29. Meaningful production practice helps learners by : • Enhancing fluency by furthering development of automaticity through practice • Noticing gaps in their own knowledge as they are forced to move from semantic to syntactic processing, which may lead learners to give more attention to relevant information • Testing hypotheses based on developing interlanguage, allowing for monitoring and revision

30. Theories regarding order of acquisition

31. Multidimensional Model: • An approach to SLA which claims that learners acquire certain grammatical structures in developmental sequences, and that those sequences reflect how learners overcome processing limitations. • Claims that language instruction which targets developmental features will be successful only if learners have already mastered the processing operations which are associated with the previous stages of acquisition

32. Multidimentional Model Strategies • Canonical Order Strategy • Initialization/finalization strategy • Subordinate clause strategy

33. Processability Theory A reorientation of the Multidimensional Model that extends its concepts of learning & applies them to teaching second languages with the goal of determining and explaining the sequences in which processing skills develop in relation to language learning

34. Acquisition hierarchy of processing skills • Lemma/word access • Category procedure • Phrasal procedure • S-procedure • Clause boundary

35. Competition Model • A functional approach to SLA which assumes that all linguistic performance involves “mapping” between external form and internal function.

36. Competition Model A psychological approach of how languages are learned by Brian MacWhinney and Elizabeth Bates.

37. The Competition Model • The Competition Model was developed to account for sentence processing as well as language acquisition (MacWhinney & Bates, 1989). • The study of sentence processing seeks to understand how people rapidly analyze the structure of sentences and gain access to their meaning as a whole (Wingfield & Titone, 1998).

38. THE Competition Theory • In this theory, its is stated that the way in which people interpret the meaning of a sentence is by taking in account various linguistics cues contained in the sentence. Such as…. • Word order /Syntax • Morphology • Semantic

39. Different languages assign different weights to syntactic and semantic cues. Learners of a second language tend to transfer the weights associated with the cues in their first language"

40. Cue weights will differ between languages. • People will use the cue weights associated with that language to guide their interpretation of the sentence. Why They named it the Competition Model? • Several cues are presented all simultaneously and it involves “competition” among various cues!

41. The problem among bilinguals is that not all cues are the same among languages! For Example…. • Word order: Subject/verb/object • English • Morphology: Subject/verb/agreement • Spanish, Italian, German, • Semantic: Animacy • Chinese and Japanese

42. Ex…. • A child that is making the transition from Spanish to English will use his background knowledge and the cues that he was taught in Spanish while processing a sentence. • “gato negro” in Spanish adjectives come before noun. • “cat black” this is how it would translate because the child is applying the Spanish cue.

43. The Importance of knowing this Model! We need to know how the linguistic input can be structured to maximize effective learning. What aspects of the phonology, syntax, semantics, and morphology of the input does the learner use to “crack the code” of the new language? We need to understand exactly how the cognitive abilities of the learner shape the process and outcome of second language instruction. (MacWhinney, 1987; MacWhinney & Bates, 1989).

44. What you learn today

45. Brain Quiz Lets review

46. According to the text, the lateralization of the right side of our brain is responsible for most of our language activity A) True B) False

47. Correct