PLLT Chapter.10 summary

CHAPTER10>
THEORIES OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION


What is SLA? SLA is a subject if general human learning, involves cognitive variations, is closely related to one’s personality type, is interwoven with second culture learning, and involves interference, the creation of new linguistic systems, and the learning of discourse and communicative functions of language.

BUILDING A THEORY OF SLA
There are so many separate but interrelated factors within one intricate entity that it is exceedingly difficult to bring order and simplicity to that “chaos.”.

Domains and Generalizations
Certain factors subsumed are also a set of domains of consideration in a theory of SLA.
1. A theory of SLA includes an understanding, in general, of what language is, what learning is, and for classroom contexts, what teaching is.
2. Knowledge of children’s learning of their first language provides essential insights to an understanding of SLA.
3. However, a number of important differences between adult and child learning and between first and second language acquisition must be carefully accounted for.
4. Second language learning is a part of and adheres to general principles of human learning and intelligence.
5. There is tremendous variation across learners in cognitive style and within a learner in strategy choice.
6. Personality, the way people view themselves and reveal themselves in communication, will affect both the quantity and quality of second language learning.
7. Learning a second culture is often intricately intertwined with learning a second language.
8. The linguistic contrasts between the native and target language form one source of difficulty in learning a second language. But the creative process of forming an interlanguage system involves the learner in utilizing many facilitative sources and resources. Inevitable aspects of this process are errors, from which learners and teachers can gain further insight.
9. Communicative competence, with all of its subcategories, is the ultimate goal of learners as they deal with function, discourse, register, and nonverbal aspects of human interaction and linguistic negotiation.

Hypotheses and Claims
In a summary of research findings on SLA, Lightbown made 9 claims. And a similar set of statements was made by Lightbown and spada outlining some myths about SLA- what one should not conclude to be necessarily a correct generalization. Following are some of the popular ideas that may not be supported by research.
1. Languages are learned mainly through imitation.
2. Parents usually correct young children when they make errors.
3. People with high IQ’s are good language learners.
4. The earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the greater the likelihood of success in learning.
5. Most of the mistakes that second language learners make are due to interference from their first language.
6. Learners’ errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits.

Criteria for a Viable Theory
One answer to the question about how we know if we have the appropriate components of a theory of SLA may lie in an examination of chaos complexity theory. Diane Larsen-Freeman argued that SLA is as much a dynamic, complex, nonlinear system as are physics, biology and other science. Larsen-Freeman suggested several lessons from chaos theory that can help us to design a theory of SLA. To achieve a theory, there are 4 pitfalls that should be avoided.
1. Beware of false dichotomies. Look for complementarity, inclusiveness, and interface.
2. Beware of linear, causal approaches to theorizing. SLA is so complex with so many interaction factors that to state that there is a single cause for a SLA effect is go too far.
3. Beware of overgeneralization. Pay attention to details.
4. Beware of reductionist thinking.
Michael Long also tackled the problem of theory building in a number of suggestions about “the least“ a theory of SLA needs to explain. He offered eight criteria for a comprehensive theory of SLA:
1. Account for universals.
2. Account for environmental factors.
3. Account for variability in age, acquisition rate, and proficiency level.
4. Explain both cognitive and affective factors.
5. Account for form-focused learning, not just subconscious acquisition.
6. Account for other variables besides exposure and input.
7. Account for cognitive/innate factors which explain interlanguage systematicity.
8. Recognize that acquisition is not a steady accumulation of generalizations.
While there is a viable behavioristic model of SLA, we can identify a major innatist model, two cognitive models, and a social constructivist theory.

AN INNATIST MODEL: KRASHEN’S INPUT HYPOTHESIS
Among a number of different names of Krashen’s hypotheses, resent name” input Hypotheses” has come to identify what is really a set of five interrelated hypotheses. There five hypotheses are summarized below.
1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
Krashen claimed that adult second language learners have two means for internalizing the target language. The first is “acquisition,” a subconscious and intuitive process of constructing the system of a language, not unlike the process used by a child to “pick up” a language. The second means is a conscious “learning” process in which learners attend to form, figure out rules, and are generally aware of their own process. Moreover, Krashen claimed that learning and acquisition are totally different and mutually exclusive.
.2. The Monitor Hypothesis
The “monitor” is involved in learning, not in acquisition. It is a device for “watchdogging” one’s output, for editing and making alterations or corrections as they are consciously perceived.
3. The Natural Order Hypothesis
Krashen has claimed that we acquire language rules in a predictable or “natural” order.
4. The Input Hypothesis
The Input Hypothesis claims that an important “condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understand (via hearing or reading) input language that contains more difficult structure than his or her current level of competence. It is said that when the learners are exposed to mere difficult input than their current competence, it may be more effective, and It is called “ i+1”
5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis
Krashen has further claimed that the best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent, or, in Krashen’s terms, in contexts where the “affective filter” is low.

Unfortunately, Krashen’s assumptions have been hotly disputed. At first, McLaughlin sharply criticized Krashen’s rather fuzzy distinction between subconscious and conscious processes. A second criticism of Krashen’s views arose out of the claim that there is no interface between acquisition and learning. A third difficulty in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis is found in his explicit claim that comprehensible input is the only causative variable in SLA. Krashen suggested that input gets converted to intake through a learner’s process of linking forms to meaning and noticing gaps between the learner’s current interrelated rule system and the new input. However, these processes are not clearly operationalized or consistently proposed. Seliger found that learners who maintained high level of interaction in the L2 progressed at a faster rate than learners who interacted little. Some studies suggest that Krashen’s comprehensible input must at the very least be complemented by a significant amount of output that gives credit to the role of the learner’s production. Finally, the notion of i + 1 is nothing new and the notion that speech will emerge in a context of comprehensible input has no significant information.



COGNITIVE MODELS
Consciousness is a tricky term and younger is not necessarily better.

McLaughlin’s Attention-Processing Model
McLaughlin’s model juxtaposes information processing (controlled and automatic) and attention to formal properties of language (focal and peripheral) to form four cells.Controlled processes are capacity limited and temporary and automatic processes are a relatively permanent. Automatic processes refer to processing in a more accomplished skill to manage lots of information simultaneously. The automatizing of multiplicity of data is accomplished by a process of restructuring.Both ends of this continuum of processing can occur with either focal or peripheral attention to the task at hand. All of the perceptions, from highly focal to very peripheral, are within the awareness. There is no long-term learning of new material without awareness. Peripheral, automatic attention-processing of the bits and pieces of language is an ultimate communicative goal for language learners.

Implicit and Explicit Models
In the explicit category are the facts that a person knows about language and the ability to articulate those facts in some way. Implicit knowledge is information that is automatically and spontaneously used in language tasks. Ellen Bialystok equated implicit and explicit with the synonymous terms unanalyzed and analyzed knowledge. These same models feature a distinction between automatic and non-automatic processing. Knowledge that can be retrieved easily and quickly is automatic. Knowledge that takes time and effort to retrieve is non-automatic.Some useful applications have emerged in Rod Ellis’s proposals of a theory of classroom instruction using implicit/explicit continua.

A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVE MODEL : LONG’S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
The social constructivist perspectives emphasize the dynamic nature of the interplay between learners and their peers and their teachers and others with whom they interact. Michael Long posits, in what has come to be called the interaction hypothesis, that comprehensible input is the result of modified interaction. In Long’s view, interaction and input are two major players in the process of acquisition. Conversation and other interactive communication are the basis for the development of linguistic rules. Long’s Interaction Hypothesis has pushed pedagogical research on SLA into a new frontier. A broadly based theory of SLA must encompass models of learner-internal processing as well as the socially constructed dynamics of interpersonal communication.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
The field of L2 learning and teaching has for many decades now been plagued by debates about the relationship between theory and practice, The trends in language teaching were partly the result of teachers and researchers communicating with each other. However, a dysfunction that has been perpetuated by both sides has accorded higher status to a researcher/theorist than to a practitioner/teacher.In fact, we are all practitioners and we are all theorists. You will be a part of a community of theory builders that talk with each other in pursuit of a better theory.
Three suggestions to join the community of theory builders
1.Play both the believing game and the doubting game.
Try to find something wrong with someone’s claim or hypothesis and also to find truths.
2. Appreciate both the art and science of SLA.
We use two research traditions to draw conclusions of SLA. One tradition is a nomothetic tradition of empiricism, scientific methodology, and predictions. On the other hand, a hermeneutic tradition provides us with a means for interpretation and understanding in which we do not look of absolute laws. Viewing our research of SLA as art is advantageous because such a view reduces the need of closure and allows us to see our work in a larger perspective with less dogmatism and ego involvement.
3. Trust (to some extent) your intuitions.
Intuition forms an essential component of our total intellectual endeavor. Good language teachers have developed good intuition.
How do you learn intuition? There is no simple answer to this question, yet some ingredients of a rational are apparent.
1. You need to internalize essential theoretical foundations.
2. There is no substitute for the experience of standing on your own two feet in the presence of real learners in the real world.
3. You must be a willing risk-taker yourself.