"Second Language Acquisition"

Introduction:

The term second language acquisition deals with the events through which one can acquire one or more other languages. L1 means first language, the learner’s mother tongue. L2 means second language which a learner wants to learn. But the SLA researchers interested in both product and take this as naturalistic contexts where the learners acquire language with different activities and interact through language. SLA is very important methodology through which teacher gives knowledge about the language.

Let’s converse in detail that how SLA is playing an exceptional role to acquire the language.

First it is very much necessary to know that,

What is SLA?

           SLA emerged from comparative studies of language. These type of studies were including in the belief that a leaner’s first language has very much important to acquire his second language, it is known as a ‘Contrastive analysis’ (C A) hypothesis. There is a clash between L1 and L2 rules.

         Example:   Spanish L1 learners would tend. When learning English to place the adjective after the noun as it is done in Spanish rather than before it.

Such an error can be explained as ‘Negative Transfer’ of the L1 rule to the L2. When the rules are similar for both language ‘Positive transfer’ would occur and language learning would be facilitated. Thus English language remains difficult to learn as L1 in most of countries in Asia. Contrastive Analysis.

Morpheme Order:

During the early 1970 a series of experimental investigations into learner language were came out which is known as the ‘ Morpheme Order’ Their aim principles is that L2 learners acquire grammar to focus on target language. Delay and Burt (1973-1974) the main architects of the morpheme order that like L1, children acquiring a L2 appeared to follow an order. In addition the children who are coming from rural background they are trying to translating English sentence into their mother tongue than with the help of this methodology they can easily understand L2.

The Morpheme order studies indicated a predetermined order of acquisition for certain grammatical morphemes.  Subsequent research also showed that this order could not be changed by instruction. on the other hand, the researchers were unable to explain why certain items were acquired before others. During the 1980s however a number of researches studying the acquisition of German and English proposed an interested explanation for the disparity between instruction and acquisition based on speech – processing constraints. (Pienemann 1989)

SLA through process oriented research:

SLA can facilitate by exploring the kinds of classroom tasks and activities. In the first of a series of investigations into learner- learner interaction, Long (1981) found that two way tasks (in which all students in a group discussion had unique information to contribute) stimulated significantly more modified interaction than one way tasks ( In which one member of the group possessed all the relevant information)

The term ‘Modified interaction’ pacts with the idea that comprehensible input was necessary for SLA that acquisition would occur when learners understood messages in the target language.

Even though grammar is an essential part of language, first a teacher has to ready himself that what is the proficiencies need to acquires second language. If a learner makes grammatically mistakes or any pronunciation mistakes let them do but a teacher should more and more tried that they will speak in English. So this is very important methodology to teach language to learners.

Complexity of SLA and its trends and directions:

SLA research can be solved by a single word ‘Complexity’. The input and output parts of human mind are important to SLA and this way the acquisition is an organic rather than linear process.

Some are the characteristics of SLA to understand language. In recent study, Martyn (1996) investigated the influence of certain task on the negotiation of meaning in small group work, looking at the following variables. 

The results seem to indicate that while task variables appear to have an effect on the amount of negotiation for meaning there appears to be an interaction between task variables personality factors and interactional dynamic. This ongoing research underlines the complexity of learning environment and the difficulty of isolating psychological and linguistic factors from social and impersonal ones.

So, conclude with this idea that SLA methodology becomes successful only when the learners should focus on L2 as their target language. The final part of the chapter also suggest that future work will attempt to capture the complexity of the acquisition process by incorporating a wide range of linguistic , social, interpersonal and psycholinguistic variables into the design of the research process.

Bilingualism:

Introduction:

Bilingualism compacts with the phenomenon of competence and communication in two languages. The teacher’s interaction in two languages, by this way a learner can acquire or awake about language. So it is called Bilingualism. A bilingual society is that in which two languages are used for communication. In Bilingual society, it is possible to communicate into different languages but real meaning of these methods is to target on language which we (learners) are studying.

Monolingual or communicative norms:

Bilingual person who is very much influential in two or more than other language the way of monolingual or communication becomes effectual. By giving different examples to the learners into their mother tongue, without any difficulty they can acquire knowledge about language.

Ø  Example:

A Bilingual whose mother tongue is Gujarati and he is studying in Gujarat, then he gives example in Gujarati rather than giving example in English language. So, result is that a learner gets him properly.

Limitation of Bilingualism:

As we know that there are many importance of Bilingualism but it has limitation also. A Bilingual person communicates in dominant place only but outside from this place he may have needed to learn another language.

Ø  Example:

A bilingual who studying in Gujarati language only in Gujarat but when he goes outside from Gujarat, suppose Maharashtra then Gujarati examples will not  work.

So Bilingualism involves communicative norms domains and components.

Ø Background and types of Bilingualism:

B

A

C

K

G

R

O

U

N

D

                                      

                                         Monolingual speaker- hearer competence

                                         Greeter vigor

                                         Contact linguistic

                                         The ultimate local of contact

                                            Psycholinguistic studies of Bilingualism

                            

Types Of Bilingualism

 

         Simultaneous                                                                                                             Successive

Ø  Simultaneous:  The acquisition of two languages at the same time.

Ø  Successive:       The acquisition of one language after another.

Bilingualism is now connected with studies in contact linguistics (Apple and Muysken 1987). The Bilingual is now recognized as the ultimate locus of contact (Romantic 1996 concurring with Weinreich 1968) and accepted as one of the agents of language change arising from contact satiations.

Bilingualism current and future trends and directions:

The study of Bilingualism was initially motivated by an educational need and so had a strong pedagogical orientation in the early work, research in the last decades has brought together the theoretical approaches from several disciplines. This multidisciplinary approach to bilingualism has proved healthy and is likely to continue to be adopted.

Today in the technological world this skill becomes very useful. For example, the recent emphasis on cross cultural linguistics or cultural discourse analysis makes it easier for bilingual communication patterns to be described and understood.

Task based language learning

-Dave Wills and Jane Wills

Introduction:

To give knowledge about language a teacher should have various skills and methodologies with the help of these a teacher can teach efficiently. The language can be described as form based. There is an assumption that language can be teach into input and intake way directly to the learners.  But it is not possible in SLA we see that directly focus on L2 is not done or not any perfect result found. To understand and acquire language there be form of ‘Task based’. Since the work of Corder (1967), Selinker (1972) and other theorists, it has been clear that we cannot predict how input will affect the learner’s language development.

In contrast to form based approaches Task based learning (TBL) involves that language should not e teaching in specification of a sequence of different items, but it should be teach in communication tasks. A learner can only acquire knowledge about language when he will start to communicate in language. J.Willis (1996) defines a task as an activity where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose so, communication becomes important to learn any language.

Let’s thrash out in detail that how task based becomes to learn language.

What is Task based learning language and how it becomes important?

TBL grows out with the general form of communicative language teaching (CLT). Hymes (1971; 1972-1979) form of communicative competence encored a more critical look at language and awareness about language into the classroom.

‘Task’ means a work that should be completed into given time. Any article, any book, ant activity may be given by teacher or someone else is a form of Task, we can say it is a process of ‘TBL’

Ø  Example:

In English Department of any other collage , tasks are given to the students which are related with today’s current issues or general knowledge or any other information, but the main purpose is that the student have enrich  their supremacy in  language with different forms of tasks.

So above given example task based learning becomes very important and the communicative skill of the learners will also boost. Otherwise the atmosphere of the class room will be boring as the teachers don’t make the students active. By giving different activities and tasks and with the help of the technology a teacher makes the students alive about the language.

Various activities are helpful like, showing video of how to talk in English. Listening an audio clip and by giving roll modeling activities to teach English subject is not become obstruction.

How to teach other language or foreign language in the classroom:

Today in the technological age everything is possible with the help of technology. Internet, Video clips, Audio clips, online talks etc.  With the help of this it may be possible to teach other language in the class room. Various activities also can be in the class room.

Ø  Example:

Roll modeling, telephone talks by two students, spelling games, online chat etc.

The main object of a teacher is that increased more and more students into the activities. The learner’s previous experience of the task type and the topic or content matter and other implementation variables, such as a time limit group size and participant roles.

Most of the teachers are also using courser book as a basis for their teaching. There is danger that label ‘Task based’ will now be exploited in the same way. TBL like CLT rests on broad principle rather than precise recommendations or prescriptions.

Prabhu (1987) identified three broad task types’ information gap, reasoning gap and problem solving. Stern (1992) offers a similarly useful typology. Learners can be asked to:

Give and follow instruction

Gather and exchange information

Solve problems

Give informal talks in the class room

Take part in role play and drama activities

  

Other skin tones are also important in TBL:

The relationship between task and interaction: What roles do speakers adopt? How does task instruction affect these roles?

Allocating roles within tasks: How does it affect the interaction if one student is given the role of

Acceptability of TBL : How comfortable do learners feel with a particular approach to TBL?

Differences over time : Students have been encored to record themselves on task or to keep records of written tasks

Imposing extra constraints on task performance : What difference does it makes if a time limit is imposed?

Conclusion:

‘TBL’ turn out to be very much important in today life with the help of different gadgets and resources. So the result is that communication in English or other language becomes easy now. It seems that learning and acquiring language is natural process but with the help of TBL, language can be teaching more proficient way. TBL represents an attempt to harness natural processes and to provide language focus activities based on consciousness rising which will support these process. So apart from this we can say that there is no direct relationship between language instruction and language learning.