Learning and acquisition

 Modifying the input like the way parents talk to little children.  Increasing interaction and negotiation of meaning.[r]

LOGO

LEARNING & ACQUISITION

Some concepts

1st language: the mother tongue / native language / L1

2nd language: the widely used in the environment

Three ways

picking up the language  exposure to lots of examples  acquisition takes place over a period of time  a silent period

Using L2 in interaction with other people Focusing on the form of L2

Acquisition

How children acquire L1?

 Exposure to L1

2nd language acquisition

A subconscious process  expose to samples of the 2nd language that we understand

Acquirers  not consciously aware of the grammatical rules



Not concentrate on form, but in the

Acquisition

More important for natural, fluent communication

 Lrs are quite fluent without ever having learned rules

Lrs should be exposed to

Learning

A conscious process of study and

attention to form and rule learning

Acquisition Learning

• Subconscious

• Natural

• Long lasting

• Successful

• Attention to meaning

• Fluent

• Conscious

• Unnatural

• Short lasting

• Unsuccessful

• Attention to form and

rule learning

The input hypothesis

 Input: what students hear or read

Comprehensible / roughly-tuned input: forms and structures which are just

beyond the learner’s current level of competence in the language

The input hypothesis

 only concerned with acquisition, not learning

Baseline talk

Modified input / Adjusted speech

 1st language: child-directed speech/ caretaker talk / mother talk /

motherese / baby talk

child-directed speech

The way parents talk to little children Features:

Slower rate of speech Higher pitch

More varied intonation

Shorter, simpler sentence patterns Frequent repetition

Paraphrase

Foreigner talk

 NS modify their speech when communicating with NNS

 Base line talk: you won’t forget to buy the ice cream on your way home, will you?

 UG FT: No forget buying ice cream, eh? GFT: The ice cream – you will not forget

Ungrammatical FT Grammatical FT

• Socially market

• NS’s lack of respect

• Features:

o Deletion of “be” / modal verbs / articles

o Using base form for past tense

o Using special

construction like “no + V”

• The norm

• Features:

o Delivered at a slower pace

o The input is simplified (shorter sent., no

subordinate clauses)

o Regularised

Implication

Make learning like acquisition by:

Giving learners both finely-tuned and roughly-tuned input (use authentic

materials)

Modifying the input like the way parents talk to little children

Teaching

Young Lrs : avoid grammar teaching, children subconsciously acquire lg

Adult Lrs.: focused lg study = useful, desirable + activities that match

Principles

Acquisition is more important than learning

Only acquired language is readily available for natural, fluent

Modify the following baseline talk

Advances in medicine and public

sanitation mean that infectious diseases no longer kill millions of children and

adults as they did in the past

Our faces make our emotion and

attitudes known, but we should not try to “read” people from another culture as we could “read” someone from our own

With the globalisation of information

technology and worldwide access to the internet, people from all areas of learning are finding themselves using form of

information technology in the work place Pronunciation practice is an important

matter when studying a new language, as incorrect pronunciation can cause