Lang Acqusition

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LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION


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Child Language Acquisition

a. Theories of CLAi. Imitation theory

ii. Reinforcement theory

iii. Active construction of a grammar

theory


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i. Imitation theory

- this theory suggests that children learn to

speak by imitating the speech of others intheir environment;

- it claims that children are able to listen,

memorise and reproduce the language

whenever required;

- some arguments refute that children are

borned with no knowledge of any language

and language is culturally transmitted;- problems of this theory

- inaccuracy of reproduction; children are unable to

reproduce or imitate adults language accurately


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- problems of this theory

- predictable mistakes; every child seems to

make the same consistent mistakes suchas saying goed for wentand holded for

held

- produce of new sentences; children are

capable of producing utterances whichthey have never heard before


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ii. Reinforcement theory

Parents teach children language by correcting

errors and rewarding their grammatical

utterances

Many parents correct their young childrens

errors, but many do not. Parents usually correct content, not grammar.

Kid: Matt goed to school .

Mom: No, Matt went to the PARTY.

Correcting a young childs grammar is futile.


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Child : nobody dont like me.Mother: No, say nobody likes me.

Child : Nobody dont like me.

Mother: Now listen carefully! Say, Nobodylikes me.

Child : Oh! Nobody dont likes me


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iii. Active construction of a grammar

theory Children build on innate abilities.

They discover patterns in the language

around them and hypothesize rules thataccount for these patterns

Childrens productions obey these rules,

although they may violate rules of the adult

grammar;


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b. Stages of acquisition:

i. 3 10 mths (cooing, babbling)

ii. 12-18 mths ( holophrastic/ one word e.g.

daddy)

iii. 18-20 mths (two-word stage e.g. hi mommy)

iv. 2-3 yrs old (telegraphic speech e.g. I good

girl)


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2nd Language Acquisition

a. Acquisition vs learning:a. Acquisition of Lg has the following elements:

a. Occurs in natural communicative situations

b. Unconscious internalization of Lg structures

c. Gradual development of Lg ability

b. Acquisition is an unconsciuos process while

learning is a conscious knowledge of a 2nd Lg by

knowing the rules, being aware of them and being

able to talk about them;


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a. Factors affecting SLA:

i. motivationii. empathy

iii. anxiety

iv. inhibition

v. risk taking


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b. The L2 classroom

- L2 classroom consists of individuals with different

learning capacity and proficiency levels

- the success of learning also depends on the

characteristics of the particular learner (refer to table)

- teacher uses Teacher-Talk to students to ensure

that they understand what the teacher is saying;- by using the simplified language, teacher may think

that he/she is providing comprehensible input;

- however, in the L2 classroom where the proficiency

level of the students may be wide-ranging, this canbe misinterpreted as patronizing the students;

- teacher is suggested to use simple but normal speech

- error correction may or may not help a learner to

increase his/her level of proficiency


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c. The Good Language Learner

i. has an effective personal learning styleii. has an active approach to the learning task

iii. has a tolerant and outgoing approach to the

target language and empathy with its speakers;

iv. has technical know-how about how to tackle a

language

v. has strategies to experiment and plan a new lg

into an ordered system


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c. The Good Language learner

vi. is consistently searching for meaningvii. is willing to practice

viii. is willing to use the language in real

communicationix. has self monitoring ability

x. is able to develop the target language as a

reference system

Lang Acqusition

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