Understanding Language Learning Through Second Language

Understanding Language Learning
Through Second Language

Acquisition Theory and Research

Through the years, teachers, researchers, and theorists have attempted to answer the questions, “How do people learn languages?” and “What does it mean to know a language?” Our understanding of language learning continues to develop as research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) reveals increasingly more about this process and about how we can more effectively facilitate foreign language learning in settings within and beyond the classroom. Chapter 1 presents a discussion of key theoretical positions regarding language acquisition to offer teachers a perspective on: (1) how learners can acquire a foreign language (FL) in the classroom setting; and (2) how teachers can shape their instructional approaches and practices to facilitate acquisition. In reflecting current dialogue in the field of SLA, the theory that informs and supports our approach to language learning and instruction in Teacher’s Handbook is sociocultural theory, recognizing that language learning is as much socially mediated as it is a part of an individual’s internal cognitive processes. Since only core concepts concerning these theoretical frameworks are provided here, you may want to consult the references included at the end of the book to explore them in further detail. In Chapter 2, you will see that many of these theoretical underpinnings have served as the foundation for developing specific approaches and methods of language teaching; see Figure 2.1 in Chapter 2 for a chart of SLA theories and corresponding pedagogical approaches.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

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  Universal Grammar
  
• 
  competence vs. performance
  
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  communicative competence
  
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  Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
  
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  acquisition vs. learning
  
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  automatic vs. controlled processing
  
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  procedural vs. declarative memory
  

● automaticity

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  restructuring and backsliding
  
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  U-shaped behavior
  
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  variability in performance
  
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  Interlanguage Theory
  
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  Long’s Interaction Hypothesis
  
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  negotiation of meaning
  

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  Swain’s Output Hypothesis
  

● mediation

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  sociocultural theory
  

●language play

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  Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development
  

●interactional competence

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  scaffolding ●affect and motivation
  

language learning as an individual (Cognitive) achievement

From Behaviorism to Cognitive Psychology: Communicative Competence
In the 1940s and 1950s, a behaviorist view of language learning held that people learn through habit formation by repeatedly associating a stimulus with a response; imitation, practice, and positive reinforcement were thought to be key components of learning a language (Skinner, 1957). Cognitive theorists, on the other hand, believed that this explanation did not account for the ways in which humans use thought to process language. Chomsky (1965), for instance, observed that children use elements of language they know to say something they have never heard before. Chomsky proposed that humans are born with an innate “language acquisition device” (LAD) that enables them to process language. He posited that the LAD contained abstract principles of language that are universal to all languages, referred to as Universal Grammar (Chomsky; Ellis, 1985). When children pay attention to features of the language they hear, the LAD is activated; it triggers and selects the innate rules specific to the language they hear. For example, children who say “*I falled down” are overgeneralizing a grammatical rule about formation of past tenses even though they have not heard that irregular form used by family, friends, and others around them; they are creating language based on what they already know. (An asterisk at the beginning of a sentence indicates that the sentence is grammatically incorrect.) This creative use of language based on meaningful input led Chomsky to distinguish between competence and performance. Chomsky viewed competence as the intuitive knowledge of rules of grammar and syntax and of how the linguistic system of a language operates. Performance, he thought, is the individual’s ability to produce language. In this view, language production results from the creative application of a learned set of linguistic rules.
Chomsky, however, was not concerned with the context in which language is learned or used. His views are considered “innatist” or “nativist” because they explain language learning capacity as being “hard-wired” into the human brain at birth. Foundational to later research was Chomsky’s notion that when children hear large amounts of language as input, they acquire language as a result of their innate ability to discover a language’s underlying system of rules, not because they repeat and imitate language they hear. According to this nativist perspective, children do not acquire language rules that are outside of the boundaries of the Universal Grammar (White, 1996, 2003).³ An implication of Chomsky’s theory for language instruction is that knowing a language is more than just stringing words together, but rather knowing how language works as a system.
A Broader Notion of Communicative Competence:
The Importance of Context
Chomsky’s definition of competence was expanded to a broader notion of “communicative competence,” a term first coined by Hymes (1972) to account for the role of context and social factors involved in language use and interpretation and not only based on a system of syntactic rules and structures as proposed at the time by Chomsky. Hymes’s concept of communicative competence, which was based upon communication within a socially and culturally meaningful context, served as the basis for subsequent attempts by researchers to identify the various types of competence involved in second language (L2) acquisition (Bachman, 1990; Campbell & Wales, 1970; Canale & Swain, 1980; Savignon, 1972). Among the first researchers to use Hymes’s work to design a model of L2 communicative competence were Canale and Swain (1980), who ultimately identified four components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and discourse competence (see explanations of these terms below). While the Canale and Swain (1980) model served as the primary framework for debate regarding the meaning of communicative language proficiency and implications for teaching, in 1995, CelceMurcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell revised the Canale-Swain model to expand it and to illustrate the interrelatedness of the various components in the model. More recently, CelceMurcia (2007) refined the model further, and this most current model of communicative competence is shown in Figure 1.1. The following points regarding this model should be noted:

1. 
   Sociocultural competence (called sociolinguistic competence in the Canale and Swain [1980] model) refers to pragmatic knowledge—that is, how speakers express themselves within the social and cultural context of communication—and it has a prominent top-down role in the model. For example, our sociocultural competence enables us to greet friends in an informal gathering using appropriate words, gestures, and body language; what we say and do is likely to be different in a more formal setting with people we don’t know. Celce-Murcia (2007) cites the following three components as being crucial in this regard: social contextual factors—participants’ age, gender, status, social distance; stylistic appropriateness—politeness strategies, knowledge of appropriateness given different speech registers such as formal/informal; and cultural factors—background knowledge of the TL group, regional differences, cross-cultural awareness (p. 46).
   
2. 
   The central role in this model is attributed to discourse competence, which refers to the way in which language elements, such as words and phrases, are selected, sequenced, and arranged into utterances to express a unified message on a particular topic. This involves the ability to combine utterances using cohesive devices such as pronouns and connectors (e.g., conjunctions, adverbs) to express continuity of thought. Additionally, it refers to the ability to organize thoughts coherently and to link one idea to subsequent utterances through conventions for expressing purpose/ intent, managing old and new information, etc. (Celce-Murcia, 2007, p. 47).
   
3. 
   Linguistic competence (called grammatical competence in the Canale and Swain [1980] model) is the ability to make meaning when using four types of knowledge: phonological—sound system, intonation/stress; lexical—words; morphological parts of speech, how words are formed; syntactic—sentence structure, word order.
   
4. 
   Formulaic competence accounts for the often unanalyzed chunks of language that speakers use extensively in interacting with others. These chunks include routines such as “Nice to meet you; Same here”; idioms such as “to pull one’s leg”; and lexical frames such as “See you _____ (later/tomorrow/next week, etc.)” (p. 48).