User:Mr. Stradivarius/SLA

This page is for drafts for the Second language acquisition　article.

February 2011
Second language acquisition (SLA) or second language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. That is, it is the process of learning an additional language by someone who has already learned a native language or multiple native languages. Second language acquisition refers to what the learner does; it does not refer to what teachers do.

Second language acquisition can also refer to the scientific study of the second-language learning process. To differentiate this sense from the learning process itself, the terms second language acquisition research and second language acquisition studies are also used. SLA research is a broad-based and relatively new academic field, and is closely related to several disciplines including linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and education.

Comparisons with first language acquistion
People who learn a second language differ from children learning their first language in a number of ways. Perhaps the most striking of these is that very few adult second language learners reach the same competence as native speakers of that language. Children learning a second language are more likely to achieve native-like fluency than adults, but in general it is very rare for someone speaking a second language to pass completely for a native speaker. When a learner's speech plateaus in this way it is known as fossilization.

In addition, some errors that second language learners make in their speech originate in their first language. For example, Spanish speakers learning English may say "Is raining" rather than "It is raining", leaving out the subject of the sentence. French speakers learning English, however, do not usually make the same mistake. This is because sentence subjects can be left out in Spanish, but not in French. This influence of the first language on the second is known as language transfer.

Also, when people learn a second language, the way they speak their first language changes in subtle ways. These changes can be with any aspect of language, from pronunciation and syntax to gestures the learner makes and the things she tends to notice. For example, French speakers who spoke English as a second language pronounced the /t/ sound in French differently from monolingual French speakers. When shown a fish tank, Chinese speakers of English tend to remember more fish and less plants than Chinese monolinguals. This effect of the second language on the first led Vivian Cook to propose the idea of multi-competence, which sees the different languages a person speaks not as separate systems, but as related systems in the same person's mind.

Originally, it was thought However, learners sometimes produce sentences which

Learners create their languages. Transfer, L2, UG.

Universal grammar. Krashen's theories - influential but discredited. Psychological theories.

Affective factors. Effect on fossilization.

No overall theory of SLA yet. But, various findings which can be used in classrooms.

Sometimes the terms acquisition and learning are not treated as synonyms and are instead used to refer to the subconscious and conscious aspects of this process respectively.

Process of second language acquisition
The process of learning a second language is complex, and involves the interaction of several different factors. These factors include the learner's native language, the quality and quantity of input that learners receive, age, explicit There have been a variety of different

The primary way in which people learn a new language is through processing input. Input refers to]

April 2011
From Doughty & Williams ISBN 0-521-62551-3, p2:

When classroom second language learning is entirely experiential and meaning-focused, some linguistic features do not ultimately develop to target-like levels (see, e.g., Harley, 1992; Harley & Swain, 1984; Vignola & Wesche, 1991). This is so despite years of meaningful input and opportunities for interaction.

Findings of classroom research have begun to indicate, however, that pedagogical interventions embedded in primarily communicative activities can be effective in overcoming classroom limitations on SLA. For example, controlled effects-of-instruction studies and research on the negotiation of meaning suggest a positive influence for attention to form in interlanguage (IL) development (see Doughty, 1991, in press; Pica, 1994, for reviews).