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Introduction : Describing and Explaining L2 Acquisition. Ellis 2003, Chapter 1 Page 3 – 14 Amaliah Khairina. What is the ‘Second Language Acquisition’? What are the goal of SLA? Two cases studies Methodological Issues Issues in the description of learner language
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Introduction : Describing and Explaining L2 Acquisition Ellis 2003, Chapter 1 Page 3 – 14 AmaliahKhairina
What is the ‘Second Language Acquisition’? • What are the goal of SLA? • Two cases studies • Methodological Issues • Issues in the description of learner language • Issues in the explanation of L2 acquisition
What is ‘Second Language Acquisition’? Second Language (L2) Acquisition is can be defined as the way in which people learn a language other than their mother tongue, inside or outside of classroom.
The Goals of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) • The description of L2 acquisition. • Explanation; identifying the external and internal factors that account for why learners acquire an L2 in the way they do. • To describe how L2 acquisition proceeds and explain this process and why some learners seem to be better at it than others.
Kinds of External Factors • Social milieu in which learning takes place. Social conditions influence the opportunities that learners have to hear and speak the language and the attitudes that they develop towards it.
For example : It is one thing to learn a language when you respect and are respected by native speakers of that language. It is entirely different when you experience hostility from native speakers or when you wish to distance yourself from them.
2. The input that learners receive That is the samples of language to which a learner is exposed. Language learning can not occur without some input. A question of considerable interest is what type of input facilitates learning.
Two Case Studies A case study is detailed study of a learner’s acquisition of an L2. it is typically longitudinal, involving the collection of samples of the learner’s speech or writing over a period of time.
There are two kinds of case study : 1. A case study of an adult learner 2. A case study of two child learners
1. A case study of an adult learner Wes is an example ‘naturalistic’ learner – someone who learns the language at the same time as learning to communicate in it. Wes could already use some of the features with native-like accuracy at the beginning of his study.
What Wes had developed : • The ability to communicate in an L2, • Examining his grammatical development, • His ability to use English in situationally appropriate ways, • How he learned to hold successful conversations.
2. A case study of two child learners • A number of points emerge from this, • Both learners were capable of successfully performing simple requests even when they knew very little English. • Both learners manifested development in their ability to perform requests over the period of the study.
What do these case studies show us? • They raise a number of important methodological issues relating to how L2 acquisition should be studied. • They raise issues relating to the description of learner language. • They point to some of the problems researchers experience in trying to explain L2 acquisition.
Methodological Issues • Language is such a complex phenomenon that researchers have generally preferred to focus on some specific aspect rather than on the whole of it. • Schmidt define ‘acquisition’ in term of whether the learner manifests patterns of language use that are more or less the same as native speakers of the target language.
The problems raise : • Determining whether learners have ‘acquired’ a particular feature. • Problem in trying to measure whether ‘acquisition’ has taken place concerns learners’ overuse of linguistic forms.
Issues in the description of learner language Both of these studies set out how to describe how learners’ use of an L2 changes over time and what this shows about the nature of they knowledge of the L2.
One finding is that learners make errors of different kinds. These are errors of omission and overuse. • Another finding is that L2 learners acquire a large number of formulaic chunks, which they use to perform communicative functions that are important to them and which contribute to the fluency of their unplanned speech. • The interesting issues raised is whether learners acquire the language systematically.
Issues in the explanation of L2 acquisition • L2 acquisition involves different kinds of learning. Learners must engage in both item learning and system learning. These kinds of studies then, illuminate the kinds of issues that pre-occupy SLA.
