SLA quiz 4 Flashcards
- Subtractive bilingualism and its effect on L2 development
When you deprive the L1 learner of the 1st language, that results in arrested development of L2.
- B.F. Skinner’s behaviourist perspective of language acquisition
Children acquire language by imitating and practicing what they hear until they form habits of correct language use.
- The positive reinforcement corollary to Skinner’s behaviourist perspective – Cross-reference this to Vygotsky’s interactionist perspective of language acquisition and the ZPD.
Children’s language is considered to be correct because of positive reinforcement from an interlocutor.
- Vygotsky’s int. perspective: Language is developed through social interaction.
Children develop language because of social interaction. In the Zone of Proximal Development, the child/learner becomes capable of higher performance because of modified interaction and support from an interlocutor who possesses greater knowledge than the child/learner does.
- Universal grammar: Cross-reference Chomsky’s innatist perspective to Piaget’s interactionist perspective
According to Chomsky’s innatist perspective of language acquisition, children acquire language through their “biological endowment.” They are biologically programmed to acquire language.
Children’s biological endowment makes it both possible and necessary for them to express their responses to interaction with their physical environment, which, according to Piaget, is the basis for language development.
According to Chomsky, children’s innately developed Universal Grammar enables them to connect the language forms in their social environment (people who speak the same language) with their responses to interaction in their physical environment… and thus verbally communicate using mutually intelligible language forms.
- Continued language acquisition–inference from the behaviourist perspective –Cross reference this to the notion of automaticity.
Once children understand that their utterance is correct, they will listen to, imitate, and practice new language forms… until these are deemed to be correct to/by an interlocutor.
Automaticity renders acquired information subconscious so that children/learners can focus all of their cognitive resources on new information only.
- The dismissal of IQ as a relevant factor in language proficiency
The current trend in SLA that demonstrates the limitation of defining language proficiency solely in terms of meta-linguistic knowledge.
Metalinguistic knowledge is not an accurate predictor of communicative competence… Communicative competence is an essential basis of language competence.
- The 5 non-linguistic factors in communicative competence
- Motivation
- Personality
- Learning styles
- Social conditions
- Attitude
- Erlam’s findings: language gain and the 3 types of input in language instruction
- Deductive Input: Learners in the deductive group received explicit-rule-based grammar instruction followed by the opportunity to practice the rules they had learned (e.g., short productions with a focus on words and word forms).
- Inductive Input: Learners in the inductive group received no grammar instruction but participated in activities that encouraged them to figure out meanings conveyed by [words and word forms in the target language] and to produce them (e.g., exposure to authentic L1 language samples… short films… online exchanges with native speakers).
- Structured Input: Learners in the structured input group received explicit rule-based instruction, but did not produce the target forms; they participated in activities that exposed them to spoken and written examples of [authentic L1 language samples] but were not required to produce the target forms.
- deductive benefits for all
- Dörnyei’s reorientation of Gardner & Lambert’s conception of motivation
(Dornyei) process motivation
- Choice motivation: getting started and setting goals.
- Executive motivation: carrying out the necessary tasks to maintain motivation.
- Motivation retrospection: appraisal of and reaction to performance.
** their conception of motivation is process-oriented
- instead of category orientation (instru. / intregative Motivation
- How Dörnyei & Guilloteaux’s MOLT scheme redefined who bears responsibility for motivation
Responsibility is shared between Ss and Ts. The teacher has to motivate his learners and keep them with a desire to learn more.
* Teacher discourse: arousing curiosity or attention, promoting autonomy, and stating communicative purposes / utility of the activity
* Participation structure: group work, pair work, or individual work
* Activity design: E.g. team competition, individual competition, intellectual challenge, or tangible task product
* Encouraging retrospective self-evaluation: E.g. effective praise, elicitation of self-/peer-correction, or class applause
- Dörnyei and Guilloteaux found significant positive correlation between three factors:
1. teachers’ motivational practices
2. learner’s engagement patterns
3. learners’ self-reports
- Long’s interaction hypothesis + subsequent amendment–detailed two-part breakdown on how each of the parties must reach “mutual comprehension”
Interaction Hypothesis: it was that assumed parents/teachers bore the responsibility for making their input comprehensible to children/learners by modifying their interaction.
Amendment: Long amended his original hypothesis by stating that children/learners share responsibility for language acquisition with parents/teachers.
Here is how he defined this shared responsibility:
1. Parents/teachers must modify their interaction in order to give children/learners the opportunity to understand.
2. Children/learners must “negotiate for meaning” with parents/teachers in order to reach mutual understanding.
- Krashen’s acquisition/learning hypothesis
Acquired language develops with no conscious attention to language forms, whereas learned language develops with conscious attention to language form.
- Krashen’s monitor hypothesis
- Learned language acts as a monitor to the acquired language system.
learned language… the kind studied in an ESL classroom, where there will probably be a focus on language forms, and the opportunity to practice these forms… refines and perfects the acquired language system, which governs fluency but not accuracy.
The acts of studying, practicing, correcting–refining and perfecting–create optimal conditions for improved accuracy.
- Krashen’s comprehensible input (i + 1) hypothesis–with the “+1” and without it
I = current level of language. +1= input that is slightly beyond that current level I + 1 = language acquisition
Optimal language learning occurs when learners are exposed to a language input that is understandable but just challenging enough to acquirer language.
+1 is a challenge by being one step forward of the in the learner’s acquisition - Comprehension only does not resolve in language acquisition.
- Ortega’s 3 principles for language practice in the classroom
- Practice should be interactive (Student and teacher should interact with each other)
- Practice should be meaningful (It should include
- There should be a focus on task-essential forms.
