Test your knowledge Flashcards
Test your knowledge (14 cards)
Languages are learned mainly through imitation
No.
While obviously there is imitation– especially from children– the research is clear: most language learning comes from receiving aural or written comprehensible input. At much later levels in the L2 acquisition process, some explicit feedback– especially for writing– will help things along.
Parents usually correct young children when they make grammatical errors
Depends.
Some do, some don’t, some sometimes do. There’s no evidence to show that this practice works
Highly intelligent people are good language learners
Research shows that people who traditionally test high on IQ tests are pretty good at doing things like remembering and consciously applying grammar rules. However, many illiterate people– who would massively bomb any IQ test– have acquired many languages.
The most important predictor of success in second language acquisition is motivation
No.
While motivation may keep students “tuned in” to instruction– they will listen/read much more (i.e. receive comprehensible input) if they want to learn– all the motivation in the world will not overcome ineffective methods.
Related: motivation to what? Most students don’t especially care about Spanish, French, etc. I sure didn’t…what I did care about was being able to meet and talk to people in Mexico, read Paz in the original, order food, meet Colombian women, etc.
(TIP: focus in this with your future students!)
The earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the greater the likelihood of success in learning
Depends.
Canadian data on French Immersion supports this theory. However, if a language program doesn’t follow brain rules– it provides incomprehensible input, it’s boring, it scares learners, etc– more instruction is not a good idea.
We also know that adults, under the right conditions (good comprehensible input), can massively out-pace Immersion learners and kids in acquisition.
Immersion and early exposure do one thing MUCH better than later exposure: get rid of accents.
Most of the mistakes that second language learners make are due to interference from their first language
No; only very few are.
Many are interlanguage. As Lightbrown and Spada show (in their 2013 4th edition), many errors made by second-language learners do not reflect their native language. Indeed, studies show that many interlanguage errors are common across cultures and languages.
The best way to learn new vocabulary is through reading.
Yes!
provided the reading is comprehensible and interesting enough that learners will do a lot of it. Some studies suggest that over 75% of a literate adult’s vocabulary comes from reading.
It is essential for learners to be able to pronounce all the individual sounds in the second language.
Essential for what? To acquire the language? No. There are plenty of cases of learning that happen without speaking.
Once learners know roughly 1000 words and the basic structure of a language, they can easily participate in conversations with native speakers
Generally. BUT: conversational success also depends on
whether or not the native speaker can slow down and simplify enough for the L2 learner
what they are talking about– a native-speaker engineer talking engineering will be incomprehensible to an L2 learner who doesn’t know anything about engineering
what “know” means. “Knowing’ grammar rules and vocab lists alone won’t work– the L2 learner must have had their 1,000 words presented in meaningful, comprehensible ways, over and over.
Teachers should present grammatical rules one at a time, and learners should practice examples of each one before going on to another.
No.
Grammatical rules are acquired at the learner’s own rate; some rule acquisition– e.g. use of negation in English– follows predictable patterns, while some is piecemeal (i.e. appearing to be acquired, disappearing, reappearing etc).
Presenting rules in sequence will also make for much less compelling input .
Best practice: present a comprehensible and interesting variety of multidimensional language so that whatever learners are ready to acquire is there all the time. VanPatten says that verb “[t]enses are not acquired as “units,” and the brain doesn’t store grammar as a textbook-stated rule.”
Teachers should teach simple language structures before complex ones
No.
The classic example is the third-person -s ending in English. It appears simple, elementary, etc, yet is often very late acquired. What is a “simple” structure anyway? In Spanish, children often acquire such supposedly “complex” grammar as the subjunctive before they properly acquire the present tense. In French and Spanish, there are supposedly “complex” verb tense items– from the imperfect and preterite tenses– which are much more frequently used than some present tense verbs.
Learners’ errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits
No. There is no evidence to suggest that this works. Error correction may actually slow acquisition because, let’s face it, it’s not fun to be shown “you’re wrong,” and, as it has been well-documented that happy secure learners = better learners, the self-consciousness that comes with error correction may impede acquisition.
Teachers should use materials that expose students to only those language structures they have already been taught
This is 95% true…but learners can, and do, use metacognitive strategies to figure out new words or grammar, and/or often do so unconsciously. While it is important that about 95% of language be 100% comprehensible, some “new stuff” is essential to growth.
When learners are allowed to interact freely (for example, in group or pair activities), they copy each others’ mistakes.
No. They often make the same mistakes, but these are generally not from copying each other, but from interlanguage processes. While language in a communicative classroom is typically impoverished– learners provide other learners with their by-definition low-level output– this does not generally cause errors. The communicative classroom– which features lots of student talk– is, however, a bad idea, because students are not giving each other quality input.
