TOPIC 2 GENERAL THEORIES REGARDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE
LEARNING AND ACQUISITION. THE CONCEPT OF INTERLANGUAGE.
ERROR ANALYSIS.
Contenido
1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................2
2 GENERAL THEORIES REGARDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
AND ACQUISITION......................................................................................................2
2.1 BEHAVIOURISM.......................................................................................................3
2.2 COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT AND NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS.................3
2.3 INTERACTION HYPOTHEIS....................................................................................4
2.4 SOCIOCULTURALISM..............................................................................................4
2.5 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.........................................................................................5
2.6 FREQUENCY-BASED APPROACHES.....................................................................5
3 INTERLANGUAGE................................................................................................6
4 ERROR ANALYSIS................................................................................................7
5 CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................8
6 REFERENCES.........................................................................................................9
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1 INTRODUCTION
The topic I have chosen to write about is number 2, which deals with general
theories regarding foreign language learning and acquisition, the concept of
interlanguage, and error analysis. This topic could be directly related to others,
especially number 1 on the evolution of language teaching.
First, in order to contextualize the subject matter of this essay, a brief overview of
the current legislative and educational framework will be presented. Following this, I
will review the most influential theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), from
traditional behaviourist approaches to universal grammar-based claims. After discussing
the different perspectives on SLA, we will approach two closely related concepts:
interlanguage and error analysis. Finally, the conclusion to this essay will deliver my
point of view on this fascinating topic and discuss its significance within the context of
our secondary education classes.
It should be noted that in the Canary Islands, Decree 315/2015 of 28 August
establishes the organization of Compulsory Secondary Education and Bachillerato, and
Decree 83/2016 of 4 July establishes the core curriculum for these educational stages.
In the first foreign language curriculum there are numerous references to the learning
process such as our subject’s direct contribution to the acquisition of the linguistic and
learning to learn competences. When discussing the latter, Decree 83/2016 highlights
the importance of gradually assuming one’s own learning progress. According to our
region’s curriculum, such awareness along with the autonomous and effective usage of
the available resources will guarantee a successful lifelong learning.
2 GENERAL THEORIES REGARDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
AND ACQUISITION
We cannot address Second Language Acquisition without mentioning First
Language Acquisition. First Language Acquisition is a complicated but rapid process
by which children become competent and proficient users of their native language.
However, for those people who start learning a second language after childhood it could
be more complicated to end in complete mastery and fluency. Adult language learners
usually spend years to reach a good level of proficiency that children attain easily before
they are three.
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Although scholars have spent several years studying the process of language
learning, Second Language learning is relatively young. From the 1940s, scholars
started to propose different theories that explain how people achieve a Second
Language. On this topic we are going to have the possibility of learning about some of
them such as: Behaviourism; Comprehensible Input and the Natural Order
Hypothesis; the Interaction Hypothesis; Socioculturalism; Universal Grammar and
Frequency-Based Approaches.
2.1 BEHAVIOURISM
Behaviourists were a group who studied Second Language Learning as well
and their theories were highly influential between the 1950s and the 1960s. They
believed that the second language was acquired through repetition and reinforcement.
For example, they thought that a group of second language learners would acquire the
plural ‘s’ by producing and repeating in their own speech. In classrooms, teachers often
required learners to repeat (e.g. two cats, three dogs, four mice, etc) without paying too
much attention to grammar or meaning.
They also claimed that errors in second language production were caused by the
interference with their first language. They thought that the learner’s L1 and L2 was the
main source of difficulty to acquire that new language. They compared the structures of
language to predict possible areas of difficulty, which became known as the
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH).
During the 1970s, much of the behaviourist theories were questioned following
the impact of Noam Chomsky’s ideas about generative grammar.
2.2 COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT AND NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS
At the beginning of the 1970s, another theory about Second Language Learning
became popular. It was proposed by Krashen and it said that, rather than treating
language as a series of mechanical habits that are learned through reinforcement,
language should be seen as a more complex interaction of internal and external factors.
Krashen believed that second language learner should be exposed to some type of
specific input in order to learn the target language. Krashen recognized the importance
of comprehensible input, that is, input that is understandable in a specific context but
more complicated than the level of the learners.
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Krashen also argued that there is a natural order of acquisition in which all
learners, independently of their first language acquire the target language in the same
way, following the same steps. This theory was based on a series of studies known as
the morpheme order studies. Together, Krashen and the morpheme order studies
suggested to teachers that if second language learner were exposed to the right kind of
input and had the right attitude, language acquisition would emerge naturally.
Krashen’s model was subject to criticism on both theoretical and methodological
grounds, but his model was influential. Researcher recognized the value to second
language learners receiving feedback about problems on their production.
2.3 INTERACTION HYPOTHEIS
The Interaction Hypothesis stems from the work of Long and Gass and it
suggests that the development in the second language can be facilitated when: a) the
learner tries to communicate with other speakers in the second language; b) when
they experience difficulties; c) when they ask their interlocutors to help them to
solve their communication problems.
When second language learners receive comprehensible input and they produce
modifies output, interaction help them to pay attention to those differences between
their first and second language and to those areas in which they have to improve. When
they receive feedback of their second language production, they are able to pay attention
to those gaps that they need to improve.
In summary, interactionists claim that interaction is probably the best way to
achieve a second language, but not the only way to do it.
2.4 SOCIOCULTURALISM
Whereas interactionists focus on the cognitive mechanisms such as attention that
are facilitated by interaction, socioculturalists, as their name implies, focus on the
impact of interpersonal and social aspects of interaction on language learning.
Socioculturalists posit that all cognitive development, including language, stems from
interactions between individuals. One type of interaction that has received research
attention in studies of second language learning is that of a less skilled L2 learner and a
more expert other (teacher, tutor, or more proficient learner). The expert learner can
provide the other with a type of scaffolding and teach him/her how to control the
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situation, to simplify the task, to control the frustration or to pay extra attention to
important features of the task. The expert can also provide the learner the opportunity to
develop further in the acquisition of the second language than he/she could by
himself/herself.
The first foreign curriculum in the Canary Islands may be linked to some of the
socioculturalists’ claims as it points out that social and emotional strategies must be
considered when learning a foreign language.
2.5 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
In contrast to both the interactionist and the socioculturalist approaches to second
language learning, a new theory emerged. It was called Universal Grammar and it is
believed to guide all language learning. This approach is known as nativism and it
derived from a work of Noam Chomsky.
Nativists posit that the only logical explanation for children’s language
acquisition is that they have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in the brain. They
maintain that the process of acquiring a second language cannot simply be attributed to
input or instruction and therefore must be obtained from universal grammar. They also
claim that this universal grammar is not as efficient after certain age as in the case of
adult second language learners who do not achieve a complex level of L2 knowledge.
They argue that once a learner has passed a critical period of language learning
(normally placed around the age of puberty) the language acquisition device atrophies
and the knowledge it contains is no more available to help the learner with the
acquisition and it must be replaced by typical method such as memorization or
repetition.
2.6 FREQUENCY-BASED APPROACHES
Whereas Universal Grammar researchers claim that language acquisition is guided
by categorical linguistic rules, Frequency-based approaches argue that this
acquisitions is the result of frequencies and regular patterns of actions, events and
objects (both linguistic and non-linguistic) that language learners perceive in their
environment. First and second language learners receive a great amount of linguistic
information, sounds, ordering of particular words and even discourse characteristics of
language.
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The different theories described above were developed to example the universal
features of second language learning. In first language acquisition by children,
individual differences are overshadowed by striking similarities. Whereas in second
language learning we can find 6 important differences among learners: The first
language; Age; Gender; Working memory; Motivation; and Context.
3 INTERLANGUAGE
Interlanguage can be defined as a system developed by a learner of a second
language which preserves some features of the first language and can also
overgeneralize some writing and speaking rules of the second language. It was
developed by Selinker, who built on the error analysis approach of Pit Corder.
Selinker identified five central processes in second language learning: Language
transfer; Transfer of training; Strategies of second language learning; Strategies of
second language communication; and Overgeneralization of second language rules.
Before the interlanguage hypothesis was developed, the principal theory of second
language learning was contrastive analysis. As it has been possible to see previously in
this topic, this hypothesis argued that learners’ errors were caused by the interference
of their first language and the new one. This theory said that errors were though to
arise randomly but later, it was shown that an analysis of the learners’ first and second
language differences could predict any type of problem they could face. This
assumption was considered anecdotal by the interlanguage researchers.
Interlanguage can be observed to be variable across different contexts. For
example, it can be more accurate, complex and fluent in one discourse than in other.
Variability can be reflected when comparing utterances of the learner if different types
of conversations. For example, a second language learner can say (I don’t) in one
context and (me no) in another. Sometimes this variability can be seen as an inherent
feature of the learner’s interlanguage. In these approaches, a learner’s preference for one
linguistic form over another can be determined by variables such as the status or role of
the person the learner is talking to.
Interlanguage changes all the time but sometimes can become fossilized language
when the learner does not have the opportunity to improve. One example could be the
intonation. Sometimes the learners get frustrated when they have been learning and
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practising the language for several year but they do not sound as native speakers. It has
been argued that language learning typically fossilizes and remains permanently at a
short level of native-like speech. Interlanguage researchers have admitted that maybe
the term ‘fossilize’ is not too appropriate because it is difficult to know when language
learning has ceased or simply hit a temporary plateau.
Some explanations have been given to account for this phenomenon. One proposal
is that the language mechanisms that work so well in childhood may work less
effectively for older learners. Another reason could be that adult learners who are more
identified with their nationality may find it less important to sound like native speakers
of a second language.
4 ERROR ANALYSIS
Before going on with Corder’s error analysis it is necessary to explain the
difference between error and mistake. Error can be defined as the misuse of a language
rule due to lack of knowledge; whereas mistake is a misuse of a language rule due to
other reasons (lapse, slip on the tongue). An example of error could be a learning or
Spanish who says “Juana es bueno”, which is not what competent speakers of Spanish
would say. Error analysis is a method used to document the errors that appear in
learner language, determine whether those errors are systematic and explain what
caused them.
Native speakers of the second language who listen to a person who is learning that
language may find learners’ error very noticeable, although accuracy is just one feature
of learner language. While native speakers make unsystematic ‘performance’ errors
from time to time, a person who is learning the language make more, and often ones that
no native speaker even makes. An analysis of the learners’ errors could show to what
type of input the learner has been exposed and give some information about their
interlanguage.
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The term error analysis was coined by Pit Corder in the 1960s in his work ‘The
Significance of Learners’ Errors’. Corder identifies five stages:
Selection of a corpus language
Identification of errors in the corpus
Classification of the errors
Explanation of the causes of the errors
Evaluation of the errors
Error analysis is a good first step but it can also be a problem if it is not used in the
correct way. If it is used only to improve accuracy, the learners’ development of
complexity and fluency can suffer. Error analysis has some areas in which it cannot
predict where the error comes from. For example, it can deal with the learners’
production (speaking and writing) but not with reception (listening and reading).
Another problem is that it cannot detect if the learner is using specific communicative
strategies, for example in those cases in which the learner does not use a form with
which he/she feels uncomfortable. For those reasons, error analysis is still used to
investigate specific questions in Second Language Learning but the quest for an
overarching theory of learner errors has been abandoned.
The first foreign language curriculum in the Canary Islands states students should
accept errors as part of their learning and should reflect their own progress using tools
as the European Language Portfolio.
5 CONCLUSION
To conclude, in an ideal world we would not learn foreign languages but rather
acquire them like young children. In the real world, however, and especially in ours,
that of Secondary Education, we should do our best to make the students’ learning
process as natural as possible. In order to accomplish this goal, and as instructed by
Decree 83/2016 of July 4th, the foreign language must become our essential
communication vehicle inside and outside the classroom, both in the communication
between teachers and students, and among students.
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I would like to finish my essay by quoting the famous German writer Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe: “Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of
their own.”
6 REFERENCES
Crystal, D. (2005). How language works. London: Penguin Books.
Fasold, R. W., & Connor-Linton, J. (Eds.). (2006). An introduction to language
and linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English language teaching (5th ed.). London:
Pearson.
