The Importance Of The First And Second Language Acquisition

Many second language acquisition theories have been developed over the years. These theories examine the avenues in which second language is acquired and the avenues in which they are

Judie Haynes’ article, “Stages of Second Language Acquisition”, clearly states five stages that a new learner of English may go through. In Haynes’ theory, there are five stages in total, and they are pre-production, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency. According to Haynes, new learners of English acquire language by going through the same stages. However, how much time each student spends at a particular stage may be different. Despite the different time length, the stages of people acquiring new language are worth discussing.

This article review is about the Digest, published in 1992, by Barry McLaughlin, which is based on Santa Cruz’s “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn.” The digest discusses the myths and misconceptions about children and second language acquisition in five main points, trying to make teachers of second language learners avoid having unrealistic expectations of the process of children learning second language. There are five myths that are pointed out by the author.

Since, the second language is an additional language after we acquire the first language, the L2 learning process can be influenced by the L1 learning process This essay will demonstrate the similarities and differences in L1 and L2 acquisition by discussing various theories. Then, draw a conclusion based on the evidence provided and my own experience.

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a young but widely-discuss field of study. Many theories are exploring how children learn to talk and understand language such as behaviorism, nativism, social cognitive learning and stages of language development (Levine, Munsch 2013). For example, a mother-infant conversation is one of the

What is First Language Acquisition? First Language Acquisition studies how children acquire their native language. Up to this day, there are many theories that theorist came up with to explain how children acquire their language. The main theories that people believe for how children acquire language are Innateness Hypothesis, Imitation Theory, Reinforcement Theory, Active Construction of a Grammar Theory and last but not least, Social Interaction Theory. These theories have many similar characteristics as well as many differences.

There has been much research conducted in the field of second language acquisition relating to the age factor, and it seems that the link between the two has been altered over time. To understand how and why this shift has occurred, it will be helpful to look at some of the older theories that hypothesise the idea of a critical period in which a second language is acquired, and compare this notion to more recent studies that provide a basis for the conclusion that age is not necessarily a critical factor in successful second language learning and that the idea that ‘younger = better’ is not absolute.

In our everyday lives, the origin of our ability to communicate is usually not often taken into consideration. One doesn't think about how every person has, or rather had at one time, an innate ability to learn a language to total fluency without a conscious effort – a feat that is seen by the scientific community "as one of the many utterly unexplainable mysteries that beset us in our daily lives" (3).. Other such mysteries include our body's ability to pump blood and take in oxygen constantly seemingly without thought, and a new mother's ability to unconsciously raise her body temperature when her infant is placed on her chest. But a child's first language acquisition is different from these

Summary of article: The authors provided reflections on 17 popular ideas about language learning. The first one is that languages are learned “mainly” through imitation. Lightbown and Spada (2006) argued that children imitate selectively and individuals have their own learning strategies. The second popular idea is that parents usually correct young children when they make grammatical errors. However, parents rarely comment on grammatical errors. Instead, parents tend to focus on meaning. Third, highly intelligent people are good language learners. The high IQ usually preform good in class and research has shown that learners have a wide variety of intellectual abilities will be higher chances to successfully learning language. The next idea is that the best predictor of success in second language acquisition is motivation. In most cases, learners with higher motivation can do better. However, perhaps, the instruction interacts with different leaning styles and learner’s aptitude will influence learning outcome. The fifth idea is that the earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the greater the likelihood of success in learning. Research has shown that learning a second language at an early age are more likely to be indistinguishable from native speakers. Next idea is that most of the mistakes that second language

It is believed that younger learners are better while acquiring a second language. The common notion is that younger children learn L2 easily and

Entrepreneurship is regarded as one of the most important determinants of the industrial growth of the country.The dearth of the entrepreneul and managerial skills is one of the most common problems being faced by all under developed economies.Moreover,the potential for the employment of students graduating from professional colleges is enormous,but one major handicap which many of them face is poor communicative ability in English.Proficiency in English is recognised globally as a pre-requisite for entry into the work place.Since English plays a key role in the domains of entrepreneurship,corporate sectors and international business,its use has to be standardised,simplified,made more functional and intelligible. Students of professional colleges need a great deal of help in improving their ability in English language proficiency so as to entrepreneur and obtain easier entry into the corporate world.Proficiency in communication skills develops ability to grasp opportunities to offer economic advantages, maximising gains and above all building confidence in every individual that one could make things happen.

Recent phonetic work on second language (L2) acquisition has focused on the influence of the native language (L1) on L2 learning by providing phonetic interpretations of non-native production and perception. Researchers have suggested that the weight of a feature used in L2, but not in L1, may create difficulties for L2 learners. A classic example of this problem is the difficulty that Japanese listeners experience in distinguishing English /r/ and /l/ phonemes, which are both mapped to the Japanese /l/ (McClelland et al., 1999). Several studies have also investigated whether native speakers of a tone language have an advantage over natisve speakers of a non-tone language in discriminating or acquiring tones from a tone language with which they have no prior experience. For example, Gottfried and Suiter (1997) found that adult native English speakers were less successful in learning lexical tones to signal phonological contrast, as this feature is not used in English, than they were in learning vowel quality in Mandarin. Also, Chinese speakers outperformed English speakers in their ability to distinguish two Thai tones both before and after training (Wayland & Guion, 2004). In addition, Peng et al. (2010) investigated the influence of different tone inventories (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) as well as tone language vs. non-tone language experience (German vs. Chinese) on the categorical perception of pitch contours in Mandarin syllables and non-speech contexts (e.g., pure tone).

In the affective filter hypothesis, Krashen (1985) suggests that not only understanding the information being put forth is important, but places significance on the environment in which the information is being received. Krashen saw the student emotional state as an “adjustable filter that freely passes, impedes, or blocks input necessary for acquisition (1985, pg 130). The affective filter controls the amount of input that is received by the learner; the lower the affective filter, the more input and therefore meaningful learning can take place (Liu, 2015).

A vocabulary is the set of words that make up a language. The acquisition of a vocabulary is a process that usually happens subconsciously and we usually are not aware that it is happening. Vocabulary can be classified as receptive or productive, i.e. what we understand and what we produce. But acquiring a vocabulary is a different process when it is a first language from when it is a second or a foreign language. Acquiring a first language is a natural process while acquiring a second language requires effort and hard work on the learner’s part. In first language acquisition, the basis for learning is universal grammar alone, but in second language acquisition, knowledge of the first language serves as groundwork for learning the second language

In the current education system, foreign language education is strongly encouraged for high school students planning on attending college, but is not required. With more than half of the U.S. population having Spanish as their first language, it is not only college bound students who would benefit from learning a second language. Rather than limiting second language education to only a percent of students, The Influential is incorporating second language education in all schools all across the nation. According to a study conducted on 17,000 British children, the most productive age for second language instruction is between 11 and 13 years of age. With