S

L
A

ECOND
ANGUAGE
CQUISITION

WHAT IS SLA?

is the process by which people learn

a second language.
also refers to the scientific discipline
devoted to studying that process.
Ability to acquire additional language
beyond the first language.
Learning a second language after a first
language is already established.

Theories of
Second Language
Acquisition

 Behaviorist

Theory
Innatist Theory
Interactionist Theory

BEHAVIORIST THEORY

it is dominated both on psychology and

linguistics.

Skinner (remember him?) said that

language is behavior, and, just like any
other behavior, it is learned. This learning
occurs through "reinforcement of
successive approximations".

INNATIST THEORY
is mainly concerned with first language
acquisition.
It asserts that human have access to the
knowledge that is processed innately.
after Skinner's theory of Behaviorism,
Naom Chomsky, argued that if children
learn language by imitation, why do they
say things have never heard before?

Chomsky hypothesizes that infants must

be born with some special built-in
abilityto learn language.
He called this biological ability as the Lan
guage AcquisitionDevice (LAD). This
device contains the main rules for all
possible human
languages.Chomsky called this set of co
mmon rules Universal Grammar (UG).

INTERACTIONIST THEORY

More powerful that either nativist or

environmentalist theories because
they invoke both innate and
environmental factors to explain
language learning

Process of Second
Language Acquisition

Jim Cummins

6 STAGES OF
SECOND
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

Pre-Production
Early Production
Speech Emergence
Beginning Fluency
Intermediate Fluency
Advanced Fluency

Pre-production

This is also called "the silent period,"

when the student takes in the new
language but does not speak it. This
period often lasts six weeks or longer,
depending on the individual.

Early production

The individual begins to speak using

short words and sentences, but the
emphasis is still on listening and
absorbing the new language. There will
be many errors in the early production
stage.

Speech Emergent

Speech becomes more frequent, words

and sentences are longer, but the
individual still relies heavily on context
clues and familiar topics. Vocabulary
continues to increase and errors begin
to decrease, especially in common or
repeated interactions

Beginning Fluency

Speech is fairly fluent in social situations

with minimal errors. New contexts and
academic language are challenging and
the individual will struggle to express
themselves due to gaps in vocabulary
and appropriate phrases.

Intermediate Fluency

Communicating in the second language is

fluent, especially in social language situations.
The individual is able to speak almost fluently
in new situations or in academic areas, but
there will be gaps in vocabulary knowledge and
some unknown expressions.
There are very few errors, and the individual is
able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills
in the second language such as offering an
opinion or analyzing a problem.

Advanced Fluency

The individual communicates fluently in all

contexts and can maneuver successfully in
new contexts and when exposed to new
academic information.

At this stage, the individual may still have an

accent and use idiomatic expressions
incorrectly at times, but the individual is
essentially fluent and comfortable
communicating in the second language.

FACTORS AFFECTING
SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

Motivation
Age
Personality
Cognitive ability
Learner Perperence
Aptitude

Motivation
Motivating students in to lesson.
Varying the activities, tasks, and materials
to increase students interest levels.
Using cooperative rather than competitive
goals to increase students selfconfidence.
Creating supportive and non-threatening
learning atmosphere.

Age

L2 development in informal language learning

environment where the TL is used primarily;
Children can eventually speak the L2 with native-

like fliency, but their parents and older learners are

hard to achieve such high level of mastery of the
spoken language, especially in
pronunciation/accent.
Adults and adolescents can make more rapid
progress toward mastery of an L2 in contexts
where they can make use the language on a daily
basis in social, personal, professional, or academic
interaction.

Personality

There are number of personality

characteristics that are likely to affect L2
learning, such as:
Extroversion vs. introversion
Inhibition vs. risk-taking
Self-esteem (self-confidence)
Anxiety
Empathy

Cognitive ability
students with greater cognitive abilities will
make the faster progress.
Some linguists believe that there is a
specific, innate language learning ability that
is stronger in some students than in others.
Students who are learning a second
language which is from the same language
family as their first language have, in
general, a much easier task than those who
aren't.

Learner Preferences

Perceptual learning styles;

Visual learner.
Auditory (aural) learners.
Haptic learners (a combination of the

kinesthetic and tactile styles.)

Kinesthetic learners (body movement).
Tactile learners (hands-on).

Aptitude
refers to potential for achievement.
Aptitude for second language learning is
usually composed of four (4) abilities:

Identify and memorize the sounds

Understand the function of particular words in

sentences
Figure out grammatical rules from language
sample
Memorize new words

Input and Output

INPUT

According to Krashen, the humans acquire

language in only one way, by understanding
messages or by receiving comprehensive
input.
Gass and Mackey described input as a
process whereby, firstly, the learner and the
instructors may get implicit forms of
feedback, include negotiation strategies,
confirmation checks, clarification requests,
comprehension checks and recasts.

OUTPUT

According to Swain and Susanti

Bernards output hypothesis argues that
comprehensible output facilitates
acquisition by pushing learners to
produce coherent and appropriate
output, learners are encouraged to move
from semantic/top-down processing to
syntactic/bottom-up processing, thus
promoting interlanguage development.

INPUT AND OUTPUT

The input received and the output produced by SL

learner may be oral, written (or aural), which may
or may not be comprehensible, comprehended,
modified or pushed, or negotiated through
negotiation for meaning while interlocutor who may
be native or non-native speakers within the context
that aids mutual understanding or not and so on.
Context is one of the important factor in role of
input and output of SLA as instructed and noninstructed SLA differ fundamentally from each
other in a number of key issues.

References:

http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/curricul
um/inclusion/esl_primary.pdf
http://math.arizona.edu/~cemela/englis
h/content/shortcourses/sla/2nd%20Langu
age%20Acquisition.pdf
http://www.transparent.com/about/secon
d-language.html
http://www.sdkrashen.com/.
http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/SLA
/intro.com

Quiz:
I.

True or False. (10 pts)

1. SLA or Second Language Acquisition is

the process by which people learn a

second language.
2. Behaviorist theory is dominated both on
psychology and linguistics.
3. In Speech Emergent, vocabulary
continues to increase and errors begin to
decrease, especially in common or
repeated interactions

4. Motivation includes varying the activities, tasks,

and materials to increase students interest levels.
5. Aptitude refers to potential for achievement.
II.

Enumeration. (10 pts)

3 STAGES OF SLA
4 FACTORS AFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION.
3 THEORIES OF SLA

III. Essay.

(10 pts)
How will you apply SLA in your daily-life
situation?