UNIVERSIDAD DE GUADALAJARA

CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y

HUMANIDADES

LICENCIATURA MODULAR SEMI ESCOLARIZADA EN

DOCENCIA DEL INGLÉS COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA
APPLICATION OF THE THEORIES OF THE ACQUISITION OF
FOREIGN LANGUAGE

TEACHER JUAN OLMEDA

“ACTIVITY 2: HOW DIFFERENT IS L1 TO L2?”

Ortiz_Edmundo_U4A3”

EDMUNDO J. ORTIZ GARCÍA

eddiegj19952002@yahoo.com.mx

CÓDIGO: 217384023

5th May 2019

1
Introduction

Learning a new language requires a lot of time and effort. Among other things, it requires
motivation and certain well-defined goals that in each student are different and that have
to do with their school level, work activity or socio-economic situation. This learning can
be more effective, depending on the theoretical conception used, as well as on the
methodology applied for this purpose.

However, when human beings learn their mother tongue, they follow similar learning
patterns that, regardless of their geographical region, culture or economic situation, seem
to present the same patterns of linguistic development. These first language is acquired
effortlessly, and naturally. The learning of a second language is what seems to present
problems for many students.

How first and second languages are learned

The first languages are generally maintained for life, with little effort on the part of the
speaker. This is because the first languages are often intertwined with the personal and
sociocultural identities of the native speaker, and he or she uses the language to think
and interact with the family and other members of their cultural or ethnic group
(Morehouse, 2017).

Initially, the acquisition of a first language is the process of obtaining the ability to use
human language, where previously such capabilities did not exist. This means that the
maturation of certain neurological and peripheral organs is required to be able to emit
sounds, copy patterns of verbal behavior and produce an infinity of sentences, all based
on interaction with others.

The mother tongue is acquired automatically, due to patterns of genetic programming that
every human being possesses and that does not seem to have a conscious effort. This
learning takes place before puberty, usually during childhood (Khalifa, 2014).

2
On the other hand, the learning of a second language is a process of conscious learning
known as second language acquisition or SLA. The acquisition of the second language
is a complex field of linguistics due to the diversity of theoretical positions and their
methodological derivations, which are often in contradiction with each other. The second
language acquisition is the process of acquiring a new language with a conscious effort,
after the mother tongue (Morehouse, 2017).

When it comes to learning a second language, different theoretical positions make up a

series of psycho-pedagogical postulates that generate several methods and techniques
both teaching and learning (Khalifa, 2014). In this sense, it can be mentioned three
different theoretical models, which are:

Behaviorism. Language, as all learning, takes place through a process of forming

behavioral habits from the mechanism of stimulus - response - reinforcement. In the
learning of a language, the stimulus is the language to which the students are exposed;
the answer is the production they show, and the reinforcement can be presented in the
form of praise or correction by the teacher or interlocutor or of success or failure in
communication.

New habits are created through the repetition and practice of linguistic models
corresponding to the target language until these models have been overlearned and can
be produced by the student automatically, without stopping to think about them.

Cognitivism. Children have a special ability to discover the grammatical rules that govern
language from the linguistic input to which they are exposed, although such input is far
from constituting a complete and organized catalog of the forms of the target language
(Khalifa, 2014). Language is a social construction that does not stop evolving. The society
is setting the guidelines on the norms and common uses of the language, both in its oral
and written versions.

The methodology of teaching language-based cognitivism promotes the idea that

teachers should be as perceptive and attentive as possible during a class, but learners
should be encouraged to speak as much as possible. A second language is learned by

3
discovering and creation as well by being exposed to real learning objects. The nature of
this conception is that learning is made easier by problem-solving using the target
language.

Constructivism. Learning is an experience based on previous knowledge, which means

that in order to understand new information, it is necessary to have a previous cultural
reference (Ausubel, 1996). The individual is in a process of constant between what he or
she knows and the data that the environment offers him or her to assimilate them and
accommodate them to his or her thought. Vygotsky (Carrera, 2011), argues that the
construction of language and other cognitive capacities goes from the outside of the child
to its inside.

The language is a socializing instrument that includes mechanisms of interrelation

between the cultural apparatus and the psyche of the child. He points out that in the
ontogenetic development both come from different roots in the development of the child's
speech can be establish with certainty a pre-intellectual stage and in its intellectual
development a prelinguistic stage. Until a certain point in time, the two follow separate
lines, independently of each other.

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory (Carrera, 2001), puts the accent on the proactive
participation of children with the environment that surrounds them, being the cognitive
development the fruit of a collaborative process. Children develop their learning through
social interaction: they acquire new and better cognitive abilities as a logical process of
immersing themselves in a way of life. Language is a product of the interaction with other
in the context of a social life. The role of adults or more advanced partners is to support,
direct and organize the child's learning, in the step before he or she can be able to master
these facets, having internalized the behavioral and cognitive structures that the activity
demands.

Conclusion

Something that is very clear, is that the second language is not learned in the same way
as the mother tongue, due to the biological and genetic factors that determine the

4
appearance of the first language. The mother tongue is acquired unconsciously, and the
second language is a conscious process of learning.

Learning a first language is not acquired simply by repeating words or phrases to a small
child. This learning and acquisition are associated with a series of contextual conditions,
where words are associated with social situations and emotional states that do not have
to be the same for each human being. It is difficult for a small child to spend several hours
a day practicing with their parents learning a language. In this regard, we could say that
Chomsky (Khalifa, 2014) is right in stating that language has a genetic component that
only requires the social conditions necessary to be developed.

On the other hand, each new language after its first non-native language adds a different
reference point within its linguistic repertoire, benefiting and reinforcing the acquisition of
future languages. This is because in order to learn a second language, it is done with
reference to a verbal register already established grammatically and that functions as an
intermediary for the learning of new concepts.

References

 Morehouse, K. (2017). “What are L1 and L2 in language learning? Linguascore.

https://www.linguacore.com/blog/l1-l2-language-learning/
 Khalifa, E. (2014). “Language Acquisition Theories”. Research Gate. University of
the Witwatersrand. At:
file:///Users/edmundoortizgarcia/Downloads/languageacquisitiontheories.pdf
 Escobar Urmeneta, C. & Bernaus, M. (2001). “El aprendizaje de lenguas en medio
escolar”. At: Nussbaum, L. and Bernaus, M. (Eds.). Didáctica de las lenguas
extranjeras en la educación secundaria obligatoria. Madrid. Síntesis: 39-77.
http://gent.uab.cat/cristinaescobar/sites/gent.uab.cat.cristinaescobar/files/escoba
r_2001_teorias_adquisicion_l2_manus.pdf
 Carrera, B. & Mazzarella, C. (2001). “Vygotsky: enfoque sociocultural”. Educere,
vol. 5, núm. 13, abril-junio, 2001, pp. 41-44 Universidad de los Andes Mérida,
Venezuela. At: https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/356/35601309.pdf

5
 Ausubel, D., et.al. (1996). “Psicología Educativa. Un Punto de Vista Cognoscitivo”.
Trillas. México.