Second language Acquisition

When English functions as a second Language, that is where it is used alongside other languages but is commonly the most important language of the education, government, or business it is often regarded by its user as a local rather than a foreign language (Richards 1979) consequently it is open in ways that markets local status.

Section language learning indicates that the language has communicative functions inside the commonly where the learner lives.

The implications for teaching are far- researching, in the majority of traditional language- teaching activities, the conscious element is strong.

We specify dialogues to be learnt, structures to be practiced, words be memorized, and soon.

A second language has social functions whiten the community where is learnt, whereas a foreign language is learnt primarily for contact outside one's own community.

In seeking to explain why people enjoy different degrees of success in L2 learning (give similar opportunities) we were long accustomed to think almost exclusively in terms of intelligence and language aptitude.

Some people seemed simply to be better at language learning than others. The research of Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert made us briaden our view, by demonstrating that that attitudes and motivation were equally important.

Since then, research and experience have revealed a large number of other pyschological factors that might influence the course of learning.

>In L2 learning as in every other field of human learning, motivating is the crucial force which determines wheter a learner embarks on a task at ll, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he preserveres.

While it is true that many young children whose parents speak different languages by using it naturally in communicative situations. The term learning, however, applies to a conscious process of accumulating knowledge of vocabulary and grammar of a language.

First Language (FL) Acquisition.

First Language:

Is the Language that you acquire to speak first as child, the Language that you speak best?

How a FL is learnt?

 

Many researchers neveal, that when we are child, we acquire our mother tongue by behaviours.

B. F. Skinner says that behaviour approach to language and that a language is not a mental phenomen; it is behaviour like other forms of human behaviour, and it is learnt by a process of habit- formation and imitation , in which the main components are:

1. The child imitates the sounds and patterns which he hears around him.
2. People recognize the child's attempts as beign similar to the adult models and reinforce the sounds, by approval or some other desirable reaction.
3. In order to obtain more of these rewards, the child repeat the sounds and patterns so that these become habits.
4. In this way the child's verbal behabiour is conditioned until the habits coinade with the adult models.

This is the way, we acquired the FL.

 

When we enter primary school the teacher uses different methods to teach us how to read, how to write, how pronounce words, etc.

From primary school to high school we learnt many things about our language like grammar, vocabulary, structures, what is very important to know everything about our mother tongue because researchers in FL acquisition has had an enormous influence on the study of second language learning.

 

Types of classroom writing performance.

1. Imitative or writing down: At the beginning level of learning to write, students will simply write down English letters, and possibly sentences in order to develop the learning of the conventions of the orthographic code.
2. Intensive or controlled: Writing is used as production mode for learning, reinforcing or testing grammatical concepts. This intensive writing typically appears in controlled written grammar exercises: Controlled writing, guided writing, dictocomp writing.
3. Self writing: the self mind in as an audience.
4. Display writing: For all languages studentsm short answers exercises, essays examinations, and research reports will involve an element of display.
5. Real writing: Every clasroom writing task will have an element of display writing in it and it also will have real writing in it and it also will have real writing elements: a) academic, b) vocational/technical and c) personal. 

10 Microskills for writing

1. Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English
2. Produce an acceptable core od words and use appropriate word order patterns.
3. Use acceptable grammar systems, patterns and rules.
4. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
5. Use cohesive devises in written discourse.
6. Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse,
7. Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose.
8. Convey links and connections between events and communicate generalization and exemplification.
9. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing.
10. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of written texts.

Characteristics of written language

 

Permanence: whatever you can do as a teacher, guide and facilitator to help your students to revise and refine their work before final submissions will help to give them confidence in their work.

 

Production time: if you are teaching in EAP you have to train your students to make the best possible use of time limitations.

 

Distance: One of the thorniest problems writers face is anticipating their audience.

 

Orthography: everything from simple greetings to extremely complex ideas are captured through the manipulation of a few dozen letters and other written symbols.

 

Complexity: writers must learn how to remove redundancy, how to combine sentences, how to make references to other elements in a text. how to create syntactic and lexical variety.

 

Vocabulary: writing places a heavier demand.

 

Formality: whether a student is filliong out a questionnaire or writing an essay, the conventions of each form must be followed.

The second language writing

The trends in teaching of writing are similar to those of teaching other skills especially Listening and Speaking. Since 1980 teachers have learned more techniques about how to teach fluency and not just accuracy. Also they have learnt about how to use authentic texts and contexts in the classroom, how focus on the purposes of linguistic communication and how capitalize in learner's intrinsic motives.

The trends above mentioned applied to advances in teaching of writing in second language contexts.
Decades ago writing teachers were interested in the final product: The essay, the report, the story, etc., and how they should look like. In this way, students had to based on an special model in order to produce their own projects.

However, in due the course of time, teachers have paid more attention to the advantage given to learners when they are seen as creators of language so, teachers began to develop what is now name the Process Approach to Writing Instructions and this approach aims that teachers should:

• Focus on the process of writing which leads to the final written product
• Help Ss writers to understand their own composing process
• Help Ss to build strategies for prewriting, drafting and rewriting
• Give Ss time to write
• Pay more attention on the process  revision
• Let Ss discover what they want to say as they write
• Give Ss feedback while the composing (not just the final product)
• Engourage feedback peers.

Being asked to write something means that you have to put your ideas down on paper to transform thoughts into words and give them structure and coherent organization.

One disadvantage of the development of this skill is that learners may feel anxiety, while composing, because of the pressure to write something that learners know will be graded and judged by their teacher and also it will be returned withouth chance to improve it.

On the other hand, writing skill is unlike speaking since the first one can be planned, write and rewrite before it is ready. So, writing gives students the chance to think what they want to express.

According to Peter Elbow we have to think of writing as natural process. We have to start writing at the very beginning before we know our meaning at all so that, out words are going to change and envolve.

Even though we have to pay more attention to the process we have also to balance since emphazing process could disminish the product and product is, after all, the main goal of writing.

Robert Caplan aims that the differences among cultures and languages make different patterns of written discourse. An example of that is that Wnglish follows a straight line of development so that parragraphs often begins with a statement of its central idea meanwhile spanish's line of thougth is sometimes interrupted.

Developing writing as a discourse skill

Fluency in writing

To be a fluent writer, it is necessary to write often and at length. It is also important to take into account sime advices:

• Think in English as you write: many students find difficult to think in English while they write. However, if you can do it while you speak and listen, you can do it while you write.
• Use the words you know: in writing, using the words you know means you should write your ideas using the words you are already comfortable with. So that, you can focus on ideas while you're writing.
• Keep riles in their place: too much emphasis on rules and grammar exrcises can hold back your development of fluency.

Children can be encouraged to choose and copy texts that they find interesting:items form the internet on their favorite pop star or player, or the rhymes learnt in class, or sections of their reading books that they enjoyed. The element of choice is to ensure that copying is meaningful and motivating. Another way to encourage extended writing is to ask children to write a jurnal, giving them a regular five or ten minutes in class to write whatever they want, or about a topic from the news that they are given, perhaps without worrying about correct spelling or grammar.

Complexity of written language.

In general, the level of the language that pupils write will lag slightly behind the level that they are comfortable with in speaking and listening.

The complexity of the written language depends on:

• the length and the purpose of writing
• the style and structure of the writing
• the content of the writing

And all these aspects depend on the level of language of the students.

*This was taken from  "teaching languages to young learners" by Lynne Cameron  pages 154 - 155.Cambridge Language Teaching Lybrary.