Chapter 2:L2 and FL learning

(Armendariz-Montani)

Patricia VargasMultimedia

October 2010

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IndexMain concepts

• Lateralization• Fundamental Difference

Theory• Languages studies• Linguistic deprivation• Extreme deprivation

Learning L2/FL

• Learning L2/FL• Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis• Interference/transference concepts• Causes for interference• What is transferred• Conditions for L2 and FL learning• Creative Construction Hypothesis/Natural Order Acquisition• Role of input in L2/FL learning• Interlanguage• Fosilization• Age factor in L2/FL learning• Consciousness during the learning process• Variability in the interlanguage

Individual differences and cognitive variables in the L2/FL learning

• What are learning styles?• Classification of learning

styles• The affective filter• Learning and communica

tion strategies• Learning strategies• Types of learning strategi

es• Communication compete

nce

• Communication strategies

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Lateralization

Process in which neurological changes are produced.

Changes determine that the two brain hemispheres work independently and develop specialized functions.

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Fundamental difference theory

Robert Bley-Wroman developed the fundamental difference theory:

Same limitations occur in L1 acquisition during the critical period (by Lenneberg) as well as L2 acquisition.

Adults need to resort to analysis to solve problems and build a grammatical structure.

This theory may explain the differences present between the L1 acquisition and L2 learning:

achievements humans make after puberty are inferior than those of younger people.

It may be explained by the fact that the neurological tissue involves metabolical costs that the brain has to reduce.

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Language studies• There are four distinguished stages in the development of

Psicolinguistics studies.

• According to Michael Long, these studies helps us make connections between process and product in the development of the interlanguage - immature language:

B.J Skinner (1957) with his stimulus-response theory. Noam Chomsky: we are born with the language faculty -UG. Piaget,Vigotsky and Bruner’s theories are mainly based on the functional

dimension of language. They studied the language from a socio-cultural point of view and concluded that we learn by doing

Connectionnist theories of McClelland, Rumelhart, Pinker, etc. According to Pinker, learning is achieved when there is a change or adjustment in the weight of connections responding to a stimulus. Thus, L2 learning is likely to occur if there is a linguistic production or input as comprehensible as the response expected from the exposure to the language.

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Linguistic deprivation• As the first linguistic community is the family, children may find that school is a

quite different communicative context, especially in these aspects: communicative referents and type of affective and attitudinal bonds established between the participants in the language community.

• According to Berstein, lower class children have a restringed code, that is values and norms are do not necessarily are explicitly conveyed and therefore are taken for granted.

• they may be less informed compared to other classes and less curious than those who master elaborated codes –such as longer phrases and grammatically complex structures, and may find it difficult to respond to non-emotional and abstract language used at school.

• In contrast to low class learners, middle class children are more able to be keep up with the requirements of formal academic education, thus adapting more easily to the school environment.

• the breach between school and family contexts will mostly depend on the social class students belong to, so we need to take into account this key factor in order to facilitate learning.

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Extreme deprivation

Children who for diverse reasons have been unable to develop language for the lack of exposure to a linguistic environment.

Although non linguistic cognitive skills of some of these linguistic-deprived children were relatively “normal”, grammatical skills were deeply disrrupted.

So it proved that grammatical aspects of the language are succesfully acquired only during the critical period.

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Learning L2/FLL1 acquisition L2 or foreign language learning

Motivation Higher degree Lower degreeEnvironment It offers a wide variety of opportunities for use of the

languagesUse of

languageFrequent use that requires comprehensive

production all dayInstruction No need of formal instruction, only positive

evidence from competent speakers.Variables External: methodology, social factors, nature of

inputInternal: L1 degree of transference, cognitive andpersonality factors (age, learning styles andstrategies, kind of motivation)

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Contrastive Analysis Hipothesis

Knowledge of the main features of students’ L1: Compulsory for teachers comparison of the main grammatical and phonological aspects of students’s L1’s.

Interference: produced during the learning process, when the speaker uses phonetic, morphological, syntactic or lexical typical of L1.

Transference of typical habits of L1 into L2 or foreign language may facilitate or not new formation of habits:

Positive transference Negative transference

previous habits facilitatelearning of L2 or foreign

language.

Zerotransference previous habits

deteriorate learning ofL2/foreign language.

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Interference/Transference

concepts According to Kellerman:

Interference Transference

linguistic outcome motivated byanother language

psychological process that precedesinterference

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Interference due to...

Factors

structural extralinguistic

Degree of knowledge ofL2

L2 or foreign languageprestige

Lack of phonemesbetween the two systems

Contact between thelinguistic groups

Different rules Attittude towards culturaldifferences

Change of morphemesand syntax

Motivation

Little knowledge of thelexical system

Personality factors

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What is transferred...

•Forms and meanings of the learner’s own language and culture

•Distribution of these forms and meanings to the foreign culture and language, through the production as well as comprehension.

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Condition for L2 or foreign language

learningLong and intensive

practice and production

Automatization of the linguistic features of

the second or foreign language

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Creative Construction Hypothesis and Natural

Order Acquisition Both adults and childern older than five years old had the same order or acquisition in syntax, whether during the L1’s acquisition or L2 learning process.

But process was different from that of children younger than five acquiring a language

Creative Construction HypothesisFollowing universally innate mechanisms, speakers formulate

certain hypothesis about the linguistic system of the target language, until the differences between input-output are resolved

favourably.

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Role of input in L2/FL learning

According to Chomsky :

Does the grammatical complexity of input need to be beyond the level of production, following the natural order hypothesis?

Does it need to be sequenced according to logical and formal criteria?

INPUTLinguistic

production of speakers

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Interlanguage

• Autonomous linguistic system resulting from the learner’s attempt to produce the target language.

• It requires access to the latent linguistic structure (Lenneberg,1967), which has given given form to the language acquisition device.

• From the latent to realization stage.

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Fosilization

• L2 learner will tend to keep linguistic items, rules and subsystems in their interlanguage, regardless their age, practice, systematization they receive about or in the target language.

• Reason: learners may not have mastered yet these aspects, or having the knowledge, they cannot use them for different factors:•stress•anxiety•extreme relaxation

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Age factor in the L2/FL learning

• Oyama’s Sensitive period: learning of L2/FL is more difficult than in the Critical Period.

•Moreau and Richelle’s Privilege period: it extends up to the age of ten.

•According to Selinger: there are multiple critical periods for phonetics, syntax and semantics.

All languages have a modular structure

They are not necessarily learned in the same way nor simultaneously with the same effectiveness

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Consciousness during the learning process

• Learning without explicit metalinguistic knowledge

•According to Robinson, teaching seems to be effective for the learning of simple grammatical rules, pragmatic and lexical aspects.

•However, complex aspects are learned in conditions where attention and meaning are combined.

•We should always provide meaningful exposure to the target language and orientation for the discovery of rules.

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• systematic: predictable, based on the linguistic an d communicative context. observable through the whole process, in which the learners eventually monitor their own production

• asystematic: frequent in the first developmental stages of L2/FL, and it continues in the following stages, unitl it transforms into systematic.

Variability in the interlanguageDynamic system: it develops from one stage to the other

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Individual differences and cognitive variables

in the L2/FL learning

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Learning stylesInduring tendencies or preferences within an individual

Learning styles might be thought of as “cognitive, affective, and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment.”(Keefe 1979:4)

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Classification of learning styles

Field dependence/independence

Contextual global or sequential detailed/linear

Impulsive experimental /analytical reflective

Conceptual/concrete

Responding to input: visual auditory kinesthetic

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The affective filter personality

affective variables

Learning another language makes us reflect about ourselves and our relationships with the others.

It requires not to avoid opportunities to speak a foreign language.

We need empathy and interest to risk something in any

communicative process

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Learning and Communication Strategies

Learning strategies:

It relates to input -to processing, storage and retrieval, to taking in mesages from others.

Communication strategies:

It pertains to output, how we productively express meaning, how we deliver messages to others.

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Learning strategies

Metacognitive strategies that involve

planning for learning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring one’s own production or comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed.

Cognitive they involve more

direct manipulation of the learning material itself.

Socioaffective they have to do with

social-mediating activity and transacting with others.

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Learning strategies

Metacognitive

advance organizers

directed attention

selective attention

self-management

functional-planning

self-monitoring

delayed production

self-evaluation

Cognitive

repetition

resourcing

translation

grouping

note taking

deduction

elaboration

transfer

Socioaffective

cooperation

question for clarification

asking for repetition

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Communication competence

According to Chomsky: linguistic competence, which is related to psychological as well as sociolinguistic factors

Four aspects can be distinguished: Grammatical competence: including lexis

Sociolinguistic competence: related to the rules of interaction among the speakers

Discursive competence: includes cohesion and coherence

Strategic competence: techniques that the learners resorts to when there is a break in communication

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Communication strategiesParaphrase

•approximation•word coinage•circumlocution: the learner describes the characteristics or elements of the object or action instead of using the target language item or structure.

Borrowing•literal translation•language switch

Mime

Appeal for assistance

Avoidance