principles of language teaching

1. Age & acquisition
Chapter 3
Does age matter for the ultimate attainment
of second language acquisition (SLA)?
Dr. Ghafarpour

2. Myths
L1 and L2 learning are similar processes
1. Repetition and practice
2. Imitation
3. Natural order: sounds, words, sentences
4. Understanding always precedes speaking
5. Natural order: listening, speaking, reading,
and writing
6. No translation
7. Without any instruction in formal grammar
There are flaws in each of the 7
statements—sometimes in the
assumption behind the statement
about L1 learning, sometimes in
the analogy or implication that is
drawn, and sometimes in both.
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3. L1 L2
Child
Adult
Types of comparison and contrast
1. SLA in children (of varying ages) and adults
2. Children’s L1 and L2 acquisition
Dr. Ghafarpour

4. The critical period hypothesis (CPH):
the younger the better?
‐ Critical period also called sensitive period
‐ A biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired
more easily and beyond which time language is increasingly difficult to
acquire.
‐ possible applications of the CPH to L2 contexts
‐ Classic argument: around puberty
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Dr. Ghafarpour
Dr. Ghafarpour

5. Neurobiological
considerations
 Function of the brain in
the process of
acquisition
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Dr. Ghafarpour
Dr. Ghafarpour

6.  Hemispheric Lateralization
 role of the right hemisphere in the acquisition of an L2:
 guessing at meanings,
 using formulaic utterances, as examples of right
 in informal contexts
 processing of pragmatic aspects of lg
 Biological Timetables
 Sociobiological critical period: accent
 different aspects of an L2 are learned optimally at different ages.
 Lower order processes e.g. pronunciation are dependent on early-maturing brain functions,
 Higher order lg functions, e.g. semantic relations, are more dependent on late-maturing neural circuits,
which may explain the efficiency of adult learning.
 Anthropological Evidence
 Some adults have been known to acquire an authentic L2 accent after puberty, but these are exceptional
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7. The significance of accent
‐ Possible causes of such an age-based factor:
‐ Neuromuscular plasticity,
‐ neurological development,
‐ sociobiological programs, and
‐ the environment of sociocultural influences.
‐ To what extent could adults approximate native-speaker accents in an L2 never before
encountered?
‐ Native English-speaking graduate students of German were not judged to be native
speakers!!!
‐ Inability to define “native” accent at all
‐ Certain learner characteristics and contexts may work together to override the
disadvantages of a late start.
‐ Warning against “using native accent as the yardstick”
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8. Cognitive considerations
Human cognition develops
rapidly throughout the first 16
years of life and less rapidly
thereafter
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9. • Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
• Preoperational stage (2-7)
• Operational stage (7-16)
• Concrete operational stage (7-11)
• Formal operational stage (11-16)
Piaget
L1 acquisition takes place when the child is
highly egocentric, able to focus on only one
dimension at a time
Is it possible that a language learner who is
too consciously aware of what he or she is
doing will have difficulty in learning the L2?
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10. • Logically, a superior intellect should facilitate what is in one sense a highly complex
intellectual activity.
• Evidence shows that some adults who have been successful language learners have
been very much aware of the process they were going through, even to the point of
utilizing self-made paradigms and other fabricated linguistic devices to facilitate the
learning process.
• So, if mature cognition is a liability to successful second language acquisition,
clearly some intervening variables allow some persons to be very successful L2
learners after puberty. These variables may in most cases lie outside the cognitive
domain entirely, perhaps more centrally in the affective, or emotional, domain.
• Children may be better in implicit or incidental learning!
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11.  Equilibration (Piaget)
 Tolerance of differences
 Rote and meaningful learning
(Ausubel)
 Anchoring
 Adults have greater ability for rote
learning (short-term memory)
 Context of learning: rote or
meaningful
equilibration disequilibration
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12. Affective considerations
The most complex, yet the most illuminating,
perspective on age and acquisition.
centrality of our emotions
includes many
factors:
empathy,
self-esteem,
extroversion,
inhibition,
imitation,
anxiety,
Attitudes
…
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13. ‐ Egocentricity
‐ Inhibitions
‐ language ego:
‐ the identity a person develops in reference to the language he or she speaks;
‐ A person’s self-identity is inextricably bound up with one’s language
‐ security of the native language to protect the fragile ego of the young adult.
‐ Younger children are less frightened because they are less aware of
language forms . The possibility of making mistakes in those forms does
not concern them greatly.
‐ Second identity
‐ Attitude to L2
‐ Peer pressure
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14. Linguistic considerations
Bilingualism
Interference btwn L1 & L2
Order of Acquisition
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15. Bilingualism
o coordinate bilinguals: operate with 2 meaning systems.
o compound bilinguals: have 1 meaning system, that is, one context, in which both
languages operate
o Children generally do not have problems with language “mixing,” regardless of the
separate contexts for use of the languages, as “bilinguals are not two monolinguals in the
same head”
o code-switching: inserting words, phrases, or even longer stretches of one lg into the other
o heritage lg acquisition which refers to “family lineage” languages acquired by individuals
raised in homes where the dominant lg of the region is not spoken or not exclusively
spoken in the home.
o Slightly slower rate of acquisition
o Cognitive benefit: bilingual children are more facile at concept formation and have greater mental
flexibility 15 Dr. Ghafarpour

16. Interference between L1 & L2
‐ Child used similar strategies and rules for both L1 & L2
‐ Adult L2 processes are more vulnerable to the effect of the L1 on the L2, especially
the farther apart the two lg-learning events are.
‐ Saliency of interference from the L1 does not imply that interference is the most
relevant or most crucial factor in adult L2 acquisition.
‐ Adults and children both manifest intralingual errors, the result of an attempt to
discover the rules of the L2 apart from the rules of the L1.
‐ Thus, L1 is a facilitating factor, and not just an interfering factor.
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17. Order of Acquisition
‐ Transfer of L1 syntactic patterns rarely occurs in child L2 acquisition
‐ They use creative construction process
‐ 5 determinants of acquisition order across numerous languages:
1. Perceptual salience (how easy it is to see or hear a given structure)
2. Semantic complexity (how many meanings are expressed by a particular form)
3. Morpho-phonological regularity (the degree to which language forms are affected
by their phonological environment)
4. Syntactic category (grammatical characteristics of forms)
5. Frequency in the input (the number of times a given structure occurs in
speech addressed to the learner) 17 Dr. Ghafarpour

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19. Issues in First Language Acquisition Revisited
‐ Competence and Performance: judge competence based on performance
‐ Comprehension and Production: both are together; adults are better at rote mimicry
‐ Nature or Nurture: learn lg at any age, accent, cog & affective vars
‐ Universals: children’s developing L2 grammars are indeed constrained by Universal
Grammar (UG); adults access it directly or through L1.
‐ Systematicity and Variability: SLA is systematic (order of acquisition); var is due to
cognitive, affective, cultural, and contextual factors
‐ Language and Thought: age is imp but which age is better is still not clear.
‐ Imitation: children are good deep-structure imitators adults are better in imitating surface
structure; implication: meaningful contexts for language learning are necessary
‐ Practice and Frequency: frequency, meaningfulness, contextualized
‐ Input
‐ Discourse 19 Dr. Ghafarpour

20. Age-and-acquisition-inspired teaching methods
Total physical response (TPR) 💃🏃
Natural approach
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21. Thanks for paying attention!
Any question?
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