This document discusses different types of bilingualism and multilingualism, as well as methods for acquiring a second language. It defines bilingualism as speaking two languages and multilingualism as speaking more than two languages. Second language acquisition can occur through birth in bilingual families, immigration as a child or adult, or formal education. Several barriers to second language acquisition are identified, including age, time spent learning, occupation, motivation, and muscular flexibility of the tongue. The document also examines different language teaching methods, including grammar translation, audiolingualism, and communicative approaches. It emphasizes the importance of focusing on the learner and allowing errors as a natural part of the language learning process.

1. Bilingualism
Some Types
 Bilingual = speakers of two languages
 Multilingual = speakers of more than two
languages
When?
- Have native-like control of both languages?
Exclude too many people.
- Fluent speaker of one language and able to read
a little in another?
Include too many people
- Able to hold a conversation with monolingual
speakers of two different languages

2. How?
1. From birth simultaneous bilingualism
- Parents speak two different languages
- Parents’ language different from that of the
environment
2. By immigration
- As young children sequential
bilingualism
- As adults second language acquisition
3. By formal education second language
acquisition

3. Second Language Acquisition
• Some Acquisition Barriers :
1. Age : teenage or adult
2. Time : a few hours each week of school time
3. Occupation : a lot of other occupations
4. Possession of L1 : lack of motivation
5. Muscular inflexibility : adult’s tongue gets stiff
from pronouncing one type of language
• Acquisition and Learning
- Acquisition : gradual development of ability in a lan-guage
by using it naturally in communicative situations.

4. Acquisition and ....
- Learning : conscious process of accumulating knowledge
of the vocabulary and grammar of a language
The Affective Filter
- A kind of barrier to acquisition that results from negative
feeling or experience, such as unwillingness, embarrassment,
lack of emphaty, resulting from dull textbook, unpleasant
classroom surrounding, exhaustive schedule, etc.
- Teenagers are more self-conscious than young children
- Children are less constrained by the affective filter

5. Focus on Method (1)
• Three mainstream methods reflecting different views on
how a foreign language is best learned:
1. Grammar-Translation Method
- Treat L2 learning on a par with other academic
subjects
- Long list of words with their translation and a set of
grammatical rules to be memorized
- Emphasis on written language and learning about the
language produces students who knows a lot about the
language but at a loss when confronted with its use.
- Attend to language form

6. Focus on method (2)
2. Audiolingual Method
-Emphasis on spoken language
- Involves a systematic presentation of L2 structures
in the form of drills students have to repeat
- Fluent language use is a set of habits
- L2 learning is basically a mechanical process of
habit formation
- Isolated practice/drilling bear no resemblance to
interactional nature of actual language use
- Can be very boring

7. Focus on Method (3)
3. Communicative Approaches
- Reaction against the artificiality of ‘pattern practice’
and belief that consciously learning the grammar of a
language will necessarily results in an ability to use
the language
- Emphasis on the function rather than the form of
language
- Lessons are organized around concepts such as
“asking for things” in different social contexts
- Attempts to provide more appropriate materials for
English for Special Purposes (ESP)

8. Focus on the Learner
A shift of concern: from teacher, textbook, and method to
the learner and the acquisition process.
Example: toleration of errors. Errors are not hindrances.
They are signs of learning
Errors may be due to transfer from L1. But transfer may
be positive or negative
Positive transfer occurs when L1 and L2 have similar
feature and it may be beneficial to the learner.
Negative transfer (interference) occurs when L1 and L2
have different feature and usually it isn’t effective for L2
communication. Negative transfer is more common in
the early stages of L2 learning and will decrease as the
learner becomes more familiar with L2.

9. Some terms used in L2 Acquisition
• Interlanguage: in-between language system used in L2
acquisition containing certain aspects of both L1 and L2 as
well as features of neither languages and has its own rules.
• Fossilization: an L2 acquisition process in which some
features which do not match the target language do not
progress any further. It is typically found in pronunciation.
• Input: the language that the learner is exposed to. To be
beneficial it has to be comprehensible by being simpler in
structure and vocabulary as in a variety of speech known as
Foreigner Talk.
• Negotiated input: L2 material that the L2 learner can
acquire in interaction through requests for clarification and
active attention being focused on what is said.

10. Some terms
• Output : what the learner produces comprehensibly in a
meaningful interaction. It is a crucial factor in the learner’s
development of L2 abilities, yet the most difficult to provide in
a large foreign language class-rooms.
• Communicative competence: the ability to use the L2
accurately, appropriately, and flexibly. It consists of three
components: 1. grammatical competence, i.e. accurate use
of words and structures in the L2. 2. sociolinguistic compe-tence,
i.e. the ability to interpret or produce language appro-priately,
to know when to say Can I have some water? Vs. Give
me some water. 3. strategic competence: the ability to organ-ize
a message effectively and to compensate, via strategies,
for any difficulties.