Lesson 1 for Language Learning Materials

1. Second Language
Acquisition and
Materials Development

2. Introduction
Second language acquisition (SLA) is the process
by which people acquire and/or learn any
language in addition to their first language. It is
also the name of the academic discipline which
studies that process. Some SLA researchers use the
term 'acquisition' to refer to the informal,
subconscious process of gaining a language from
exposure and use while reserving the term
'learning' to refer to the deliberate, conscious
study of a language in order to be able to use it.

3. There is considerable controversy in the
field as to which of these processes is the
most likely to help a learner to develop the
ability to use a language effectively but
most researchers seem to agree that
learning is insufficient and needs to be at
least supplemented by acquisition.

4. Some researchers also differentiate between
‘acquisition’ and ‘development’. For example,
Tomlinson (2007a, p. 2) says that acquisition' is the
initial stage of gaining basic communicative
competence in a language' and 'development' is
the subsequent stage of gaining the ability to use
the language successfully in a wide range of media
and genres for a wide variety of purposes’.

5. Research and Theory
It is generally agreed that SLA is facilitated by:
 A rich and meaningful exposure to language in use
Krashen (1981. 1994) claimed that exposure to
comprehensible input was both necessary and
sufficient for SLA. Ideally the input which the learners
are exposed to should be rich in the sense that it
contains a lot of implicit informal about how the
language is actually used to achieve communicative
effect and that it provides natural recycling of
language features (Nation, 2011).

6. It should also be meaningful in the sense
that it is relevant to the learner and the
learner is able to understand enough of it
to gain meaning from it.

7. Affective and cognitive engagement
It has been found that affective engagement is
vital for SLA Learners who are stimulated to laugh,
smile, feel joy, feel excited and feel empathetic are
much more likely to acquire communicative
competence than learners who are restricted to
bland, safe, neutral materials which do not
stimulate any emotional response. Positive
emotions seem most likely to stimulate deep
processing (Craik - & Lockhart, 1972) and therefore
to facilitate language acquisition.

8. Self-confidence and self-esteem are also
important aspects of affective engagement
as is feeling positive about the learning
environment.
It is also very important that learners are
cognitively engaged by the texts and tasks
they are given to use. They need to use such
high level mental skills as inferencing,
connecting, predicting and evaluating
while processing language.

9. If they do, they are much more likely to achieve
deep processing and to eventually acquire
language and develop language skills than if they
are restricts to using such low level decoding and
encoding skills as learning dictionary definitions,
recognizing and repeating sounds, listening to
and repeating utterances, learning spellings and
reading aloud short phrases.

10. Making use of those mental resources
typically used in communication in the L1
In the L1:
We make full use of the resources of our
brain when we use language For example,
when listening or reading we make use
of our inner voice to silently echo the
utterances we hear or see and to
comment to ourselves about them.

11. We make use of visual imaging to represent the
meaning of what is said or written.
Prior to speaking or writing we use visual
imaging and inner speech to develop a mental
representation of our intended message and
inner speech to prepare whet we are going to
say or write.

12. Yet when learning an L2 learners rarely
make use of these mental resources at all.
This is mainly because:
They are not encouraged to do so by their
teachers and materials.
Their reluctance to tolerate ambiguity
Their 'need' to know the meaning of
everything

13. Noticing how the L2 is used
It is essential for the learner to pay attention to the
salient features of the language they encounter in
order to eventually acquire them. The more the
learner pays willing attention(either deliberately and
consciously or incidentally and subconsciously) to a
feature of the language the more the learner's brain
is likely to notice that feature as salient in
subsequent input and the readier the learner will be
for acquisition.

14. Pienneman (1985) claims that psychological
readiness is an important facilitator of
acquisition and that this can be influenced
by materials and teachers. One way of
doing this is to draw the learner's attention
to language features in use for task
completion.

15. A very effective way of helping learners to achieve
psychological readiness is to use experiential
discovery approaches in which the learners first of
all respond personally to the content of an engaging
written or spoken text and then go back to make
discoveries about the form and function of a
particular feature of that text (Tomlinson, 1994,
2003b, 2007b; Bolitho et al., 2003; Bolitho and
Tomlinson, 2Q05)

16. Another way is to make use of a form-
focused approach (Long, 1991; Ellis, 2002;
Williams, 2005; Fotos & Nassaji, 2007.) in
which learners first focus on the meaning of
a text and later focus on the form and
function of a specific linguistic feature.

17.  Being given opportunities for contextualized and
purposeful communication in the L2
It has been found that output (i.e. producing language for
communication) is also an important facilitator of
acquisition. It can provide learners with contextual
feedback, it helps to automatize language, it constitutes
auto-input and it can elicit further comprehensible input
too (Swam, 1995 1998; Ellis, 2008; Ortega, 2010).

18. It seems that pushed output
(communicating something which is not
easy to express) can be particularly
beneficial as it stretches the learner's
capabilities by making them make full use
of their acquired language and of their
strategic competence, as well as providing
opportunities for new but comprehensible
input from their interlocutors who are
helping them to negotiate meaning.

19. Being encouraged to interact
Long (1996) posited an interaction hypothesis in
which he claimed that oral interaction in the L2
creates propitious conditions for its acquisition as
it helps to make input more comprehensible, it
provides meaningful feedback and it pushes
learners to modify their output.

20. Being allowed to focus on meaning
The learner's natural syllabus is meaning-
focused and it is generally agreed upon by
SLA researchers that learners are more
likely to acquire forms if their primary focus
is on meaning rather than form (Prabhu,
1987; Long, 1996; Ellis, 2008, 2011).
However it does seem that more attention
to form is needed as the learner progresses
to advanced levels.

21. One way of helping learners to acquire language
from a focus on meaning is to use an experiential
approach (Kolb, 1984; Tomlinson, 2003b) in
which the learners first experience an engaging
text holistically, respond to it personally and then
return to the text to focus discretely on a salient
feature of language use.

22. Other generally accepted facilitators of
language acquisition and development:
Being relaxed-a condition in which can be
promoted by giving learners the time,
silence and encouragement to use their
inner voice(Tomlinson & Avila, 2007a, b)
and by textbooks using a personal voice
and chatting to their learners in the
informal way(Beck et al., 1995;
Tomlinson, 2011a).

23.  Being motivated to participate and to
learn(Dornyei, 2001, 2005; Ushioda, 2003);
 Being helped to develop an emerging
interlanguage which gradually moves
closer to the target language.
 Developing hypotheses about how the
language is used for communication(Gass
& Selinker, 2008);

24. Being catered for as an individual who
might learn faster or slower than others,
who has preferences for certain learning
styles and who will not use language with
consistent accuracy and effect (Arnold,
1999; Dornyei 2005; Ellis, 2008);
Making full use of non-linguistic means
of communicating (McCafferty (2004),
McCafferty & Stam (2008) ).
Being ready to acquire a focused feature.

25. Match between SLA theory and ELT
materials
To try to gauge the match between theory
and practice Tomlinson analyzed a number
of recently published global coursebooks.
What he found is that there is a very weak
match between theory and practice.

26. He found that:
None of the coursebooks focus on
meaning.
Coursebooks are all forms-focused
The majority of their activities are
language item practice activities
Some of the coursebooks provide some
opportunities for noticing and most
make attempt at personalization.
None of them offer choice content, route
of activities.

28. According to Table 2.1 in giving scores out
of 5 (with 5 indicating a perfect match)
Tomlinson tried to be as objective as
possible. A different evaluator might have
given different scores but he cannot
imagine anybody giving high scores for any
of the categories.

29. It is particularly noticeable that:
 Very little use is made of literature(except in
global).
 The texts are very short and simple.
 Most activities involve practice rather than use.
 The topics and activities are bland safe
 The learners are rarely asked to be creative
 The learners are rarely asked to think for
themselves (except in Just Right)

30. The learners are rarely asked to speak or
write at any length.
The learners are rarely asked to interact
for a communicative purpose or at any
length
The units are predominantly forms-
focused.
All the units have review sections at the
end but there is little evidence of actual
recycling of language in use.

31. All the books and all the units in them are very
similar in their approach and in their frequent use
of conventional practice exercises.

32. The big question is:
Why is there typically such a weak match
between SLA theory and global
coursebooks?
Very often SLA researchers end the
reports of their research by saying that
the evidence is inconclusive or that more
research needs to be done.
Often research and theory is written
about in language which is only
accessible to academics.

33. Coursebook publishers are catering mainly for
teachers who do not have access to research
findings.
Coursebook publishers understandably publish
what they know they can sell.
Publishers are reluctant to risk innovations that
threaten the face validity of their coursebooks.
Publishers understandably clone coursebooks
which have been big sellers.

34.  Some of the findings of SLA research seem
difficult to apply to materials development.
 SLA research is often seen as a ‘resource to
inform teaching practice’(Pica 2005,p.263)
rather than as a determiner of the content
and format of coursebooks.
 In many countries there is a massive
mismatch between typical examination
tasks and SLA principles.
 Not all research findings are equally
applicable to all materials development,
contexts or teachers.(Richards, 2006)

35. What we would like to know about
SLA
Theory
There are still many unanswered questions
in SLA research.

36. For example:
Is SLA primarily implicit or explicit?
Some researchers (especially Krashen,
1981) argue that it is implicit acquisition
which enables the learner to communicate
spontaneously in an L2 and that explicit
learning is only of value in monitoring
output in order to achieve repair and in
planned discourse when the learner has the
time to make use of explicitly learned rules.

37. Most researchers though (e.g. Ellis, I993; Doughty &
Williams,1998) claim that explicit knowledge and
conscious practice can only facilitate the acquisition
of implicit knowledge( i. e. they can help learners
acquire more language from their exposure to it).

38.  Is there a natural sequence in language
acquisition?
One plausible explanation for similarities in
sequences of acquisition is offered by
MacWhinney (1987; 2005). His competition
model claims that what learners can pay
attention to at any one time is limited and
that they filter out features of language
when they listen to a second language.

39. Learners gradually get better at processing
sentences and mental resources are freed up to
focus on more complex features of the input.
Tomlinson would argue that this inclination to
learn the simplest structures first is reinforced
by the learner's initial prioritizing of meaning
over form. What is essential for communication
is learned before what is perceived as
redundant.

40.  Are the factors which determine the
effectiveness of language acquisition
variable?
Much has been written on the variability of L2
use and there seems to be little doubt that
learners of an L2 vary in accuracy and
effectiveness from one interaction to another.
A learner, for example, might be accurate but
restricted in expression when talking to a
teacher and less accurate but more expressive
when talking to a friend.

41. There is even less doubt that English as an L2 varies
according to the region, language group and social
class that the interactants belong too and that L2
users modify their language by accommodating
towards their interactants' variety of English.

42.  Does text enhancement facilitate language
acquisition?
Sharwood Smith (1993) proposed text enhancement
(e. g. color coding, boldfacing, audio repetition) as a
means of drawing learners’ attention to salient
features of their input.

43. Suggestions for applying SLA theory
to ELT materials development
There are a number of principled
pedagogic approaches which do apply SLA
theory to their practice and for which
materials have been developed.

44. For example:
 Task-based approach
Task-based materials (e.g. Van den Branden,
2006) provide the learner with a purpose and
an outcome which can only be achieved
through interaction in the L2.
 Problem-based approaches(Mishan, 2010)
In which learners communicate with each
other to solve a problem.

45. Both approaches apply SLA theory to practice by
providing the learners with opportunities for
purposeful, pushed output, by stimulating interaction
and often by helping them to notice features of their
own and/or other people's use of the language.

46.  Content and Language Integrated
Learning(CLIL) (Snow, 2005)
CLIL materials help learners to acquire an L2 by
teaching them a subject, topic or skill they are
interested in through the medium of the L2
(e.g. Coyle et al., 2010; Tomlinson et at
forthcoming). CLIL materials apply SLA theory
by providing a rich and meaningful exposure
to the language in use, by stimulating affective
and cognitive engagement and by providing a
need and purpose for learners to interact with
each other.

47.  Text-driven approach (Tomlison, 2003)
This approach has the greatest potential for
the application of SLA theory to materials
development.
Text-driven materials are determined by
potentially engaging written and/or spoken
texts rather than by language teaching points.

48. The learners’ interactions with the texts drive
personal response activities, thinking
activities, communication activities, creative
writing activities and language awareness
activities, as well as often inviting
supplementation with other locally appropriate
texts.

49. Text-driven approach :
 Expose the learners to rich and meaningful use of
language
 Engage the learners affectively and cognitively
 Stimulate the learners to utilize the resources of their
brains
 Provide opportunities for purposeful and meaningful
communication
 Helping the learners to notice features of language
use

50. Tomlinson (2003) and Tomlinson and Masuhara
(2004) outline a flexible text-driven framework
which is designed to help teachers to develop
principled and effective materials very quickly.
Table2.2 outlines the recommended stages.

52. Conclusion
The commercial publishers of global coursebooks
face many difficulties if they try to do the same
(e.g. conflict with user expectations, teacher
resistance to innovation conflict with the
demands of examinations, etc. ) Nevertheless
Tomlinson believes that they could make more
attempt to apply generally accepted principles of
SLA to their material development. Of course
they would be helped to do this if global and local
examiners made more attempt to apply SLA
theory to their examination tasks.