Receptive and productive activities to acquire L2

1. Receptive and productive activities in SLA
Listening
By: María Fernanda Mena
People acquire L1 mostly through listening (receptive), unlike L2 learners that often have less opportunity to hear the
TL.
Listening tasks can be classified in: reciprocal (conversation) and non-reciprocal (listening to radio broadcasts.)
Listening activities can also be classified in: general listening (listeners have to get the general idea) and selective
listening (listeners have to comprehend important details).
Information Processing is the theory of SLA most used in listening. Stages: (1) Input, (2) Central Processing (bottom-up
and top-down factors).

2. Make sense of what people
say by recognizing patterns in
recurring sequences of sounds
and attaching meaning to
them.
L2 learners should:
- Know in advance what the
speaker is going to talk about.
-Learn key words and phrases in
advance.
-Talk is support by images and
writing
-Let the listener ask for
repetition, or clarification.
Nonlinguistic factors that
influence:
- Poor signal quality
- Background noise
- Distractions
- Affective features, i.e.
anxiety.
Beginning L2
listening
Academic
Listening
• A large recognition vocabulary of basic and subject-specific
terms, complex sentence structure, and organizational
features.
• Ability to process pronunciation by speakers of different
native and nonnative varieties of the language.
• Extensive exposure to oral, academic text (for proficiency).
Requieres:
• “Attendance of students at the preparatory programme doesn’t lead
a considerable difference in their fall and spring term listening skills”
• Gender doesn’t have a considerable role on determining success in
spring term listening skills although it does in fall term, where
females are more successful in their listening exams.
• Programme type may have a considerable role on students’ success in
listening exams since there is a meaningful difference in their success
in listening skills.
Performance differences
between ELT Freshmen’s
Receptive and Productive Skills
(listening)

3. References:
[1] Murial Saville-Troike, “Introducing
Second Language Acquisition”, Chapter
6, University of Arizona, Cambridge,
2006.
[2] Müzeyyen Nazli Demirbas,
“Performance Differences between
ELT Freshmen’s Receptive and
Productive Skills”, Journal of Language
and Linguistic Studies, 2013.

4. Receptive and productive activities in SLA
Reading
ELT FRESHMEN’S
 Reading and writing are united in an
advanced reading.
 Reading skills are developed via short
stories and authentic reading materials.
 Comprehension, skimming, scanning, cloze
test procedure are taught and practiced at
the reading course.
 Reading and writing are evaluated and
assessed through a single exam.

5. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
 Reading ability involves general printed
resources .
 Fluency in reading takes time to develop in
either L1 or L2.
 L2 requires learning to recognize new
conventions of punctuation.
 L2 without some exposure to the oral form
may be more limited .

6. Receptive and productive activities in SLA
Speaking
SPEAKING

7. SPEAK
SPEECH ACT OTHER ASPECT
LEARN HOW TO
PERFORM
ACTS AND
WHEN DEPLOY
THEM
PRAGMATIC
COMPETENCE
ULTRANCES
WHICH
REQUEST
APOLOGIZE,
PROMISE,
DENY
REQUIRE NEW
KNOWLEDGE
CONTEXTUATI
ONAL
STRUCTURES
DIFFERENCES
IN RULES FOR
TURN- TALKING
COMUNICATIO
N STRATEGIES
INTERPRET
MEANING

8. Receptive and productive activities in SLA
Writing