1. Dr. Comfort Pratt

2.  Acquiring a language subsequent to the mother
tongue
 Why do people learn a second language?

3. Behaviourist Theory
♣ Remember Skinner’s model of language behavior
♣ Proponents – Nelson Brooks (1960) and Robert
Lado (1964)
♣ Language development is viewed as the
formation of habits

4.  Stimulus-Response-Reward chain
 There are three crucial elements in learning

5. ♣ Manifested itself in SLA in the form of mimicry
and memorization of dialogs and sentence
patterns

6. Assumed that
 L2 learners would start off with the habits
formed in the first language and transfer them to
the L2
 L1 habits would interfere with habits needed for
the second language
 Often linked to the CAH

7.  Researchers

8.  Do L2 learners draw on what they already
know?

9.  Researchers found the behaviorist theory an
inadequate explanation for L2 acquisition.

10.  Remember Chomsky’s LAD
 Lydia White (2003), Vivian Cook (2003)
 Due to the presence of the LAD, L2 learners are
able to eventually know more about the
language than they could have learned if they
had to depend entirely on the input they are
exposed to.

11.  Theorists

12. 1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

13. 2. The Natural Order Hypothesis

14. 3. The Monitor Hypothesis

15. 4. The Input Hypothesis

16. 5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

17.  Proponents - Cognitive and developmental
psychologists
 Language learning is a cognitive process

18.  Proponents- Cognitive psychologists such as
Norman Segalowitz (2003)
 Building up of knowledge that can eventually
be called on automatically
 At the beginning stages, learners pay attention
to main words.
 Process new input
 Can process more information later

19.  More proficient – more aspects
 Limited mental activity
 The skills become proceduralized and
automatized
 Restructuring
 Retrieval

20.  Proponent - Nick Ellis (2002)
 Humans don’t possess a neurological module
for language learning
 Attributes greater importance to the role of the
environment.
 Emphasis on frequency
 Exposure
 Stronger network
 Activation
 Chunks

21.  Proponents – Elizabeth Bates & Brian Whinney
(1981)
 Language acquisition occurs without an innate
brain module specifically for language.
 L2 acquisition requires learners to learn the
relative importance of the different cues
 Language form, language meaning, and language
use
 Learners receive competing cues
 Learners come to understand how to use the cues

22.  Proponents – Evelyn Hatch (1978), Michael
Long (1983, 1996), Teresa Pica (1994), Susan
Gass (1997)
 Conversational interaction is an essential
condition for L2 acquisition.
 Speakers modify their speech and interaction
patterns in order to help learners understand
the information.
 Comprehensible input
 Modified interaction is necessary for language
acquisition.

23.  Interactional modification can be done in 3
ways:
 Comprehension checks
 Clarification requests
 Self-repetition or paraphrase

24.  Richard Schmidt (1990)
 Nothing is learned unless it has been noticed.
 Awareness precedes acquisition.

25.  Bill VanPatten (2004)
 Inability of many L2 learners to process input.
 Learners have limited processing capacity
 They tend to give priority to meaning.
 They use the context to understand.

26.  Jütgen Meisel, Harald Clahsen, and Manfred
Pienemann (1981)
 Sequence of development for features is
affected by how easy they are to process.
 Ease of processing depends to a large extent on
the position of the features in a sentence.

27.  Vygotsky
 Views thinking and speaking as tightly
interwoven
 Learning occurs when the learner interacts
with an interlocutor within his or her zone of
proximal development (ZPD)