TEMA 2.

TEORÍAS GENERALES SOBRE EL

APRENDIZAJE Y LA ADQUISICIÓN DE UNA LENGUA
EXTRANJERA. EL CONCEPTO DE INTERLENGUA. EL
TRATAMIENTO DEL ERROR.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. FOREIGN VS. SECOND LANGUAGE
3. GENERAL THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING
3.1 . CHILDREN´S LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
3.2 . ADULT´S LANGUAGE LEARNING

4. INTERLANGUAGE
5. ERROR TREATMENT
6. CONCLUSION
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1. INTRODUCTION

Language makes us human. Whatever we do, language is central to our

lives. Understanding language gives us insight into ourselves and a tool for
investigation. Language is defined as a structured system, which serves the
purposes of being an instrument for communication and social interaction. In
this topic, we will be concerned with how we learn languages. Learning is the
process of acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes or values, through study,
experience or teaching.

To understand the process occurring in language acquisition, it is

important to recognise the complex, lifelong process that we go through in
acquiring our first language and the parallel process that occur in second
language acquisition. First of all, we will have a look at the general theories
about babies´ learning of their L1. Then, we will review the main theories
dealing with second language learning: behaviourism and cognitivism. In
relation to this, we will also explain the concept of interlanguage and we will
comment on error treatment.

2. FOREIGN VS. SECOND LANGUAGE

Before explaining the main theories of Language Teaching and Learning,

we should draw a distinction between the following concepts: L1, L2 and
Foreign Language.

The L1 (or mother tongue) is the language all speakers learn from their
parents when they are still children. Everybody has a high level of competence
in this L1. It is distinguished from any other language we may later acquire.
These languages fall into 2 different categories: second language and foreign
language. It is important to distinguish these concepts, because the aims of
students learning them are different, as well as the methodology used for
teaching them.

The Foreign Language is considered a normative language taught at

school, with no status as everyday means of communication in the country of
the speaker. That is the case of English in Spain. This is what we are dealing
with. A Second Language, on the other hand, is a non-native language widely
used for communication, education, business and so on, in the country of the
speaker. That would be the case of Spanish for a Catalan speaker.

One of the main differences when learning languages is the amount and
kind of contact the learner has with the language. Usually, they have much
more contact with a L1 than with a FL, because the L1 is often used in his or
her country. For that reason, most learners of L2 have some understanding and
fluency in the L2, even without any formal teaching. This knowledge is got
through acquisition. On the contrary, a learner of a FL has a very limited contact
with the FL. Unless he or she goes to the country where it is spoken, the
contact is likely to be limited to class time; other contacts such as TV,

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recordings, radio broadcasts or magazines require a voluntary effort on the side
of the learner. That is why most knowledge of a FL is got through learning.

After this brief comment on a very important distinction, we will move on

to the second point of this topic.

3. GENERAL THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING

A. CHILDREN´S LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The language follows many basic rules common to all tongues, even
though the children were not taught them. It indicates some language traits are
not passed on by culture, but instead arise due to the innate way human beings
process language. Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University and
author of a seminar book on the acquisition and evolution of language - The
Language Instinct - claims that children have some sophisticated
mechanisms of language analysis which give language many of its distinctive
qualities.

According to many experts, there are three main theories on how

children acquire their mother tongue:

(1) Imitation Theory. For a long time, it was though that children learnt their L1
by imitating adults´ speech. But it proved untrue; usually, adults talk to small
babies and toddlers in a special kind of language, full of incorrect sentences
and words. In spite of this, children learn how to speak properly. Moreover, if
this were the case, the children would only be able to produce sentences
which they had previously heard, and this does not happen.

(2) Reinforcement Theory. From this point of view, children learn to produce
correct sentences because they are reinforced in a positive way when they
say something wrong. It does not seem to be the case, for different reasons:
not all incorrect utterances said by children are reinforced; some of them,
can even be repeated by the family; if a child is corrected, but he or she
does not understand what is wrong, he or she will repeat the mistake.

(3) Creative construction theory. From this point of view, language acquisition
is a creative construction process: children have to construct all the rules of
the grammar of their languages. They can do it because they are equipped
with a LAD (Language Acquisition Device – concept introduced by
Chomsky) which allows them make hypothesis about the rules of the
language, and test them against adults´ speech. This explains the fact that
children repeat some particular errors at certain stages of development,
because they reflect how their grammar is at these stages.

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B. ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNING

I think first of all we should ask ourselves the following question: What is
learning? The question seems simple enough. However, philosophically it is a
very hard question to answer, and this is why it has been a challenging topic for
philosophers for centuries. The schools of thought on the nature of learning
have been many and varied, but at the most basic level they differ on only a
limited number of basic questions. We will not try to provide a comprehensive
overview of all the views of learning and knowledge that can be found, but we
will concentrate on the dominant ideas and views of our century. If we speak in
very broad terms about the trends in the century, we can identify 2 main
perspectives: behaviourism and cognitivism.

B.1. BEHAVIOURISM

This view was very dominant in the 50´s and 60´s and it is influenced by
Structuralism. For our purpose, the important aspect of behaviouristic theories
is that the learner is viewed as adapting to the environment and learning is seen
as a passive process in that there is no explicit interest in mental processes.

In their view, FLL is a process of creating correct linguistic habits in the

FL, by means of imitation, intensive practice and repetition. The process is seen
as the acquisition of any other habit: Stimulus → Response (reinforcement).
The following are examples of practices in textbooks following this
methodology:

a) Substitution
Basic sentence: I like apples.
(Orange): I like oranges.
(Tom): Tom likes oranges.

b) Conversion
Basic sentence: I like apples.
(Question): Do you like apples?
(Yes): Yes, I do. I like apples.
(No): No, I don’t. I don’t like apples.

c) Expansion
Basic sentence: I like apples.
(Very much): I like apples very much.

In these patterns, stimulus-response chains are central to the practice.

As for the Substitution, students are asked to change the subjects and objects
following the teacher’s instructions. Students also make questions and answers
in Conversion to make basic conversations, and in Expansion they are asked to
add modifiers to the basic pattern. The reinforcement, then, plays an important
role, and errors have to be corrected immediately in order to avoid incorrect
habits. One of the main concepts of this theory is transfer: the students try to

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apply to FL structures which exist in the L1. If the FL structure is similar, the
transfer is positive, and learning occurs.

Fortunately for Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs),

there are many similarities between English and Spanish. First of all, both
languages use the Roman alphabet. Secondly, 30% to 40% of all words in
English have a related word in Spanish. With similar sound, appearance,
and meaning, these cognates help students transfer that word knowledge
into their second language. Thirdly, except for a couple of word order
exceptions (adjective before noun in English and noun before adjective in
Spanish), sentences in both languages have the same basic structures

But if the structures are different, the transfer becomes a problem. It

is called interference. That would be the case of the so well-known “false
friends”. Perhaps the greatest difference between English and Spanish is
that Spanish has only five vowels while English has more than 14. This is
the reason Spanish speakers have difficulty distinguishing between vowel
phonemes in words like seat or sit. Some other Spanish interference into
English would be:

 Combinations in Spanish that are pronounce differently: que, qui, güe, güi.
For example the u is not pronounced unless it is written as ü; therefore,
students may not be sure how to pronounce words like queen, quiet, or
quick.

 The use of quotation marks: "Come here," he said. –Ven aquí–le dijo
 There are also some differences in question and sentence structures between both
languages.

Question Do you want to go to the movies tonight?

markers ¿Quieres ir al cine esta noche?
(Spanish speakers will likely leave out do)

Adjective-Nouns white horse

caballo blanco (horse white)
(Spanish speakers will often use the adjective after
the noun)

One of the main aims of this theory is to eliminate interference by means of

negative reinforcement. This theory has received 3 main criticisms:

 Not all the errors can be predicted. In fact, some errors made by students
with different L1, which indicates that they are no the result of a negative
transfer.

 Learners are able to cope with structures they have never practised
 This model is very different to the accepted model to children´s language
learning.

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B.2. COGNITIVISM

This model has developed since the 70,s and as opposed to

behaviourism, knowledge acquisition is measured by what learners know, not
necessarily what they do. The learner is viewed as an active participant in the
knowledge acquisition process. In addition, instructional material that utilizes
demonstrations, illustrative examples and corrective feedback are helpful in
providing mental models that the learner can follow. The use of feedback to
guide and support the learner to create accurate mental connections is a key
component in the cognitive theory.

Now I wish to turn to a highly influential and controversial account of second

language learning, which is based on the idea that second language
learning is very similar to the learning of a first language. The account has
been put forward in it fullest form by the American language teacher,
Stephen Krashen. Krashen sees five fundamental points - which he calls
hypotheses - as the basis for his language teaching method. These are:

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Krashen makes a distinction between what he calls acquisition of a

language - which is much the same as the process by which a child learns his
first language - and learning, which is the procedure employed in most
traditional classrooms. Acquisition is a relatively painless process. The child
hears language all around him, and unconsciously works out the grammar. This
he can do because he is equipped with an LAD. Learning, on the other hand,
is a conscious process, requiring effort specifically directed towards analysing
the target language. This is what we do in grammar lessons, and Krashen
appears to be thinking mainly of grammar when he refers to. Some techniques
used during acquisition activities would be:

a) Affective-humanistic activities

 dialogues – short and useful - 'open' dialogues

 interviews – pairwork on personal information

 personal charts and tables

 preference ranking – opinion polls on favourite activities etc

 revealing information about yourself – e.g. what I had for breakfast

 activating the imagination – e.g. give Napoleon advice about his

Russian campaign

b) Problem-solving activities

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  task and series – e.g. components of an activity such as washing the
car
 charts, graphs, maps – e.g. busfares, finding the way

 developing speech for particular occasions – e.g. What do you say if

…

 advertisements

c) Games, e.g. what is strange about … a bird swimming?'

d) Content activities, e.g. academic subject matter such as maths

Now, according to Krashen, one can only be said to master a

language when it has been acquired. Formal learning may give us the rules
of grammar, but it does not mean that we will use them correctly. He points to
the fact that students may score well on formal grammar tests, but, when they
are concentrating on content rather than form, make mistakes that they do not
make in the tests.

2. The Natural Order Hypothesis

The second point is that learners make mistakes, and that these
mistakes are a necessary part of language learning. These mistakes are not
random, but are very similar to the errors that children make when
learning their first language. If we follow the mistakes that students make
through time, we will see that they lie in a rough sequence.

Moreover, the sequence of errors for acquired language is not the same
as the sequence of learned grammar points - some grammatical morphemes
which appear simple from the learning point of view, are in fact acquired late.
This, according to Krashen, indicates that there is a natural order in which
learners pick up a language and that this order is roughly the same for all
learners, no matter what their linguistic background.

3. The Monitor Hypothesis

Krashen does not think that formal grammar teaching is entirely

pointless. The formal rule system feeds in to what he calls the Monitor - we
may think of this as a minute grammar teacher that sits inside our brains and
listens to what we say, or reads what we write and yells out whenever he hears
a mistake. The Monitor is a dangerous ally because some people overuse it,
and their speech becomes slow and hesitant and their interlocutors are likely to
give up on them, and go and talk to somebody else. This, as we shall see, is
important, because a language learner needs to hear a lot of language from
native speakers.

The Monitor is best used when we have to be very careful - when

language is necessarily formal. This is obviously the case when writing letters of

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application, for example, or when speaking to a hierarchical superior in a formal
situation.

4. The Input Hypothesis

Starting from the observation that in what he calls Natural language

learning conditions, people often go through a silent period, when they observe
and listen. He believes that it is not language use which is the key variable in
acquisition, but language input what the learner hears and reads.

The most useful form of input has to be understandable. This does not
mean that it has to be one hundred per cent clear; in fact it should be just a little
beyond the learner's present capacity. If it is too far beyond, the learner will not
pay attention to the input, and if it is not far enough, the learner will learn
nothing.

In the beginning of a lesson, learners need comprehensible input within

their linguistic comfort zone; as a lesson unfolds, they need to begin
experiencing input slightly beyond what they themselves can produce. The
more demanding the language becomes, the more necessary contextual aids
will be required. Some of these aids include:

 Using contextual clues such as visual or tactile material, acting out words,
making drawings, using key words or using graphic organizers.
 Modifying the linguistic output by accentuating key vocabulary, emphasizing
and pausing where needed, using cognates, controlling the use of idiomatic
expressions and introducing gradually sophisticated vocabulary for the same
concept.

 Checking frequently for understanding

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5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

One barrier to learning is to be found in any negative feelings that the

learner may have about the language, the method used, the institution or the
teacher. These feelings may constitute a kind of filter, which keeps the input
out. It is therefore part of the teacher's job to make language learning as free of
stress and as enjoyable an experience as possible.

Traditional language classrooms are often highly stressful places and

pressure is put upon pupils to produce language even when they do not feel
ready to do so, or when they feel they have no particular reason to say
anything.The work itself must also bring satisfaction. Clearly defined tasks are
both interesting and sufficiently challenging to give the child the feeling that s/he
is making progress.

Opportunity for meaningful communication is also necessary. At best,

this should include exchanges with schools in English-speaking countries and
language teachers should be willing to use such technology as the Internet. As
a minimum, it should involve role-play, group problem solving and well-
structured discussions. Teachers can make a difference in motivation, in
anxiety levels and in the self-image of the student. Respect your pupils, listen to
them, and take note of what they say. They will respond more efficiently to your
teaching.

4. INTERLANGUAGE

While learning a second language, learners build up a system for

themselves which is different in some ways from their first language and
second language systems. Selinker (1974) calls this system Interlanguage.
According to him, Interlanguage has two characteristics: silent periods and
fossilization.

During the silent periods, the students seem not to use the
language, so it seems that he/she is not progressing. However, the teacher
may use activities aimed to test the students’ comprehension of the
language more than the production. For example, the teacher might say
“stand” and would stand up to show what the word meant. Then they might
say “sit” and would then sit down to model the command. Next, the teacher
works the commands together with the whole class. The teacher would say
stand again and again would model the command. This time, students
would also stand. Once students were responding confidently, the teacher
would move on the next step. This time, one or more students would be
given commands but the teacher would not model. This phase tests the
students’ comprehension of the language.

Fossilizations, on the other hand, refers to the fact that some rules of L1
continue to be used in FL although the speaker has already built the correct rule
in FL. Some examples of it would be:

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 At the phonetic level, for example, learners of English, after having learnt
to master the English 'r', may take to placing it at the end of words, whereas
in RP it is not pronounced.

 At the grammatical level, a learner in the early stages may use nothing but
the present tense. Later, there may be extensive, non-native use of 'be - ing'
forms of the verb.
 At the lexical level - learners tend to use base terms and to stretch them -
thus a 'goose' might be referred to as a 'chicken', or a teaspoon may be a
'little spoon'.
 At the level of discourse, lexical items and expressions may be used in
inappropriate social contexts.

5. ERROR TREATMENT

How do teachers actually treat errors? In fact, there is considerable

variation from one teacher to another, and also the treatment of error by any
one teacher may vary from one moment to the next. Studies of what teachers
do have shown that very often they are inconsistent. Also, some errors are
more likely to be treated than others - discourse, content and lexical errors
receive more attention than phonological or grammatical errors - and here there
is variation between native and non-native-speaker teachers. Many errors are
not treated at all.

Another question is 'Who does the repairing? In natural settings, there is

a preference for self-initiated and self-completed repair. However, in the
classroom, it is the teacher who initiates repair - at least during the language-
centred phase - while he expects the student or one of his peers to produce the
correct form. Error treatment seems to have little immediate effect upon student
production. Some experts have deduced that this suggests that correction is a
pointless exercise.

Another point to take into account would be: What about students'
attitudes to error correction? In the main they say that they want to be
corrected, both in the classroom, and in conversation with native speakers.
However, when they are taken at their word, they feel uncomfortable with the
resulting style of discourse.

Most important, remember that the students errors are a precious

resource for the teacher, which inform her about the state of her pupils'
interlanguage. This is why it so important to avoid negative marking, where the
student simply learns that if he makes an error he will lose points.

Teachers have a responsibility to support learners do their best to

overcome the error and sometimes they need to draw the learners attention to
persistent errors (Lightbown and Spada1999). The first step to deal with an
error is to distinguish which category it belongs to. If it is a developmental error,
it will not be necessary to correct it. In case the error is a transfer one, whether

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to correct it or not depends on many different factors. Transfer errors might be
repeated and the teacher needs to take different factors into account for making
the right decision whether to correct them or not. If a transfer error occurs
immediately after a new lesson is given, it can simply be ignored because
learners need enough time to be able to use that form correctly. However, if it
has been repeated for a long time, it might be a good idea to explain about the
transfer form L1 to L2 to the learners as a means of awareness-rising.
Moreover, providing learners more practice on that specific area can help
learners to get a hang of it.

We can distinguish different error-correction techniques:

1. Explicit correction: The teacher clearly indicates the error and provides the
correct from.

S: How many sugar is there?

T: Not how many, how much sugar is there?

2. Recast correction: Without directly indication the incorrect utterance, the

teacher implicitly reformulated the learner’s error or provides the correct
form.

S: How many sugar is there?

T: How much sugar is there?

3. Clarification request: the teacher indicates that the message is not

understood or it contains an error and inquires reformulation by saying ‘I
don’t understand what you mean’ or ‘Excuse me’.

T: Would you like tea?

S: Thank you.

T: Excuse me, I don’t know if you want tea or not yet.

4. Elicitation: The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the learner by
asking a question such as ‘How do we say it in English?’ and pauses to give
the learner wait-time to correct their own sentences.

T: Would you like tea?

S: Thank you.

T: That is how we answer in Farsi, but how do we say it in

English?

5. Repetition: The teacher repeats the error and adjusts to complete their
intonation to draw learners’ attention to it.

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 S: I have been to china last year.

T: I have been to china last year.

According to Brown ‘feedback has to genuinely responsive’: It means to

let learners experience the result of what they produce as a guide… in their
future efforts.’ Giving feedback to learners’ might look easy but it is much more
complex. Teachers’ behaviour specifically while correcting errors is a very
sensitive part of our job. Before deciding how to correct an error, we need to
take into account that at what cost is the correction going to take place. Most
teachers would perhaps agree that correcting an error is not worth at the cost of
ruining their motivation. Both teachers’ verbal and non-verbal behaviour at the
time of correction errors are crucially important in how the learner is going to
react to it.

6. CONCLUSION

All through this topic we have been looking at Krashen's natural order
hypothesis, which holds that the grammar of a second language is learnt in a
specific order, whatever the learner's L1.

We have seen that there is some reason to believe that intralinguistic

effects do occur, and that there may well be some kind of a predictable
sequence to the learning of a specific L2. However, we have also noted that L1
does have some effects upon the acquisition of the L2 - these effects are both
positive and negative - some errors do arise from interference.

We have looked at the concept of interlanguage, which sees learners as

constructing their own grammatical systems. The learner progresses through
employing a number of different strategies, some of which are based upon her
L1.

We have also seen that learners of a second language tend to

fossilize. They may be partially fossilized, retaining certain errors while
progressing in other ways.

We have seen that the sociological situation of the learner and of the
learner's community in relation to the community that speaks the L2 can have a
significant effect on language learning.

Within a school system the amount of motivation that children bring into
the classroom with them is highly variable. It depends both on age and on
family background factors. Younger children may be less firm in their cultural
and national identities than are adolescents, and therefore keener to open
themselves to other cultures. Middle class parents may encourage their children
to learn a foreign language more, seeing the need more clearly, and also
accompanying their children on visits to foreign countries, or paying for them to
take part in exchange visits and so on.

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 Regardless of preferences for behaviourist or cognitive, we are
responsible for our students´ learning process and the more number of varied
strategies we use, the more able we will be to help our students.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/planning1.shtml

http://www.its-teachers.com/reflections/blast-past.asp

http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/
OldLectures/L12_Krashen_Review.htm

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/med-magazine/December2002/03-
language-interference-false-friends.htm

http://maxpages.com/thena/Treatment_of_Errors

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