Sandara H.

Reyes AB English 1B  Early Production – Learners can speak

in short phrases of one or two phrases.
Difference between First Language Acquisition They also collect new words.
and Second Language Acquisition
 Speech Emergence – At this stage,
learners know thousands of words and
 First language acquisition can communicate using simple questions
 is a child learning his native and phrases.
language
 one acquires from birth  Immediate Fluency – Learners have an
 babies acquire from birth until advanced vocabulary and can use more
about 7 or 8 years old. complicated sentence structures. They
 subconscious process and can also share their opinions and
unaware of grammar rules thoughts.
 They just pick up the language,
the same way they learn how to  Advanced Fluency – By this stage,
roll over, crawl and walk. learners will finally have several years of
 does not require explicit experience, and can function at a level
instructions or education close of native speakers
 learners reach native fluency

 Second language acquisition Theories of Language Acquisition

 is a non-native language usually
learned at a later stage 1. Behaviorist Theory
 is learning a language besides his  expounded by B.F.Skinner
native language  language acquisition is a process of
 refers to the learning of another experience and language is a
language or languages besides conditioned behavior – a production of
the native language correct responses to stimuli.
 an active and conscious process  behaviorism focuses on the idea that all
 requires explicit instructions or behaviors are learned through interaction
education with the environment.
 often difficult to reach native like  According to this theory, children learn
fluency language step by step: imitation –
 The process of learning this is repetition – memorization – controlled
active and demands lots of efforts drilling – reinforcement.
to familiarize yourself with  Behaviorist learning theory emphasizes
grammar rules, sentence how people interact with their
structure, pronunciation, environment. Over time, these
vocabulary and many more interactions (called “stimuli”) form
concepts. particular behaviors.

According to the linguist Stephen 2. Nativist or Innateness Theory

Krashen, second language acquisition occurs in
five stages: preproduction (silent phase), early  In 1957, linguist Noam Chomsky
production, speech emergence, intermediate published a groundbreaking book called
fluency, and advanced fluency. “Syntactic Structures.” It proposed a
novel idea: All human beings may be
 Preproduction – At this stage, learners born with an innate understanding of how
learn terms of the new language and language works.
practice them.
  children are born with a language  involves more explanation of
acquisition device in their brains grammar rules and less natural
 the process is biologically determined - communication
the human species has evolved a brain  conscious process
whose neural circuits contain linguistic  Learning a language is usually a
information at birth. process of formal education
 he later modified this theory to include where the educator uses formal
the theory of Universal Grammar, a set of teaching methodology and gives
innate principals common to all the students instructions
languages. We can acquire language facilitating their understanding of
because we’re genetically encoded with the rules related to a particular
a universal grammar language.
 the language acquisition device in  when it comes to learning, the
children’s’ brain allows them to deduce teacher can be seen busy
the structure of their native language explaining the grammar rules to
through exposure to the language. students while students are busy
 For example, the LAD already contains trying to comprehend those
the concept of verb tense. By listening to grammatical rules and structures.
such forms as "worked", "played" and
"patted", the child will form the However, for someone to be fluent in a
hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is language, the process of learning itself is not
formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ sufficient. For instance, if you are a student
to the base form. learning French, you can learn the grammar
rules and sentence patterns by conscious
3. Cognitive Theory learning inside a classroom, but you won’t be
 Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget placed able to achieve mastery in the French language
acquisition of language within the context unless you acquire more knowledge in French
of a child's mental or cognitive culture through subconscious reading and
development listening.
 He argued that a child has to understand
a concept before s/he can acquire the  Acquisition
particular language form which  is the non-conscious assimilation
expresses that concept of a language mainly through first
 He stated that exposure to the world hand exposure
allows a child's mind to develop, in turn,  demands natural and meaningful
allowing language to develop. communication in the language
 Cognitive theorists believe that with the  subconscious or non-conscious
development of cognitive ability comes process
the development of language.  does not involve learning
 Cognitive ability = the core skills grammatical rules or structures.
your brain uses to think, read,  in language acquisition, the
learn, remember, reason, and pay children acquire words and
attention. sentence structures without any
kind of formal or informal
Difference between Language Learning and instruction.
Acquisition  This sub-conscious acquisition
gives them no rules of grammar
but gives them the instinct to
 Learning differentiate between what is the
 Involves acquiring a language proper use of language and what
through formal instructions and is not.
conscious comprehension
  the process of acquisition gives us de Saussure’s Theory
the chance to learn through a trial
and error method. La Langue

 It has a large number of elements

whereby meaning is created by the
arrangements between the elements and
their consequent relationships.

 While learning a language, we master the

system of grammar, spelling, syntax and
punctuation (elements of langue).

 Langue precedes and makes speech

possible.

Parole - is the actual utterances. It is an external

manifestation of langue. It is the usage of the
Similarities between Language Learning and system, but not the system.
Acquisiion
 His theory differentiates between the
language and how it is used, and
 Learning and acquisition are two terms
therefore enables these two very
associated with language learning.
different things to be studied as separate
 Both learning and acquisition facilitate
entities.
the learner to become fluent in a
language.
 Saussure was interested more in la
 Both learning and acquisition involve the
langue than parole. It was the system by
four skills: reading, writing, listening and
which meaning could be created that was
speaking
of interest to him rather than individual
instances of its use.
Competence and Performance
Chomsky’s Theory

History  Chomsky also distinguished the

underlying knowledge of language from
the way language is actually used in
A Swiss linguist whose ideas on structure in
practice.
language laid the foundation of the 20th century
linguistics. He used the terminology: “la langue”  According to him, Language
and “parole” performance may be affected by such
things as attention, stamina, memory,
etc.
Noam Chomsky: An American linguist, first
introduced the concept of “performance” and  Therefore, a theory of language should
“competence” as part of the foundations for his be a theory of competence. Once a full
Generative grammar. theory of competence is developed, it
can be integrated into a theory of
performance, which will also consider
other cognitive abilities.
Competence

 Competence is a person’s underlying

(subconscious) linguistic ability to create
and understand sentences, including
sentences they have never heard before.

 It’s a person's acquaintance with a set of

grammatical rules and is different from
the actual linguistic activities.

 Linguistic competence includes

components such as phonetics,
phonology, syntax, semantics and
morphology.
 Competence enables native speaker to
recognize ambiguous sentences or
accept even apparently meaningless
sentences as syntactically correct (and
even making some sense). Even if
you’ve never heard these before, you
know which one is “English” and which
one isn’t.

Example:
Eight very lazy elephants drank brandy. Why is it important to make a distinction
*Eight elephants very lazy brandy drank. between competence and performance?

Performance  It allows those studying a language to

differentiate between a speech error and
 Performance is the real world linguistic not knowing something about the
output. May accurately reflect language. To understand this distinction,
competence, but it also may include it is helpful to think about a time when
speech errors. you've made some sort of error in your
speech.
 Performance may be flawed because of
memory limitations, distractions, shifts of For example, let's say you are a native
attention and interest, and errors speaker of English and utter the
(random or characteristic) or other following:
psychological factors.
“We swimmed in the ocean this
 Represents only a small sample of weekend.”
possible utterances.
 Is this error due to competence or
Performance error - The performance of a performance? It isn't that you don't know
speaker may not be fault free, even though his that the past tense of swim is swam,
competence is perfect. you've just mistakenly applied the regular
rule to an irregular verb.
Example: Learning and riding a bike.
  Distinction between competence and  The disadvantage of this approach is that
performance illustrates the difference having been trained to learn the
between accidentally saying “swimmed” language through
and the fact that a child or non-proficient “knowing”(competence), learners have
speaker of English may not know that the difficulty actually “doing”(performance)
past tense of swim is “swam” and say something with the language.
“swimmed” consistently. Your
competence is fine, it is your Criticisms
performance that has let you down.
 Linguistic theories based on the notion of
Competence versus performance competence have been criticized for
being too idealistic.
 Competence, being an ideal, is located
as a psychological or mental property.  However, Chomsky dismissed criticisms
This is in contrast to performance, which of delimiting the study of performance in
refers to an actual event. favor of the study of underlying
 Chomsky argues that only under an competence, as unwarranted and
idealized situation whereby the speaker- completely misdirected.
hearer is unaffected by grammatically
irrelevant conditions such as memory  This led to a broadening of the original
limitations and distractions will concept to communicative competence,
performance be a direct reflection of introduced by Hymes (1974). This is now
competence. generally defined as “the socially
appropriate use of language”.
Distinction between the theories

 Whereas the terms ‘performance’

(Chomsky) and ‘parole’ (de Saussure)
can be used almost interchangeably,
their counterparts ‘competence’ and
‘langue’ are quite different from each
other.

 ‘Langue’ is a static system of signs,

whereas ‘competence’ is understood as
a dynamic concept, as a mechanism that
will generate language endlessly.

 Chomsky’s theory is more psychological.

How do competence and performance apply

to the language classroom?

 The assumption used in many language

instruction programs is that once the
learners have ‘learned’ the information
they will be able to use it through reading,
writing, listening and speaking.