Second Language - Theories of Second-language Acquisition

Theories of Second-language Acquisition

The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen (1982) as part of his Monitor Theory. According to Krashen, the acquisition of a language is a natural process; whereas learning a language is a conscious one. In the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations. In the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction; however, the study of how a second language is learned/acquired is referred to as second-language acquisition (SLA).

Research in SLA focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language... a knowledge of second-language acquisition may help educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programmes for both foreign language courses and the learning of the majority language by minority language children and adults (Spada & Lightbown, p. 115).

SLA has been influenced by both linguistic and psychological theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge. Many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms, responsible for much of human learning, process language.

Other dominant theories and points of research include 2nd language acquisition studies (which examine if L1 findings can be transferred to L2 learning), verbal behaviour (the view that constructed linguistic stimuli can create a desired speech response), morpheme studies, behaviourism, error analysis, stages and order of acquisition, structuralism (approach that looks at how the basic units of language relate to each other according to their common characteristics), 1st language acquisition studies, contrastive analysis (approach where languages were examined in terms of differences and similarities) and inter-language (which describes L2 learners’ language as a rule-governed, dynamic system) (Mitchell, Myles, 2004).

These theories have all had an impact on second-language teaching and pedagogy. There are many different methods of second-language teaching, many of which stem directly from a particular theory. Common methods are the grammar-translation method, the direct method, the audio-lingual method (clearly influenced by audio-lingual research and the behaviourist approach), the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, community language learning, the Total Physical Response method, and the communicative approach (highly influenced by Krashen’s theories) (Doggett, 1994). Some of these approaches are more popular than others, and are viewed to be more effective. Most language teachers do not use one singular style, but will use a mix in their teaching. This provides a more balanced approach to teaching and helps students of a variety of learning styles succeed.