-5-
FACTORS AFFECTING
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
We will see whether
anecdotal evidence is supported by research findings
Characteristics of
the good language learner
Rate of development
varies widely among first language learners
1. Is a willing and accurate guesser;
guessing and inferencing is a strategy learners use to figure out what the speaker
means by using all the available and relevant, verbal and non-verbal contextual
2. Tries to get a message across even if
specific language knowledge is lacking; it’s about a learner’s managing
communication without worrying about not enough knowledge to express his
message
3. Is willing to make mistakes; it’s about
risk-taking
4. Constantly looks for patterns in the
language
5. Practises as often as possible
6. Analyses his own speech and the speech
of others
7. Attends to whether his performance meets
the standards he’s learned
8. Enjoys grammar exercises
9. Begins learning in childhood
10. Has an above-average IQ.
11. Has good academic skills
12. Has a good self-image and lots of
confidence
Good academic skills
are used to refer to success in subjects other than learning language. All of
the characteristics listed above can be classified into 5 categories;
motivation, aptitude, personality, intelligence and learner preference.
Research on Learner
Characteristics
Researchers select a
group of learners and give them a questionnaire to measure the type and degree
of their motivation. The learners are then given a test to measure their second
language proficiency. The test and questionnaire are both scored and the
researcher performs a correlation on the two measures. The first problem is
that it’s not possible to directly observe and measure qualities such as
motivation, extroversion or even intelligence.
Learners are often
asked whether they willingly seek out opportunities to use their second language
with native speakers and how often they do this. It is problematic, because
learner has more opportunities for language practice in informal contexts.
Another factor which makes it difficult is that how language proficiency is
defined and measured. The language proficiency tests used in different studies
don’t measure the same kind of knowledge.
Intelligence
It refers to
performance on certain kinds of tests. Many studies have found that IQ. Scores
were a good means of predicting how successful a learner would be. While
intelligence, as measured by verbal IQ. Tests, may be a strong factor (language
analysis and rule learning), it may play a less important role in classrooms
where the instruction focuses more on communication and interaction.
Aptitude
Learning quickly is
the distinguishing feature of aptitude. Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT),
Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB).
Components
1. The ability to identify and memorize
new sounds
2. The ability to understand the function
of particular words in sentences
3. The ability to figure out grammatical
rules from language samples
4. Memory for new words.
Many teachers end
researchers come to see aptitude as irrelevant to the process of language
acquisition. Successful language learners may not be strong in all of the
components of aptitude. One could determine learners’ profiles of strengths and
weaknesses and use this information to place students in appropriate teaching
programs.
Personality
It is often argued that
an extroverted person is well suited to language learning. However research
doesn’t always support this conclusion. Another aspect of personality is
inhibition. This discourages risk-taking. Other personality characteristics are
self-esteem, empathy, dominance, talkativeness and responsiveness. The major
difficulty in investigating personality characteristics is that of
identification and measurement. Personality variables may be a major factor
only in the acquisition of conversational skills, not in the acquisition of
literacy skills. Many researchers believe that personality will be shown to
have an important influence on success in language learning.
Motivation and
Attitudes
The question is, are
learners more highly motivated because they’re successful, or are they
successful because they’re highly motivated. Motivation can be defined in terms
of two factors; learners’ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the
second language community. Integrative motivation: it refers to language
learning for personal growth and cultural enrichment, instrumental motivation:
it refers to language learning for more immediate or practical goals. One
factor is the social dynamic or power relationship between the languages.
Members of a minority group learning the language of a majority group may have
different attitudes and motivation from those of majority group members
learning a minority language.
Motivation in the
Classroom Setting
If we can make our
classrooms places where students enjoy coming because the content is
interesting and relevant to their age and level of ability, where the learning
goals are challenging yet manageable and clear, and where the atmosphere is
supportive and non-threatening, we can make a positive contribution to
students’ motivation to learn.
- Graham Crooks and
Richard Schmidt point several areas;
- Motivating
students into the lesson,
- Varying the
activities, tasks and materials,
- Using co-operative
rather than competitive goals
Clearly, cultural
and age differences will determine the most appropriate way for teachers to
motivate students
Learner Preferences
The term ‘learning
style’ has been used to describe an individual’s natural, habitual and
preferred way of absorbing, processing and retaining new information and
skills. Visual learners, aural learners, kinaesthetic learners. Distinction
between field independent and field dependent. This refers to whether an
individual tends to separate details from the general background or to see
things more holistically. Another category is based on the individual’s
temperament or personality.
Learner Beliefs
These beliefs are
usually based on previous learning experiences and the assumption (right or
wrong) that a particular type of instruction is the best way for them to learn.
The available research indicates that learner beliefs can be strong mediating
factors in their experience in the classroom.
Age of Acquisition
CPH. suggests that
there is a time in human development when the brain is predisposed for success
in language learning. As discussed in
chapter 1 development changes in the brain ,it is argued ,affect the nature of
language acquisition.According to this view,language learning which occurs
after the end of the critical period may not be based on the innate biological
structures believed to contribute to first language acqusition or second
language acquisition in early
chilhood.The difference between adult and young learners is that there is a
critical period for second language acquisition. In addition to the possible
biological differences, the conditions for language learning are often very
different. Younger learners have more opportunities to hear and use the
language in environments where they don’t experience strong pressure. Adults
are often embarrassed by their lack mastery of the language.
Mastery of the
Spoken Language
Mark Patkovsky
studied the effect of age on the acquisition of features of a second language
other than accent.He hypothesized that,even if accent were ignored,only those
who had begun learning their second language before the age of 15 could ever
achieve full,native-like mastery of that language.Patkovsky examined the spoken
English of 67 highly educated immigrants to the U.S. The main question in
Patkovsky’s research was ‘Will there be a difference between learners who began
to learn Eng. before puberty and those who began learning Eng. later?’ The
findings were quite dramatic. 32 out of 33 subjects who had begun learning Eng.
before the age of 15 scored at the 4+ or the 5 level. Patkovsky’s first question
was answered with a very resounding yes. These results gave added support to
the CPH for second language acquisition. Experience and research have shown
that native-like mastery of the spoken language is difficult to attain by older
learners.
Comparing child,
adolescent and adult language learners
In the Snow and
Hoefnagel-Höhle study, the adolescents were by far the most successful
learners.They were ahead of everyone on aall but one of the
tests(pronunciation)on the first test session. By the end of the year the
children were catching up and had surpassed adults. Snow and Hoefnagel-Höhle
concluded that their results provide evidence that there is no critical period
for language acquisition.
Arguments against
them;S
1. Some of the tasks were too hard for
young learners
2. Adults and adolescents may learn faster
in the early stages of second language development. Young children eventually
catch up and even surpass them.
3. Adults and adolescents can make use of
the language on a daily basis in social, personal, professional or academic
interaction.
At what age should
second language instruction begin?
Both experience and
research show that older learners can attain high,if not ‘native ‘,levels of
proficiency in their second language.For every researcher who holds that there
are maturational constraints on language acquisition, there is another who
considers that the age factor can’t be separated from factors such as
motivation, social identity and conditions for learning. It’s usually desirable
for the learner to be completely surrounded by the lang. as early as possible
to have native-like mastery.When the goal is basic communicative ability for
all students in a school setting,and when it is assumed that the child’s native
languag will remain the primary language,it may be more efficient to begin
second or foreign language teaching later.
-6-
LEARNER LANGUAGE
In this chapter we
shift our attention away from learner characteristics to the learner’s language
itself.Knowing more about the development of learner language helps teachers to
assess teaching procedures in the light of what they
can reasonably
expect to accomplish in the classroom.
The Concept of
Learner Language
Children’s early
language seems best described as a developing system with its own interim
structure, not simply as an imperfect imitation of adult sentences. Contrastive
analysis was the basis for identifying differences between the first and second
language and for predicting areas of potential error.However,not all all errors
made by second language learners can be explained in terms of first language
transfer alone. Many errors can be explained better in terms of learners’
attempts to discover the structure of the language being learned rather than an
attempt to transfer patterns of their first language.Furthermore,some of the
errors are remarkably similar to the kinds of errors made by young first
language learners.An example in English would be the use of a regular –ed past
tense ending on an irregular verb(as in the example,’I buyed a bus ticket’.)In
addition,it has been observed that the errors are not always ‘bi-directional’.A
traditional version of the Contrastive Analysis hypothesis (CAH)would predict
that,where differences exist,errors would be bi-directional,that is,for
example,French speakers learning English and English speakers learning French
would make errors on parallel linguistic features.In english ,direct
objects,whether nouns or pronouns, come after the verb(for example,the dog eats
it,the dog eats the cookie)In french ,direct objects which are nouns follow the
verb,but pronoun direct objects precede the verb(for example,’Le chien le
mange’—literally,The dog it eats)The goal of the error analysis wasto discover
what learners really know about the language. Error analysis differed from
contrastive analysis in that it didn’t set out to predict errors. Rather, it
sought to discover and describe kinds of errors in an effort to understand how
learners process second language data.Larry Selinker gave the name
interlanguage to learners2 developing second language knowledge.Analysis of a
learner’s interlanguage shows that it has some characteristics influenced by
the learner’s previously learnde language(s),some characteristics of the second
language,and some characteristicswhich seem to be very general and tend to
occur in all or most dynamic,continually evolving as learners receive moreinpu
and revise their hypothesis about the second language.
The Great Toy
Robbery
After viewing a film,
students were asked to retell the story in writing.Many error types are common
to both learners.Both make errors of subject-verb agreement.Such errors are
clearly not due to first language iterference.They reflect learner’s understanding of the second language system
itself rather than an attempt to transfer
characteristicsof their first language.These are referred to as
‘developmental errors’ because they areerrors which might very well be made by
children acquiring English as their first language.Sometimes these are errors
of ‘overgeneralization’that is,errors causd by trying to use a rule in a
context where it does not belong,for example, the –s ending on the verb in
‘they plays’.Sometimes the errors are better described as simplification,where
elements of a sentence are left out ,for example,or where all verbs have the
same form regardless of person ,number,or tense.
Jacquelyne
Schachter-- Avoidance: learners sometimes avoid using certain features of
language which they perceive to be difficult for them. This may lead to the
absence of certain errors and leaves the analyst without information about the
learners’ developing interlanguage.
DEVELOPMENTAL
SEQUENCES
Even among second
language learners,these developmental sequences are similar:what is learned
early by language backgrounds and different learning environments.
Grammatical
Morphemes: The second language researchers took speech samples from a large
number of learners’ speech.This was done by identifying every obligatory
context for each morpheme and dividing the number of correctly supplied
morphemes by the total number that should have been supplied in a grammatical
sentence.The resulting percentage was treated as the accuracy score for this
morpheme.These scores were then ranked from highest to lowest,giving an
accuracy order for the morphemes. The overall results of the studies suggested
an order which, while not the same as the developmental sequence found in the
first language backgrounds. All the morpheme acquisition studies suggests that
the learners’ first lang. has a more important influence on acquisition
sequences than some researchers would claim.
Negation: What is
different is that second language learners from different first language
backgrounds behave somewhat differently within those stages
Stage 1. the
negative element (usually ‘no’ or ‘not’) is placed before the verb or the
element being negated (no bicycle. I not like)
Stage 2. ‘no’ or
‘not’ may alternate with ‘don’t’ (he don’t like. I don’t like)
Stage 3. begin to
place the negative element after auxiliary verbs like ‘are’, ‘is’ and ‘can’
Stage 4. ‘Do’ is
marked for person, tense and number (It doesn’t work. We didn’t have
supper.)For some time,however,learners may continue to mark tense,person,and
number on both the auxiarly and the verb.(I didn’t went there.She doesn’t wants
to go.)
Questions:
Development stages for question formation
Stage 1-single
words,formulae or sentence fragments-‘four children?’ ‘A dog?’
Stage 2-declarative
word order
No inversion,no
fronting:’It’s a monster in the right corner?’ --- ‘The boys throw the shoes?’
Stage 3 fronting
Wh-fronting,no
inversion:’Where the little children are ?’
‘What the dog are playing?’
Do-fronting:’do you
have a shoes on your picture?’ ‘Does in
this picture there is four astronauts?’
Other-fronting:’Is
the picture has two planets on top?’
Stage 4:Inversion in
wh- +copula and ‘yes/no’ questions
Wh-+copula:’Where is
the sun?’
Auxiliary other than
‘do’ in ‘yes/no’questions:’Is there a fish in the water?’
Stage 5Inversion in
wh-questions
Inverted
wh-questions with ‘do’:’How do you say [proche]?’
Inverted
wh-questions with auxiliaries other than ‘do’:’What’s the boy doing?’
Stage 6:complex
questions
Question tag:’It’s
better,isn’t it?’
Negative question:’Why
can’t you go?
Embedded
question:’Can you tell me what the date is today?’
It is clear from
this figure taht second languae learners learn to form questions in a sequence
of development which is similar in most respects to first language question
development.The developmental sequence for questions,while very similar across
learners,also appears to be affected by first language influence.For
example,even though german reguires
subject-verb inversion to form questions,German learners of English will pass
through a phase of asking questions without inversion.
Relative Clauses: A
number of studies have found that second language learners first acquire
relative clauses which refer to nouns in
the subject and direct object positions,only sentences roles learn to use them
to modify nouns in other sentence roles.
accessibility
hierarchy
Part of Speech Relative Clause
Subject The
girl who was sick went home.
Direct Object The story
that I read was long.
Indirect Object The man who[m] I gave the
present to was absent.
Object of
Preposition I
found the book thatJohn was talking about.
Possessive I
know the woman whose father is visiting.
Object of Comparison The person that Susan
is taller than is Mary.
Edward Keenan and
Bernard Comrie:If a learner can use one of the structures at the bottom of the
list he will probably be able to use any that precede it. On the other hand, a
learner who can produce sentences with relative clauses in the subject or
direct object positions will not necessarily be able to use relatives in any
other position.
Reference to Past:
in the beginning with very limited language learners can refer to past using a
time or place.(My son come.He work in restaurant.---January.It2s very
cold.----Vietnam.We work too hard.) Later they start to attach grammatical
morphemes.(The people worked in the fields) Even after they begin marking past
tense, learners may still make errors such as the overgeneralization of the
regular –ed ending.( She rided her bicycle.)
Bardovi-Harlig has
suggested that these differences are due
to the kinds of meanings expresse by the different verbs.Learners seem to find
it easier to mark past tense when referring to completed events than when
referring to states and activities which may last for extended periods without
a clear end-point.
Verbs are classified
into different categories depending on their meaning as in the following: States
(or stative verbs):These verbs do not involved any action and they do not have
a beginning and end point.Examples:be,love,know,etc.
Activities:These
verbs denote an action.Examples:walk,run swim,etc.These verbs do not have a
natural end point.
Verbs with a natural
end point:These are limited with a natural end point.For example,in the case of
read a book,the reading wiil nbe over when the book finishes.other examples are
build a house,climb the mountain,etc.
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