¡Descarga Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language - Reading 3 y más Ejercicios en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! SAMY BRUGES ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE : READING 3 READING 3: Spada, N. & Lightbown P.M. (2002). Second Language Acquisition. In Schmitt, N. (ed.), An introduction to Applied Linguistics. London: Arnold. (Ch.7. pp. 116- 132). 1. What is the logical problem of language acquisition? Young children learn language in spite of poor linguistic input, and adults show sophisticated subconscious knowledge about their language which they cannot have been taught. Children are exposed to samples of language that are incomplete and sometimes ‘degenerate’ which was thought to lead to poor language acquisition. Moreover, children lacked systemic feedback from their parents but that did not stop them from leaving the childish errors behind to build a real adult vocabulary and language. 2. Why does UG theory work for first language acquisition but not for second language acquisition? UG, or universal grammar is a certain set of structural rules that are innate to humans, independent of sensory experience. According to Chomsky, children must have some innate language faculty. The child acquires the language with time and builds their own vocabulary through listening to adults or people with a more developed command of the language. While UG allows for a young child to acquire language during the ‘critical period’, after a certain age the individual is no longer able to learn as much as a child would. Even some researchers argue that L1 is no longer within a teenager’s reach. The L1 interferes with L2 learning because you already have a foundation, you can already speak. It is much more difficult to learn a second language than a first one. The universal principles may not apply to L2 learning. 3. How was behaviorism put into question by Chomsky? Behaviorism was based on the view that all learning – including language learning – occurs through a process of imitation and practice. The more you hear, the more you are able to reproduce the words and make up sentences. However, Chomsky did not agree with everything that was said. He argued that children did not need to hear one sentence to reproduce it. Granted, the child has to hear the language, but they can realize that rules exist by themselves, enabling them to produce a language on their own. Another disadvantage was that L1 habits would interfere with the formation of new habits during L2 acquisition. 4. What are the limitations of content-based language teaching? Content-based language teaching is one way to achieve more of a natural input. The emphasis is on meaning which allows students to have a better comprehension as well as a better communication. However, some language features are simply not very frequent in ‘natural’ language. For example, a teacher will rarely ever use the simple past during their French immersion classes, preferring the present simple to narrate stories. Studies found that French learners were still uncertain when it comes to the use of vous and tu (formal and informal language). Thus, learners who only have
