ELT 361

FOREIGN LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND
LEARNING
 Input, interaction and output
◼ Acquisition and Learning

◼ Contrastive Analysis: A Theory about FL Learning

◼ Non-contrastive Errors

◼ Creative Construction: Another Theory about FL Learning

◼ Conclusion
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.1.1 Language acquisition: a powerful and exciting
concept
◼ What does this term ‘language acquisition’ mean? What
exactly is ‘language acquisition’?
◼ It may be characterized as the process by which
individuals ‘pick up’ a language through exposure to it.
◼ There are two immediately obvious sorts of language
acquisition.
◼ The first is L1 acquisition, which every normal child
manages at an early age.
◼ The second is FL acquisition where someone, child or
adult, picks up a language, for example while they are
living in a target language country.
◼ The study of foreign or second language acquisition (SLA)
is today a major field of enquiry.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.1.1 Language acquisition: a powerful and exciting
concept
◼ Noam Chomsky’s ideas stimulated the interest in L1
acquisition that there has been over the past few
decades.
◼ For him, L1 acquisition is a conundrum, even a miracle.
◼ The big question is: how is it that the very young child, so
poorly developed in many areas, is able to learn the
rudiments of their native language so quickly and so
successfully?
◼ Chomsky’s answer was that the individual has a machine
in the head, an LAD, that does the job for them.
◼ What does the child do that makes acquisition so quick
and successful?
◼ How do the adults who talk to the child behave?
◼ What assistance do they give to the acquisition process?
◼ What are the important aspects of the acquisition
environment?
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.1.2 The Learning/Acquisition distinction
◼ In fact, Stephen Krashen argues (that there are two quite distinct
ways of mastering an FL, and he calls these acquisition and learning.
◼ Acquisition first: he describes this process as a ‘natural’, subconscious
one, where there is no ‘conscious focusing on linguistic forms.’
◼ It is what we have already in formally called the process of ‘picking
up’ a language, just as you do if you go and live in the target
language environment.
◼ Learning is a conscious process, and it usually takes place in the
language classroom.
◼ For Krashen it is particularly marked by two characteristics. Firstly,
there is error correction.
◼ When learners make mistakes, it is normal for the classroom teacher
to draw explicit attention to them, and to correct the errors.
◼ The second characteristic is what Krashen calls rule isolation. In the
language teaching classroom, it is normal for a lesson (or part
thereof) to focus on one language point.
◼ The word isolation indicates that in this procedure language points
are dealt with one by one.
Acquisition vs Learning
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.2 Language Providers and Their Input
◼ As children acquire L1 perfectly, it makes us wonder whether the best
language teachers in the world are in fact parents or caretakers who
provide children with the input.
◼ After all every child, except those with some severe impairment,
successfully acquires their L1 to an astonishing degree.
◼ This is why it makes sense to look closely at what those language
providers both do and do not do when they give children language input.
◼ Maybe these ‘L1 language teachers’ have some secrets to convey to FL
language teachers … about what to do, and also what not to do.
◼ 5.2.1 Some things that caretakers do not do
◼ Whether or not caretakers can justifiably be called ‘L1 language
teachers’, one thing that they do not do is give ‘language-teaching
lessons’ – or at least not of the sort that FL teachers traditionally provide.
◼ There are at least four things here that L1 caretakers do not do:
1. They do not follow a syllabus.
2. Caretakers do not normally provide explanations as they may be using the simple past
tense, but there would be no talk about -ed or verb stems.
3. Caretakers do not drill. They might, very indirectly, encourage the child to produce
some piece of language.
4. Caretakers do not often correct errors of grammar
Error Correction
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.2 Language Providers and Their Input
◼ Caretakers do not often correct errors of grammar.
◼ Grammatical errors are often not consciously drawn attention to.
◼ While child utterance (a) is poorly formed, they receive parental
approval because it is true.
◼ Child utterance (b) on the other hand is ‘corrected’ because it is false,
even though its grammar is perfect.
◼ Much of the caretaker’s effort is put into getting the message across,
into being understood, and not in dwelling on the nuts and bolts of the
language.
◼ Many caretakers will occasionally focus on form, correct and give
explanations, particularly if the child asks a language-related question.
◼ However, caretakers who are professionally engaged in language
studies or language teaching, try very hard to correct the child’s error.
What Caretaker do
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.2.3 The Input Hypothesis
◼ The role of input in FL teaching virtually took centre stage in language
teaching discussion with the development by Krashen of the Input
Hypothesis.
◼ This is the idea that input is the most crucial factor in determining
whether an FL will be learned or not.
◼ ‘The hypothesis states simply that we acquire … language by
understanding input that is a little beyond our current level of
(acquired) competence’.
◼ Stephen Krashen’s input hypothesis is one of the most influential
theories of second language acquisition.
◼ He argues that Comprehensible Input is the most important factor in
learning another language.
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.2.3 The Input Hypothesis
◼ This example shows how language ‘a little beyond our current level of
(acquired) competence’ can often be worked out by a learner.
◼ Friends 1 and 2 have little hope of understanding indo and grinop,
because they understand so little of the context in which the words
occur.
◼ For Friend 3 on the other hand, the Flipspraek sentence is likely to lead
to a degree of learning.
◼ Krashen’s claim is that acquisition will occur when unknown items are
only just beyond the learner’s present level.
◼ As with Friend 3, context will help this to happen, but so will other
devices found, such as using gestures, focusing on the here and now,
repeating items.
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.2.3 The Silent Period
◼ Language acquirers often go through a ‘silent period’.
◼ This indicates that quite a considerable period of time may pass
between the acquirer first being exposed to a new language item and
their beginning to produce it.
◼ To Krashen, this silent period says something about the role of output
in acquisition.
◼ He asks what was going on during the five months that Hitomi was
silent. His answer: ‘She was listening… .
◼ When she started to talk, it was not the beginning of her language
acquisition.
◼ It was testimony to the language acquisition she had already done.’
◼ Output is evidence that input has done its job and that acquisition has
occurred.
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.3 Language Providers and Their Interaction
◼ Michael Long notes that many characteristics of CDS are also present in foreigner
talk (NS – NNS speech – for Native Speaker to Non-Native Speaker).
◼ Long does not want to focus just on input. He is interested in how interactions –
whole exchanges between NS and NNS speakers – are different from NS–NS
interactions.
◼ To illustrate the difference between input and interaction, Long (1983) considers the
following two exchanges:

◼ In (a) the speaker is modifying their speech in the hope of making it more
comprehensible to the non-native listener; in fact, they make it ungrammatical,
omitting the use of the verb do to make a question.
◼ But the kinds of modification taking place in (b) are different. Here is what Long
(1983: 128) says about it: ‘After the native speaker’s initial question fails, s/he an
exact self-repetition, which succeeds in eliciting an appropriate response from the
non-native speaker.
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.3 Language Providers and Their Interaction
◼ How do NSs modify their interactions when speaking to NNSs?
◼ They use confirmation checks.
◼ Confirmation checks aim to ensure that what has just been said has been heard
correctly and understood.
◼ Confirmation checks often take the form of a repetition of the trouble source with
rising intonation, or a question.

◼ Perhaps the NS here senses that the original question is not going to be understood.
◼ So, in the second line they take the concepts of fishing and Santa Monica and
establish them as topics. Only then do they move on to the crucial question: ‘when’.
◼ Pica et al. express the claims of the Interaction Hypothesis as: ‘in the course of
interaction, learners and their interlocutors negotiate the meaning of messages by
modifying and restructuring their interaction in order to reach mutual understanding.
As a result of this negotiation, learners come to comprehend words and grammatical
structures beyond their current level of competence and ultimately incorporate them
in their own production’.
 Language Acquisition and Learning
◼ 5.4 Language Acquirers and Their Output
◼ 5.4.1 The Output Hypothesis
◼ Swain points out that output is generally accepted as having value as a way of
providing practice, and hence contributes to the development of fluency.
◼ But, she claims in Swain (1995), there are other reasons why it is important.
◼ One is that producing output is often more challenging for the learner than
understanding input.
◼ In Swain’s words: ‘the importance to learning of output could be that output pushes
learners to process language more deeply (with more mental effort) than does input’
(1995: 126).
◼ 5.4.2 Fossilization
◼ It refers to the process in which incorrect language becomes a habit and cannot
easily be corrected.
◼ Errors in general take time to correct but a fossilized error may never be corrected
unless the learner sees a reason to do so, e.g. if it is seriously hindering
communication.
◼ Fossilization is a phenomenon of great interest because if we can find out why
fossilization occurs not only will we understand the processes of foreign language
acquisition better, but we may even be able to do something to prevent its
occurrence.