Chapter 9 Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
 What is SLA?

 What is language acquisition?
 The natural process of children’s language development.
 It is different from language learning.
 Four stages of language acquisition
 Babbling – holophrastic – two-word – telegraphic
 What is second language acquisition (SLA)?
 SLA is learning a language in F2 (the language being learnt) language environment.
 It is different from foreign language learning, which is learning a language in F1 language environment.
 The major difference is the environment.
 Foreign language teaching (FLT) and second language teaching (SLT)
 SLA theory

 Factors affecting SLA

 External factors: social factors
 Social demand
 Language policy
 Internal factors: learner factors
 Motivation
 Instrumental
 Integrative
 Age
 Learning strategy
 Cognitive
 Repetition
 Translation
 Note-taking
 Metacognitive
 Organizing
 Self-monitoring
 Self-evaluation
 Personality
 Attitude

 Analysis of learners’ language

 Why analyze?
 Learners’ language provides data for research into the nature of the learning process. In order to gain insight into the process, researchers have engaged in the analysis of learners’ language.
 How to analyze?
 Contrastive analysis
 Compare the target language with the mother tongue.
 Error analysis
 Identifying errors
 Errors are due to the fault in knowledge of the speaker, while mistakes are because of unsuccessful performance.
 Describing errors
 Omission
- He came into _ classroom with a book in _ hand.
 Addition/wordy
- My child goes to his school.
 Selection
- I hope/wish…
 Disordering
- I yesterday went to … (I, yesterday, went to …/I went to … yesterday)
 Explaining errors and analyzing reason
 Interlingual factors
- Mother tongue’s influence
 Intralingual factors
- Overgeneralization
- Simplification
- Cross-association
 Limitation for error analysis
 Fail to see what learners’ language will be like if we focus on the errors.
 Interlanguage
 Approximate language system
 Transitional language
 Language transfer – to borrow language from L1
 Positive transfer: L1 does help
 Negative transfer: L1 misleads
 Learners extend patterns by analogy – overgeneralized mistakes (overextension).
 Communicative strategy

 Explaining SLA

 Nativist theories
 Chomsky: LAD system
 Krashen: monitor theory
 Input hypothesis (i + 1 hypothesis)
 Environmentalist theories
 Cultural awareness
 Theoretical perspective (language outlook)
 Confidence and competence
 Functionalist theories
 Language use
 Communicative strategies (CS)