UNIT 12. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

UNIT 12

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

In the differences between L1 an L2 learning I have learn some new things, as already known L1 is the first language the a person acquire or also called mother tongue and L2 is the second language learnt or target language. There are differences in age, the motivation, the context and ways of learning.

The age is one of the most important aspect to take into account when learning a second language, from my own learning experience and teaching experience I may say that the younger the learner is the better he or she learn. Hence, the L1 learning starts from the very beginning, when the person is a baby and lasts into adolescence for some kind of language and language skills and babies learn language at the same time as their cognitive skills develop. Meanwhile the L2 learning which occurs in the classroom starts in the primary education and continues till adulthood and as they are mature people their cognitive skills are already develop.

Accordingly, L1 learners feel more motivated than L2 learners as they need to communicate. For example when my little American cousin, she is 3 years old, she knows almost no Spanish but once she was thirsty, so she knew her environment was about Spanish so she said ¨Puede drink agua¨ here clearly we can see that the necessity of communication made the kid talk using both languages but mostly the one she was exposed to. 

Whereas L2 motivation goes by the expectations they have about things, for example in an English class with students of 17-21 years old and one of the students who does not like English and almost never participate has the necessity to go to the restroom, so he for sure is going to ask in English ¨May I go to the restroom?¨ so it shows that in L2 learning the past experiences usually motivate students to use the target language. 

Finally, the context and the ways of learning between the L1 and L2 vary in some aspects. L1 learning is by exposure in which exists the learning of chunks. The interaction is very spontaneous and is among his or her family. On the contrary L2 learning occurs in a classroom with controlled practice activities which are most focus n the form of language in a more abstract way.

Video presentation http://www.powershow.com/view/1ffdd9-MzA2Z/SECOND_LANGUAGE_ACQUISITION_powerpoint_ppt_presentation

Extra useful material:

1. Pinker, S. Language acquisition. [on line].  Technical Report NIH grant HD 18381 and NSF grant BNS 91-09766.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT Press.  Retrieved October 3, 2009, from: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html.

 

2. Society for Research in Child Development (2009, September 21). Children Under Three Can't Learn Action Words From TV -- Unless An Adult Helps. ScienceDaily [on line]. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from:http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/09/090915100947.htm.


3. Schütz, R. (2007, July 2). Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition. [Review of the book Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning by Stephen Krashen].  Retrieved October 4,2009, from http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html.

UNIT 11. THE ROLE OF ERROR

UNIT 11.
THE ROLE OF ERROR

This unit thought me that making mistakes is not bad as it seems or people make it to seem instead it is an important and useful factor in language learning. So there are different kind of mistakes people have in foreign languages, the reason of the committing and the part those mistakes play in language learning.

Errors and slips are the kind of mistakes. Errors are the mistakes that students have because it goes beyond their current knowledge of the language. Meanwhile slips are the result of tiredness, worry or any emotional feeling that affects language processing. Also I learnt that there are 2 main reasons we (2L Learners) make mistakes. The first is because of the mother language influence on the second language. The second reason the developmental error is because we unconsciously work out, organize and experiment the new data learnt but it may not be correct.

Furthermore in a teaching situation the teacher has to be aware that students mustn´t be punished because of having errors but instead they are part of learners´ interlanguage however it does not mean that the teacher never correct mistakes, she has to because it helps students to avoid fossilization. So the teacher has to correct those mistakes that really affect the meaning or to convey the idea, also if the mistake is becoming fossilized.

Finally, personally the best my teacher has used to help me overcome some mistakes in pronunciation, intonation or language forms is by repeating the word, phrase or sentence and with a loud tone of voice the mistaken part or by providing me written comments and giving them to me at the end of the class . 

Extra Useful Materials

1.       Williams, J., & Evans, J. (1998). What kind of focus and on which forms? In C. Doughty, & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 139–155). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
   2.      Corder, S. P. 1967. "The significance of learners’ errors”. International Review of Applied Linguistics 5: 161-9.
   
   
   3.      Dulay, H., and Burt, M., “Errors and strategies in child second language acquisition”, TESOL Quarterly 8: 129-136, 1974.
   
   
   4.      Ellis, R., “The Study of Second Language Acquisition”, Oxford University Press, 1994

UNIT 10. EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON FORM

UNIT 10

EXPOSURE AND FOCUS ON FORM

This unit is very important and useful for those people who want to understand how differently a language can be learn. According to the book it says that some authors believe that the most accurate and efficient way of learning a second language is by exposure, it means for example through experiencing it as when children we pick up our first or also called mother language but on the other hand there is the focus on form, this has the main focus on the form, as the name says, of the language being learnt, but the key factor in this part whether a person is exposure to the language or focusing on its form is important that to learn a language it requires to use it to interact with others.

In my case, when I was a child I start by acquiring English instead of learning it by focusing on the form, because I remember I was 6 when my American cousins came to live with us, so they did not know Spanish therefore they always talked in English and I was exposed to it every time and I unconsciously was working out the meaning after have had the silent period, which took me no more than one month because even though we, my cousins and I, knew different languages we build a pidgin in order to interact with each other. That experience I had was the start of my professional life because since there on I start loving English, so then I decided to study English in order to become a teacher so then I start by focusing on the form of the language when I learn the structures of the different tenses, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, word order, affixes, spelling and all formal features.

By applying this knowledge in a real teaching situation, the teacher must be aware of what the students interest are, because personally speaking I do not consider that children can have exposure only interacting in a natural environment out of a classroom and with the help of nobody, actually what I will be doing when teaching to my students is, firstly  children from 4 to 8 just expose them to language through videos, movies of their preferences and little by little motivate them to talk with their classmates with the things they have learnt through those videos or movies. And with younger students, those who probably were already exposure to the language, I will make them focus on form but in an implicit way and then they will notice the forms by their own experience with the target language.

Useful Extra Material:

1. Savignon, S. (1991). Communicative language teaching: State of the art. TESOL Quarterly, 25(2), 261–277.
2. Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. 
   
4. Williams, J., & Evans, J. (1998). What kind of focus and on which forms? In C. Doughty, & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 139–155). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

UNIT 9. MOTIVATION

UNIT 9

MOTIVATION

In this unit I have learnt many useful and interesting things. Firstly I learnt that motivation allows people to feel encouraged and willing to start, continue and finish anything, as for example homework, a module, a project, a job, and so many other things that a person can do in life

          Also is important to know that motivation can influence many things, as in the decision why people decide or not to do something, the amount of time they decide to take to achieve it and the steps he or she will follow and take. Furthermore in the concern to the study of the English language there are several different factors which can influence motivation, they could be for example the necessity to learn the language to find a job, getting onto a course of study, social interaction. Also it could be the interest a person has in the target language culture in order to be able to visit the country and avoid problems because of the ignorance of the language.

 Besides that motivation encourage people to confidence which is a way of feeling that we can do things successfully and it leads to learner autonomy that at the end the student will have a great success on his or her job.

Finally, is very important to apply this knowledge on a real class as motivation is the key factor to make language learning successful. There are many situations in which you can make your students feel motivated, one will be by telling them "My intelligent students you are very capable students and I am completely sure you are going to get a 10 in this homework." that is something a teacher can repeat every day, especially for those demotivated students that once failed and lost their motivation. Or for those unmotivated students the teacher can say "Everyone here is intelligent and can do anything you want, because you have a big brain and you only need to put it to work."

To sum up, it is vital as teachers to keep in mind and make sure all students feel comfortable in the class, the classroom atmosphere is adequate, also the teacher must build up a good rapport, take into account the culture of all students, know their interests, provide positive feedback and praise and regarding to the context of the class, give clear instructions of the task and provide the objective of it.

Extra Useful Material

1. " Barbara Gross Davis (University of California, Berkeley). From Tools for Teaching, Jossey-Bass, 1993.(http://www.ware.k12.ga.us/superintendent/.../0195/WCHS_Motivating_Students_article_to_teachers.htm)
2. Pintrich, P.R. (1988a). A process-oriented view of student motivation and cognition. In J. Stark and L. Mets (Eds.), Improving teaching and learning through research: New directions for institutional research (Vol. 57, pp. 65-79).