SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT Chapter 2 1

INTRODUCTION 2

SLA Second language acquisition (SLA): 1.SLA is the process by which people acquire and/or learn any language in addition to their first language. 2.It is also the name of the academic discipline which studies that process. 3

ACQUISITION: It is informal, subconscious process of gaining a language from exposure and use. LEARNING: It is deliberate, conscious study of a language in order to be able to use it. 4

ACQUISITION It is the initial stage of gaining basic communicative competence in a language. DEVELOPMENT It is the subsequent stage of gaining the ability to use the language successfully in a wide range of media and genres for a variety of purposes. Tomlinson (2007) 5

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE PROCESS OF SLA Research and theory 6

IT IS GENERALLY AGREED THAT SLA IS FACILITATED BY: 1 A rich and meaningful exposure to language in use 2 Affective & cognitive engagement 3 Making use of those mental resources typically used in the communication in the L1Making use of those mental resources typically used in the communication in the L1 4 Noticing how the L2 is used 5 Being given opportunities for contextualized and purposeful communication in the L2Being given opportunities for contextualized and purposeful communication in the L2 6 Being encouraged to interact 7 Being allowed to focus on meaning 7

8 Being relaxed 9 Being motivated to participate to learn 10 Being helped to develop an emerging interlanguage which gradually moves closer to the target language 11 Developing hypotheses about how the language is used for communication 12 Being catered for fast or slow learners, their learning styles, their use of language with inconsistent accuracy and effect 13 Making full use of non-linguistic means of communication 14 Being ready to acquire a focused feature 8

A RICH AND MEANINGFUL EXPOSURE TO LANGUAGE IN USE Powerful evidence  Extensive reading 9 Exposure to comprehensive input is both necessary and sufficient for SLA It contains a lot of implicit information about how the language is actually used to achieve communicative effect It provides natural recycling of language features It is relevant to the learner and the learner is able to understand enough of it to gain meaning from it.

AFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT No emotional responses Negative emotions Positive emotions 10 Self-confidenceSelf-confidence Self-esteemSelf-esteem

COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT predicting connecting 11 evaluating Inferencing

Reading & listening Inner voice Visual imaging Motor imaging Prior to speaking & writing Visual imaging Inner speech  To silently eco the utterances we hear or see and to comment to ourselves about them  To present the meaning of what is said or written Mm  To recreate movements which are described  To develop a mental representation of our intended message  To prepare what we are going to say or write 12 MAKING USE OF THOSE MENTAL RESOURCES TYPICALLY USED IN THE COMMUNICATION IN THE L1

NOTICING HOW THE L2 IS USED 13 Nothing in the input can become intake without noticing it. Psychological readiness is an important facilitator of acquisition and this can be influenced by materials and teachers.

BEING GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONTEXTUALIZED AND PURPOSEFUL COMMUNICATION IN THE L2 Output: (producing language for communication) It can provide learners with contextual feedback It helps to automatize language It constitutes auto-input and it can elicit further comprehensible input too Pushed output (communicating something which is not easy to express) It stretches the learners capabilities by: making them make full use of their acquired language and of their strategic competence providing opportunities for new but comprehensible input from their interlocutors who are helping them to negotiate meaning.  This would suggest that setting learners achievable communicative challenges is likely to be more useful than providing easy practice. 14

BEING ENCOURAGED TO INTERACT 15 Interaction hypotheses Oral interaction in the L2 creates positive conditions for its acquisition as:  it helps to make input more comprehensible  It provides meaningful feedback  & it pushes learners to modify their output

BEING ALLOWED TO FOCUS ON MEANING Helping learners to acquire language from a focus on meaning: Use an experiential approach in which the learners first experience an engaging text holistically, respond to it personally and then return to the text to focus discretely on a salient feature of language use. This procedure was advocated by Long as a ‘form-focused’ approach to replace the typical ‘form-focused approach’ in which the teacher or textbook focuses the learners’ conscious attention on a pre determined, discrete form (e.g. the present perfect). This procedure is also made use of in language awareness approaches in which the learners first experience a form in use and are then helped to make their own discoveries about it and in consciousness rising approaches in which the learners are guided towards finding out how a form is used. 16

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