Explaining Second Language Learning – Key Notes

Contexts for Second‐Language Learning

  • Learners differ by age & environment: young L1 child, young L2 child (playground), adolescent classroom learner, adult immigrant worker
  • Key comparison questions: prior language knowledge, cognitive maturity, metalinguistic awareness, world knowledge, anxiety, silent period, time/contact, feedback, modified input

Learner Characteristics

  • All L2 learners already possess at least one language → both aid & interfere
  • Cognitive maturity & metalinguistic awareness grow with age; adults use problem-solving but may lose innate language-specific abilities (critical period debate)
  • Anxiety typically rises with age; children often risk-free, adults more inhibited

Learning Conditions

  • Informal child contexts allow silent period, extensive exposure, little grammatical feedback
  • Classroom & workplace contexts: limited exposure range, forced speech, frequent corrective feedback (mainly form-focused in class)
  • Modified input (child-directed, “foreigner/teacher talk”) common across ages; quality varies

Major Theoretical Perspectives

  • Behaviourism
  • Innatism / Universal Grammar (UG)
  • Cognitivist / Developmental (information processing, connectionism, competition model, processability)
  • Sociocultural Theory

Behaviourism

  • Learning = imitation → practice → reinforcement → habit
  • Led to Audiolingual method; linked to Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH)
  • CAH predictions often failed; behaviourism considered inadequate

Innatist / UG View

  • Children acquire via innate UG during critical period
  • Debate on UG access for L2: fully available (White), absent (Schachter, Bley-Vroman), or altered by L1
  • Research focuses on advanced competence via grammaticality judgements, not surface performance

Krashen’s Monitor Model

  1. Acquisition vs. Learning
  2. Monitor edits output when time, focus, rules known
  3. Natural Order → predictable sequences despite rule simplicity
  4. Input Hypothesis: need comprehensible input containing (i+1)
  5. Affective Filter may block uptake (anxiety, boredom)
  • Influenced Communicative Language Teaching & immersion; limitations shown (plateau without form-focused work)

Cognitivist / Developmental Approaches

  • Mind likened to computer; no language-specific module required
  • Learning governed by general cognitive processes

Information Processing

  • Language knowledge moves from effortful to automatic via practice/exposure
  • Declarative ("what") ⇒ Procedural ("how") ⇒ Automatic
  • Restructuring explains sudden leaps & temporary backslides (e.g., “seed/sawed”)
  • Transfer-appropriate processing: recall best in contexts similar to learning

Connectionism

  • Learning = strengthening neural "connections" through frequency & co-occurrence
  • No innate grammar needed; explains formulaic speech & gradual generalization

Competition Model

  • Learners attend to multiple cues (word order, morphology, animacy); cue weights differ per language
  • L2 learning = re-weighting cues; L1 habits (e.g., English SVO) can mislead

Processability Theory

  • Developmental sequence constrained by real-time processing capacity; sentence-initial/final features acquired earlier
  • L1 transfer appears only when L2 processing level allows

Interaction-Based Constructs

  • Interaction Hypothesis: modified interaction → comprehensible input → acquisition; negotiation for meaning & feedback crucial
  • Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (Swain): need to produce language that others understand; pushes development
  • Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt): features must be consciously or subconsciously noticed to be acquired
  • Input Processing (VanPatten): learners prioritize meaning, limited capacity hampers form attention; instruction can redirect focus

Sociocultural Theory

  • Language development occurs through social interaction within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
  • Learning starts socially, becomes internalized; collaborative dialogue mediates cognitive growth
  • Differs from interactionist models: focuses on co-construction, not just input facilitation

Critiques & Implications

  • No single theory fully explains L2 acquisition; each highlights specific facets (input, cognition, social interaction, innate capacity)
  • Classroom practice benefits from combining insights: rich comprehensible input, opportunities for output, interaction with feedback, focus on form, and supportive affective climate