From first to second language acquisition (SLA)

direct method

task-based language teaching

grammar translation method

focus on form

CLT

post-method

audiolingual approach

• development of language proficiency in an informal, natural, uncontrolled setting without instruction

• development of language proficiency in an institutional, controlled setting with instruction

1) Behaviourism (Skinner 1957)

2) Innatist Perspective: Universal Grammar (Chomsky 1959)

3) Constructivist Perspective: The usage-based perspective (Tomasello 2003, 2006)

• Children learn a language despite inadequate data:

– false starts, incomplete sentences, slips of the tongue

• “Poverty of the stimulus” (Chomsky)

• the environment only contributes in the sense that caretakers speak to the child

• adult correction plays virtually no role in language acquisition

• Language develops in the child just as other biological functions develop, but it has a separate faculty in the brain: Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

• Universal Grammar: innate ability to discover the underlying rules of language system on one’s own

• Chomsky: Language is governed by abstract principles; ‘government’ is a syntactic relationship between a governor and an element that is governed.

• “Words and rules approach”

• Identity Hypothesis

Mother: Shall we play with dolls?

Lucy: Play with dolls.

(mother attends to her daughter and starts playing with her)

• „Cognitive or constructivist approaches focus on learning processes on the level of the invidual mind without assuming that there is a language acquisition device.“ (Grimm et al. 2015: 45)

• Developmental stages: What learners can and cannot understand at different ages, how learners develop cognitive abilities

• Learners construct their own knowledge through experience

• Creation of schemes and mental models of the world which are changed and enlarged through assimilation and accomodation

• The vast majority of young children’s early language is organized around concrete, item-based linguistic schemas (e.g. Play with Y) – verb island construction

• children construct more abstract linguistic constructions (e.g. NP= Det +N) only gradually and in piecemeal fashion

• As children imitatively learn concrete linguistic expressions from the language they hear around them, they use their general cognitive and social-cognitive skills

– to categorize,

– schematize and

– creatively combine these individually learned expressions and structures.

The most basic phenomenon of language

– people make utterances to one another on particular occasions of use

– When people repeatedly say “similar” things in similar situations, what may emerge over time is a pattern of language use.

• L1 acquisition starts with item-based constructions

• Imitative learning is not simply repeating or mimicking the surface form of adult utterances – children reproduce adult language and use it for the same communicative function

• After some time with exposure children begin to

– discover patterns in the language they are hearing

– form some kinds of abstract categories and schemas.

• Children also combine various kinds of linguistic constructions creatively, involving both concrete and abstract constructions of varying levels of complexity.

• “Say what I say”: Learning is habit formation. Imitation + positive reinforcement= language learning

• “It’s all in your mind!” Universal grammar is triggered by the environment and enables you to “build up” sentences with the help of meaningful words and abstract, meaningless rules.

• “It’s all about using language, understanding communicative intentions and functional roles”. Grammar is constructed by “breaking down” concrete pieces of language into abstract categories and schemas.