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Second Language Acquisition: Reconciling Theories, Ana Cristina Reyes Vera…
Second Language Acquisition: Reconciling Theories
Main strands of theoretical thinking with regards to how people learn
Existence of innate mental structures and sustain that part of the language is acquired by means of repetition and the creation of automatic linguistic habits
Cultural or personal affiliations with the second language work as a potent fuel to move the SLA system
Language must be understood as a non-linear dynamic system, made up of interrelated biocognitive, sociocultural, historical and political elements, which enable us to think and act in society.
The random interaction among all the elements of the acquisition system yields the changes responsible for acquisition.
The Edge Of Chaos
Risk, exploration, experimentation
Control parameters
The rate of information flow, the degree of diversity, the richness of connectivity, the level of contained anxiety, and the degree of power differentials
The edge of chaos will be reached if students can get rich input, interact with proficient speakers, and if they can use the second language for social purposes, dealing with different oral, written or digital genres in formal and informal contexts
Main theories relating to first language learning / second language learning.
Behaviorism
Understands language as a set of structures and
acquisition as a matter of habit formation.
Learning is an observable behavior which is automatically acquired by means of stimulus and response in the form of mechaniccal repetition
Acculturation
Learners will be successful in SLA if there are fewer social and psychologycal distances between them and the speakers of the second language.
Universal Grammar Hypothesis
Every human being is biologically endowed with a language faculty, the language acquisition device, which is responsible for the initial state of language development.
Comprehension Hypothesis
Subsconcious acquisition
Interaction Hypothesis
One learns how to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of this interaction syntactic structures are developed
Lingualization
Practicing the language helps learners observe
their own production
Sociocultural Theory
Language learning is a socially mediated process
Language is a cultural artifact that mediates social and
psychological activities
It is in the social world that the language learners observe others using language and imitate
them.
Connectionism
Any learning is understood as a matter of neural networks
Language learning is understood as the processing of experience and the repetition of experiences causing the strengthening of the connections
Main theorists
Larsen-Freeman
Schumann
Chomsky
Krashen
Hatch
Swain
Vygotski
Elman
Ockerman
Ana Cristina Reyes Vera