"it depends..."

I don't know how many times I've heard (and used!) the phrase "it depends..." to respond to questions concerning second language acquisition. There are so many factors affecting a person's ability to learn a second langauge that it often becomes impossible to make broad generalizations. In this week's reading, the following paragraph from Pierce really stood out to me (actually, I just found her entire article fascinating, but in summary...):

"If learners invest in a second language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources [...] The notion of investment attempts to capture the relationship of the language learner to the changing social world [...] The notion presupposes that when language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information with target language speakers but they are constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world. Thus an investment in the target language is also an investment in a learner's own social identity - an identity that is constantly changing across space and time".

Pierce goes on to say that "a language learner's motivation to speak is mediated by investments that may conflict with the desire to speak", and this is the part of her article that was the most interesting to me. In the examples she cited, and in my real life experience, it is so interesting to me how much language learning is affected by both internal and external motivations, and how language learning suffers with those motivations are in conflict with one another. As she explains, language is so much a part of "self" that it often suffers when "self" suffers and vice versa.

Pierce explains that language is very tied to social identity, and this makes it a very vulnerable aspect of a person's being. We often make associations with certain languages in certain parts of our lives. For example, we may use a particular language in a particular context for for a particular purpose. If that context or purpose becomes insecure or instable, a person's desire to learn and use the language associated with it may decrease or be completely eliminated.

So, back to my original title... it depends. A person may have a stellar constellation (as Norton and Toohey term it) of personality characteristics and language-learning traits and history, but if the language they are learning represents insecurity or inferiority, their desire to continue to learn may be compromised. One cannot make the generalization that, for example, an extroverted person is a good langauge learner (although they may well be, because they may seek out more opportunities to speak) because their loyalty to another power or motivation that they have may conflict with their ability and desire to continue to learn the second language. So, it depends.

[disclaimer: this post was much longer and much better until I hit "post" and it erased it all... sigh.]

second languages

Until Chapter 5 of the Saville-Troike text, no distinction was made between the "type" of second language being learned - the text focused on "second language" acquisition as a whole. In the discussion of the microsocial context of language learning, however, Saville-Troike introduces three different types of second language. A "second language" is a language used in a community among native speakers. A "foreign language" is a language learned in the context of one's own culture, with no interaction with native speakers unless one chooses to study abroad for a period of time. An "auxiliary language" is a language learned for political or technological functions.

I teach at the English Language Institute and my students are learning English as their second language. Most of them desire to become conversationally fluent, at the very least, although many of them also have academic goals and wish to attend a University in the United States. Because of my interactions with these students, the following paragraph on "foreigner talk" really interested me. Saville-Troike states:

"Some of the linguistic modifications appear to aid comprehension and early stages of learning: ex. high frequency phrase may be memorized as chunks of speech which can be processed automatically, pauses at appropriate grammatical junctures can help listeners recognize constituent structures; a slower rate of speech allows more time for information retrieval and controlled processing, and topicalization helps in identifying what a sentence is about and what part of it contains new information. On the other hand, the common practice of speaking louder to an L2 learner probably does no good at all, and "simplification" of sentence structure may actually impair comprehension to the extent that it reduces redundancy" (107).

Just in this one paragraph, I learned several things that will help me be a better teacher to my students. First of all, it is important to be consistent in what I say - use the same phrases and pause to emphasize important grammar concepts that I may sometimes say without even thinking about it. Also, if my students are giving me feedback that says they do not understand what I'm saying, I often tend to simplify to aid their comprehension, but Saville-Troike explains here that that may not actually help, because it usually means you're saying less and perhaps being less explicit. I had never thought of that before and I think it will help me in my interactions with my students.

The chapters in both Saville-Troike and the Lightbrown & Spada were also very encouraging for older L2 learners. As I looked at the chart describing the advantages and disadvantages of L2 learning for younger and older students, I realized that I know many successful second language learners - the students I work with, my Spanish professors, missionaries that I know... there are so many people who began their L2 education at a time that would be considered "too late" according to the Critical Period Hypothesis but who can actually navigate the language very well. Our efforts to teach and to learn are not futile! It's very encouraging.

wild child

When I got home from class on Tuesday night, my poor husband was subjected to an entire meal of me telling him all the fascinating aspects about Victor's learning process. I was just completely captivated with the teaching methods and the patience that went into his learning. Victor's behavior and responses to the Dr. Jean Itard's efforts were really interesting and conveyed so much information about language acquisition.

Questions 2 and 3: What type of language learning methods did Dr. Jean Itard use to teach language and communication? Do you agree with his methods of teaching language? What teaching moments did Victor benefit from?

Dr. Itard used many techniques that were inter-related with Victor's other needs. I never before realized how interconnected communication is with survival, feelings, and the like. All areas of life eventually trace back to communication. Therefore, Dr. Itard used many techniques pertaining to Victor's survival. For example, his first word that he could understand the meaning of, spell, and communicate his need for was "milk" - a basic necessity for nutrition. Also, Dr. Itard used scaffolding and the ideas presented in Krashen's input hypothesis to help Victor learn. In an effort to help Victor understand that objects have names and to help him understand the associations between pictures and words, he began by drawing pictures on the board of common things, like scissors, book, etc. The thought came to me that perhaps this would have been even more effective if Dr. Itard had used objects that were already familiar to Victor, such as leaves and rocks, or if that would have been more distracting. After drawing the objects and asking Victor to match them, he began to help Victor with letters and words and then finally put the words with the pictures - each time structuring the lesson a little bit beyond Victor's ability level. Every now and then, he structured the lesson too much beyond Victor's ability level - such that Victor realized the task was too hard for him and then he threw tantrums. As teachers, we have to remember that it is only "i plus 1" - not "i plus 3". If students feel that they are not able to accomplish what is being asked of them they might become discouraged - so scaffolding has to be done subtly.

Dr. Itard also built on Victor's natural desire for order, which is a fascinating concept in and of itself. Because Victor was very obsessed with order, Dr. Itard used that to his advantage in order to help Victor understand the patterns in language.

interlanguage

Interlanguage is a concept addressed in this weeks' readings that really interests me. Perhaps it's because I feel I've spent so much time speaking my own interlanguage between English and Spanish - a language with aspirations of becoming real Spanish someday but still markedly influenced by my command of my L1 (English).

Seville-Troike defines 'interlanguage' as: "intermediate states/interim grammars of learner's language as it moves toward the target L2 language). One of the most interesting aspects of interlanguage that I learned is that research has shown that interlanguage developmental levels, among ALL L2 learners, are generally the same. There are three levels - Nominal Utterance Organization (NUO), Infinite Utterance Organization (IUO), and Finite Utterance Organization (FUO). The first level, NUO, consists of "unconnected naming of subjects and objects". Seville-Troike explains that this level often uses few, if any verbs. It is possible that there would be adverbs or adjectives, however. The second level, IUO, includes verbs - but the verbs are are in the infinitive form, which means they don't define time. Finally, in the third level, FUO, grammatical morphemes are added and the verb becomes finite.

However, after I read this, I thought to myself, "well, in my own language-learning experience, I feel that I can speak full sentences and conjugate my verbs, but I still mess up - a lot." Seville-Troike offered an explanation for this a bit later when he states, "More L1 transfer occurs as learners increase their L2 resoures and produce more complicated utterances".

I think that I sometimes mistakenly assume that L1 and L2 learning is completely different. While there are many differences, and much research has been done to compare those differences, in some ways, it seems that this process for L2 learners is very similar to that of L1 learners. In the Lightbrown/Spada reading that we did, there was discussion of language learning in early childhood. I thought the research results from Roger Brown's study were extremely interesting. They did a longitudinal study and found that "fourteen grammatical morphemes were acquired in a remarkably similar sequence" (3). The list began with progressives and included the plural '-s', past tense, possessives, articles, and present tense verbs, just to name a few. I thought the order of this acquisition was just so interesting and was amazed that researchers were able to see consistency. While children do acquire these grammatical morphemes at different ages, they are often in the same order.

As I looked at that list further, and reflected back upon past Spanish classes, I felt like the order that L1 learners acquire these morphemes is similar to the order in which they are taught informal learning environments. However, it is interesting that the third person singular simple present is toward the bottom of the list, because the simple present is taught as a whole, without distinction of first- or third- person, in most formal classes before the past or the future is taught. Ultimately, the question becomes, "Can we compare L1 learning with L2 learning and find consistencies?" and I think we can, but only to an extent.

how children learn languages

As I read through chapters 1 and 2, I was taking notes in shorthand until I came to the following paragraph: "By the age of six months, an infant has produced all of the vowel sounds and most of the consonant sounds of any language in the world, including some that do not occur in the language(s) their parents speak. If children hear English spoken around them, they will learn to discriminate among those sounds that make a difference in the meaning of the English words (the phonemes) and they will learn to disregard those that do not". The section went on to explain that most children have mastered the distinct sounds of their L1 by age 3 and the grammar structures of their L1 by age 5-6, although more complex grammar structures may develop later as children get older. In reading this section, I learned a great deal about language development and the 'innate capacity', or natural ability, of all human beings to learn a language.

I had to copy down that entire paragraph in my notes because it was SO interesting to me. I think it is fascinating to study children's language development and how they come to know a language so well. Clearly, this process can never be perfectly replicated in neither formal nor informal settings later in life for those who attempt to learn an L2 at an older age. However, the paragraph also left me wondering about a certain situation I encountered a few months ago.

I know a family comprised of a Spanish-speaking mother and an English-speaking father. To my knowledge, the father has learned Spanish as his L2 and speaks it almost fluently, while the mother still speaks only Spanish and very limited English. Their son, however, presents a very interesting case. He is 2 or 3 years old and understands both English and Spanish. However, when spoken to in Spanish, he often chooses to respond in English. After reading this section of the book, I had to wonder how that affects his overall linguistic development. If he chooses to use only the English sounds, although he is consistently hearing the Spanish sounds, will that affect his ability to produce native-like Spanish later in life?

I think it is very interesting to study how to learn a second (or third, or fourth!) language among students of any age, but through even my very limited exposure to second-language learning, it is most certainly beneficial if one can learn an L2 at a young age, under exposure to a native speaker of the L2. This demonstrates how important the individual sounds are, even before the child can speak sentences or even words. I think this would be very difficult to reproduce in a formal learning setting for older students, if not impossible.