SLA Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The nature of Learner Language

The main way of investigating L2 acquisition is:

1. By collecting and describing samples of learner language.
2. Focus on the kinds of errors learners make and how these errors change over time.
3. By describing the stages in the acquisition of particular grammatical features.
4. Examine the variability found in learner language.

Error and Error Analysis

There are good reasons for focusing on errors:

1. There are a conspicuous feature of learners make,  and so there will be the important question of why do learners make error.
2. To get to know what errors learners make.
3. Making error may actually help learners to learn when hey self-correct the errors they make.

1. Identifying Errors

We have to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem to be normal or ‘correct’ sentences in the target language. Identifying the exact errors that learners make is often difficult because native speakers often make slips when they are tired or under some kin of pressure to communicate. We need to distinguish mistake and error:

·         Errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge, because the learner does npt know what is correct.

·         Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; the learner is unableto perform what he or she knows.

How can we distinguish errors and mistakes?

1.  by checking the consistency of learners’ performance,
2. by asking learners to try to correct their own deviant utterances.

Ultimately, a clear distinction between an error and a mistake may not be possible.

2. Describing Errors

There are several ways of dong this:

·         to classify errors into grammatical categories

·         to try to identify general ways in whih leaners’ utterances differ from the reconstructed targer-language utterances, including:

o   Omission, i.e. leaving out an item that is required for an utterance to be considered grammatical.

o   Misinformation, i.e. using one grammatical form.

o   Misordering, i.e. putting the words in an utterance in the wrong order.

These ways can help us to diagnose learners’ learning problem of their development. The most common error type is misinformation.

3. Explaining Errors

Errors are not sustematicl many of them are also universal, but of course, not all errors are universal. Some errors are common only to learners who share the same mother tongue.

4. Error evaluation

Some errors can be considered more serious than others because they are more likely to interfere with the intelligibility of what someone says.

Some errors known as:

·         Global error        : Violate the overall structure of a sentence and for this reason may make it difficult to process.

·         Local error           : Affect only a songle constituent in the sentence (i.e. the verb) and are less likely to create any processing problems.

Developmental Patterns

1. The Early Stages of L2 Acquisition

Particularly, children undergo a silent period. They make no attempt to sy anything to begin with. They only learn language through listening or reading. They are likely to manifest two particular characteristics:

1.       Formulaic chunks which we saw in the case studies

2.       Propositional simplification

Learners d begin to learn the grammar of the L2, and so raises questions concern on:

·         Acquisition order

·         Sequence of acquisition

2. The Order of Acquisition

Researchers rank the features according to how accurately each feature is used by the learners. The problem is that the research treats acquisition as if it is  a process of accumulating linguistic structures. Acquisition is seen as analogous to building a wall, with one brick set in place before another is place on top.

3. Sequence of Acquisition

Such sequence are instructed because the reveal that the use o a correct structural form does not necessarily mean that this form has been ‘acquired’.

4. Some implications

This has implications for both SLA theory and for language teaching. A key question for both SLA and language teaching is whether the orders and sequences of acquisition can be altered though formal instruction.

Variability in Learner Language

                Variability plays an integrative part in the overall pattern of development, with learners moving though a series of stages that reflect kinds of variability.

By           : Swastika Mahatmarani                                2201410045