Week 4 - Theories on Second Language Acquisition

Isn't it fascinating that babies worldwide go through the same stages of development in learning their mother tongue no matter what language they are leaning? Research show that children know a lot about what works and what doesn't work in a language since they are very young - around 2 years and 6 months. This leads us to the conclusion that the language is innate. But only spoken language; not written language.

If the validity of Chomsky's theories of the Universal Grammar and the Language Acquisition Device are still being discussed, maybe it would be interesting to contrast them with the humans need to intentionally learn to read and write. The written language learning is not innate. This ability is not provided in our brains and doesn't happens naturally like spoken language acquisition.

Research with babies growing in 15 different languages show that the babbling is basically the same for all of them. The babies usually use labial sounds like "p" and "b", and blend them with low sound vowels, like "a" and "ee". So, the way that kids make sounds and the way they pick up words are the same worldwide, in any language. They have the ability to recognize any nuances of sounds they hear.

The only way we can learn the second language nearly like we learn the first language is when young children are exposed to a second language before learning to read. My son has had this experience since last year, when we moved to the US. He had to learn only by listening and having to respond to everyone at school in English, entirely immersed. At home we keep speaking Portuguese. Like my experience with English, it an immersion but not complete. It would be different for my son if he had moved after having learned to read. In this case, the written language, grammar and other literacy aspects of learning would interfere in the learning. 

To learn by listening before being able to read makes the learning similar, but not the same as first language learning. The main difference is the whole phonic systems of the first language, which may interfere in the beginning. In this context of learning, as well as in older students L2 classroom, input is the most important element of teaching a foreign language. What learners mostly need is to be exposed to meaningful language situations to internalize sounds and word sequences, making sure they are following the meaning. I can see the difference between my son’s language acquisition mainly in pronunciation. While I am still stuck in my fossilized pronunciation due to the written language interference, he is internalizing the precise sounds of the second language more naturally.