UNIVERSITE FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY DE COCODY-ABIDJAN

UFR LANGUES, LITERATURES ET CIVILISATIONS

DEPARTEMENT D’ANGLAIS

LICENCE 2

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

LICENCE 2

Dr LASME viergebai@yahoo.fr
UNIVERSITE FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY DE COCODY-ABIDJAN

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES, LITERATURES, AND CIVILISATIONS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Specialty : Language didactics

Academic year : 2024-2025

Semester 3

Course Title : Second Language Acquisition

Prerequisite : Educational psychology

Duration : 20 hours-Lecture

Instructor : Dr. LASME BAI

Course Aim and Outcomes

Aim

This course aims to instruct the students on the theories of and approaches to second/foreign
language acquisition and their relevance to second/foreign language teaching.

Specific Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes the course is intended to produce are as follows:

- The students will be able to differentiate between language acquisition and language
learning

- The students will be able to demonstrate good knowledge of second /foreign language
acquisition theories and approaches;

- The students will be able to perceive the implications of the SLA theories/approaches
for language teaching.
Course Schedule

DATE / TOPIC Tasks/activities Materials/Sources

SESSION

Session 1 Second Language Through explanations in Booklet on SLA

acquisition: plenary the students are
enlightened on the different
1.Language acquisition
points
and language learning

2.History of second
language theories and
approaches:

-Behavioristic approach

-Krashen’s Monitor
Theory

Session 2 2.History of second Through explanations in Booklet on SLA

language theories and plenary the students are
approaches (continued): enlightened on the different
points
-Rationalist/cognitive
approach

-Functionalist approach

-Social models of SLA

 -Session 3 3.SLA and language Through explanations in Booklet on SLA
teaching plenary the students are
enlightened on the different
points

Session 4 Research session The students do personal The Internet,

research activities on course Books and Articles
content on SLA

Assignment :

Grading Procedures: Grades for the credit will be based on:

 Final exam

 Passing grade: 10/20

Readings

Gas, S. M. and Selinker, L. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course.

London: Routledge.

Krashen, S. 2013. Second Language Acquisition: Theory, Applications, and Some

Conjectures. NY: CUP.

Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Sociocultural theory and genesis of second language development.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Skehan, P. (1998). A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

VanPattern, B. and Williams, J. (2015). 2 nd ed. Theories in second language acquisition.

London: Routledge.
CHAPTER ONE: SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

1.1. Language acquisition and language learning

Krashen (1985) makes a fundamental distinction between the process of language acquisition
and language learning. Acquisition is Krashen’s term for a subconscious process involving an
innate language acquisition device (LAD) that is similar to the process that accounts for
children’s L1 (that is knowing without instruction), in opposition to learning, which is
conscious. He argues that learning entails a conscious process involving metalinguistic
information and corrective feedback. By claiming that learning does not lead to acquisition,
Krashen suggest that unconscious acquisition was superior to explicit, intentional learning.

1.2. Second language acquisition-Second language learning controversy in SLA

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) as a research field refers both to the study of individuals
and groups who are learning a language (L2) after their first language learning (L1) as young
children, has been established and to the process of learning that language (Saville Stroike,
2012). In more practical sense, SLA is the process of acquiring an additional language within
the context of a language community which dominantly includes members who speak it
natively. By extension, it also includes the process of learning a second language that is not
widely used in the learners’ immediate social context, but rather one that might be used for
future travel or other cross-cultural communication situations, or one that might be studied as
a curricular requirement or elective in school with no immediate or necessary practical
application. In that sense the language is referred to as foreign language to specify the context.

The controversy of Second language acquisition-Second language learning in SLA is around

the issue of whether SLA is affected by acquisition (unconscious process) or learning
(conscious process). Today, most SLA researchers believe that acquisition and learning
procedures combine to influence development, with acquisitional factors playing a stronger
role in some aspects, such as UG elements and learning focusing on language-specific areas.
CHAPTER TWO: HISTORY OF SECOND LANGUAGE THEORIES AND APPROACHES

Several theories and approaches have been proposed throughout history to answer the
question of how a second language is learned. The majority of these proposals draw on
theories of L1 acquisition. Our discussion in this area will focus on the following approaches
to SLA: Behavioristic approach, Krashen’s Monitor Theory, rationalist/cognitive approach,
social approach, and humanistic approach.

2.1. Behavioristic approach to SLA (1950s-1960s)

The behaviouristic approach to SLA drew from behaviourism also known as a theory of habit
formation. In the behaviourist view (Bloomfield, 1933; Skinner, 1957; Thorndike, 1932;
Watson, 1924), language learning is seen like any other kind of learning, as the formation of
habits. It sees the learning of any kind of behaviour as being based on the notions of stimulus
and response (S-R). Human beings are exposed to numerous stimuli in their environment. The
response they give to these stimuli will be reinforced (R) if successful, that is, if some desired
outcome is obtained. Through repeated reinforcement, a certain stimulus will elicit the same
response time and again, which will then become a habit. The learning of any skill is seen as
the formation of habits, through the creation of stimulus-response pairings which become
stronger with reinforcement.

When learning a first language, from this point of view, the process is relatively simple: all we
have to do is learn a set of new habits as we learn to respond to stimuli in our environment.
When learning a second language, however, we run into problems: we already have a set of
well-established responses in our L1. The L2 learning process therefore involves replacing
those habits by a set of new ones. The complication is that the old L1 habits interfere with this
process, either helping or inhibiting it. If structures in the L2 are similar to those of the L1,
then learning will take place easily. If, however, structures are different, then learning will be
difficult.

Criticisms: The creativity of language- children do not learn and reproduce a large set of
sentences, but they create new sentences that they have never learned before. This is only
possible because they internalize rules rather than strings of words. (e.g. Mummy goed; it
breaked.). The behaviorist assumption that habit formation accounts for language acquisition
was seriously questioned by many linguists and psychologists. There was a shift to
Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (UG) in explanations of L1 language acquisition and
Krashen’s Monitor Theory for L2.
2.2. UG approach to L1 and Krashen’s Monitor Theory for SLA

2.2.1. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar

From the UG point of view of acquisition, the general idea is that language learning is highly
constrained in advance, thus making the task for the child learning his L1 is much more
manageable. These constraints or principles which are common to all languages concern a
limited array of lexical, functional categories as well as the structural relationships between
elements in a sentence (individual words and morphemes) that are regrouped into higher level
abstract structures which are the building blocks of language (Mitchel, Myles and Marsden,
2019). These universal features are relevant to language acquisition because they allow
children to understand and create an unlimited number of sentences from what Chomsky calls
Language Acquisition Device (LAD). LAD is the initial language competence for language
performance. In the following sentences, Mitchel, Myles and Marsden (ibid) illustrate the
working and the creative power that innate ability for languages:

a. She bought a new car yesterday

b. My friend bought a new car yesterday

c. The friend that I met in Australia last year bought a new car yesterday

d. The friend I am closest to and who was so supportive when I lost my job two years ago
bought a new car yesterday.

According to the researchers,

“she, my friend, the friend that I met in Australia last year, and the friend I am closest to and
who was so supportive when I lost my job two years ago are groupings which play the same
role in the sentence, and in fact might refer to one single individual. Moreover, we also know
that we could carry on adding details about this friend more or less indefinitely by using
devices such as and, that, which etc. (…) We also know that the crucial word in these
groupings is friend, or she if we have already referred to this person earlier in the
conversation. This kind of grouping is called a Phrase; in the examples above, we are dealing
with a Noun Phrase, as the main or central element (the head) of this phrase is a noun (or
pronoun). It turns out that all languages in the world are structured in this way, and are made
up of sentences which consist of at least a Noun Phrase (NP) and a Verb Phrase (VP), as in
[NPPaul] [VPsings], which in turn may optionally contain other phrases or even whole
sentences, as in (d) above. This knowledge—that languages are structure-dependent—is a
crucial aspect of all human languages which has many implications; it is a principle or
invariant feature of UG which explains many of the operations we routinely perform on
language.” (p. 91).

The UG theory suggests that, being part of children’s UG endowment, these elements of
language (that is, the lexical functional, and syntactic categories) do not have to be learned.
However, syntacticians argue many of these features might be different and vary across
languages). Research shows that this may be an obstacle for L2 learners when exposed to the
target language as some areas of syntactic categories that are required in the L2 might be
different from that of their L1.

2.2.2. Krashen's Monitor Theory (the 1970s)

Krashen's Monitor Theory shares the underlying assumptions of one L1 theory, the UG by
Chomsky, regarding the existence of some form of Language Acquisition Device (LAD) or
initial language competence and attention to comprehensible input, as a means of stimulating
acquisition. The theory considers acquisition more important than learning. Krashen’s
approach is a collection of five hypotheses which constitute major claims and assumptions
about how the L2 code is acquired. The five hypotheses which constitute Krashen’s theory are
as follows:

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

2. The Monitor Hypothesis

3. The Natural Order Hypothesis

4. The Input Hypothesis

5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis has Krashen to make a distinction to be made

between acquisition and learning. He argues that acquisition is subconscious, and involves
the innate language acquisition device (LAD) which accounts for children’s L1. In other
words, children are born equipped with the ability to understand what the language they hear
around them without any form of explicit teaching. It is rather an implicit process. Learning
is conscious and is exemplified by the L2 learning which takes place in many classroom
contexts.
The Monitor Hypothesis states that What is “learned” is available only as a monitor, for
purposes of editing or making changes in what has already been produced in planned
communication. By the same token, what is learned is almost of no use in unplanned and
natural communication because the use of the monitor in such context has proved to cause a
lot of hesitations and communication breakdowns and so affecting fluency.

The Natural Order Hypothesis highlights the fact that we acquire the rules of language in a
predictable order. Therefore, attempts to learn and memorise them will be forcing the natural
order and will be useless.

The Input Hypothesis suggests that language acquisition takes place under specific conditions
and constraints, the provision of enough comprehensible input that is an appropriate level of
difficulty (i+1). If input is understood, and if there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is
automatically provided. Being aligned with Chomsky’ UG (innate ability for languages),
Krashen considers exposure to input a necessary trigger for activating internal mechanisms
that will allow learners to make sense of that input. Unfortunately, UG was found of minimal
importance for many aspects of language development beyond the state of L1 acquisition (see
criticisms below). Another condition for SLA to occur is underscored through the Affective
Filter Hypothesis. This means that input may not be processed if the affective filter is “up”
(e.g. if conscious learning is taking place and/or individuals are inhibited). This hyppothesis
calls for consideration of emotional involvement in learning, such as affective factors of
attitude, motivation, and anxiety level.

Criticism of Monitor Model

Krashen’s claims that unconscious acquisition was superior to explicit, intentional learning
have been contradicted, and partly because of the relevance of learning for language
instruction.

1. Barry McLaughlin (1978, 1990) sharply criticized Krashen’s rather fuzzy distinction
between subconscious (acquisition) and conscious (learning) processes.

2. There is no interface – no overlap – between acquisition and learning. Instruction in

conscious rule learning can indeed aid in the attainment of successful communicative
competence in a second language.

3. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis claims that success in a foreign language can be attributed to
input alone. Such a theory ascribes little credit to learners and their own active engagement in
the pursuit of language competence. First of all, it is important to distinguish between input
and intake. The latter is the subset of all input that actually gets assigned to our long-term
memory store. Second language learners are exposed to potentially large quantities of input,
only a fraction of which becomes intake.

4. Krashen presents the i+1 formula as if we are actually able to define i and 1, and we are
not.

5. The notion that speech will ‘emerge’ in a context of comprehensible input sounds
promising, but we are left with no significant information on what to do about the students for
whom speech does not ‘emerge’.

2.3. The rationalism/ cognitive approach (the 1960s-1970s)

The focus on this approach has been on how meaning is actively constructed during the
acquisition process rather than being received from outside. Explanations of SLA phenomena
based on this approach involve the claims that L2 learning and use essentially involves mental
processes. These include perception and the input of new information; the formation,
organization, and regulation of internal (mental) representations (see Schema Theory); and
retrieval from background knowledge and output strategies. Put simply, to achieve
comprehension of the input you have to deal with, for example, it is your background
knowledge that will allow you to act on the input. The idea is that input does not carry
meaning by itself even though it provides direction about how to retrieve meaning from it. It
is through an interactive activity between one’s background knowledge and the input provided
that construction of the meaning from the input will occur.

The approach makes a number of assumptions (McLaughlin 1987):

(1) Second language learning is the acquisition of a complex cognitive skill. In this respect
language learning is like the acquisition of other complex skills.

(2) Complex skills can be reduced to sets of simpler component skills, which are
hierarchically organized. Lower-order component skills are background knowledge and
prerequisites to learning of higher-order skills.

(3) Learning of a skill initially demands learners’ attention, and thus involves controlled
processing.

(4) Controlled processing requires considerable mental “space,” or attentional effort.

(5) Humans are limited-capacity processors. They can attend to a limited number of
controlled processing demands at one time.

(6) Learners go from controlled to automatic processing with practice. Automatic processing
requires less mental “space” and attentional effort.

(7) Learning essentially involves development from controlled to automatic processing of

component skills, freeing learners’ controlled processing capacity for new information and
higher-order skills.

(8) Along with development from controlled to automatic processing, learning also essentially
involves restructuring or reorganization of mental representations.

(9) Reorganizing mental representations as part of learning makes structures more

coordinated, integrated, and efficient, including a faster response time when they are
activated.

(10) In SLA, restructuring of internal L2 representations, along with larger stores in memory,
accounts for increasing levels of L2 proficiency.

Our mental capacity requirements for controlled processing are obvious when we are
beginning to learn a second language, as we need to concentrate our attention to comprehend
or produce basic vocabulary and syntactic structures. It is only after these have been
automatized that we can attend to more complex, higher-order features and content. We
encounter similar capacity limitations (we easily experience “information overload”) in
learning a new “language” for computerized word processing: we must initially use controlled
processing to select appropriate symbols and apply the right rules, and it is difficult or
impossible to simultaneously pay attention to higher-order content or creative
processing. It is only after we have automatized the lower-level skills that our processing
capacity is freed for higher-order thought.

Input for SLA is whatever sample of L2 that learners are exposed to, but it is not
available for processing unless learners actually notice it: i.e. pay attention to it. Then it can
become intake. It is at this point of perception of input where priorities are largely
determined, and where attentional resources are channeled. Richard Schmidt ( 1990 ) lists the
following features as likely contributors to the degree of noticing or awareness which will
occur:

 Frequency of encounter with items

  Perceptual saliency of items

 Instructional strategies that can structure learner attention

 Individuals’ processing ability (a component of aptitude)

 Readiness to notice particular items (related to hierarchies of complexity)

 Task demands, or the nature of activity the learner is engaged in.

In the model of learning that was proposed by Anderson ( 1976 ), development from
declarative to procedural stages of knowledge is parallel to development from controlled to
automatic processing in many respects. The declarative stage involves acquisition of isolated
facts and rules; processing is relatively slow and often under attentional control. Development
to the procedural stage involves processing of longer associated units and increasing
automatization, which frees attentional resources for higher-level skills. Proceduralization
requires practice.

2.4. Functionalist approach to SLA

Functionalist approach differs from behaviouristic and early generative approaches by

emphasizing the information content of utterances, and in considering language primarily as a
system of communication rather than as a set of rules. According to Halliday (1973), a key
figure of functionalism, “language acquisition . . . needs to be seen as the mastery of linguistic
functions. Learning one’s mother tongue is learning the uses of language, and the meanings,
or rather the meaning potential, associated with them. The structures, the words and the
sounds are the realization of this meaning potential. Learning language is learning how to
mean” (p. 345). Clearly, researchers working within thar framework are centrally concerned
with the ways in which L2 learners set about making meaning, and achieving their personal
communicative goals; they argue that the great variety of interlanguage forms produced by
learners cannot be sensibly interpreted, unless we pay attention also to the speech acts which
learners are seeking to perform, and to the ways they exploit the immediate social, physical
and discourse context to help them make meaning. Further, it is argued that these meaning-
making efforts on the part of the learner are a driving force in ongoing L2 development,
which interact both with the available input and also with the development of formal
grammatical systems.

This functionalist perspective on SLA shares with cognitive theories the assumption that
general learning mechanisms drive acquisition. However, while cognitive learning theories
see statistical learning from L2 input as the prime driving force in acquisition, functionalists
see learners’ own intention to mean, and active selection from the input available to them in
the service of communication, as the leading force.

Approaches to SLA which are characterized as functional differ in emphasis and definition
but share the following characteristics in general opposition to those in the Chomskyan
tradition:

 Focus is on the use of language in real situations ( performance ) as well as

underlying knowledge ( competence ).

 Study of SLA begins with the assumption that the purpose of language is
communication, and that development of linguistic knowledge (in L1 or L2) requires
communicative use.

 Scope of concern goes beyond the sentence to include discourse structure and how
language is used in interaction, and to include aspects of communication beyond
language (Tomlin 1990).

To relate this notion to the question about what language learners essentially acquire, in
Halliday’s view it is not a system of rules which govern language structure, but rather
“meaning potential” or what Hymes calls communicative competence: “what the
speaker/hearer can (what he can mean, if you like), not what he knows” (1973 :346).The
process of acquisition consists of “mastering certain basic functions of language and
developing a meaning potential for each” ( 1975 :33).

One application of Halliday’s model to the study of SLA comes with seeing L2 learning as a
process of adding multilingual meaning potential to what has already been achieved in L1. In
such a perspective, “Second language acquisition is largely a matter of learning new linguistic
forms to fulfill the same functions [as already acquired and used in L1] within a different
social milieu” (Saville-Troike, McClure, and Fritz 1984:60).

2.5. Social perspectives on second language acquisition

These perspectives constitute the consideration of how social contexts affect SLA and social
interaction as the genesis of language acquisition. A view of the role of interaction in SLA is
based on Sociocultural (S-C) Theory (Vygotsky 1962, 1978; see Lantolf and Thorne 2006 ).
A key concept in this approach is that interaction not only facilitates language learning but is a
causative force in acquisition; further, all of learning is seen as essentially a social process
which is grounded in sociocultural settings. S-C Theory differs from most linguistic
approaches in giving relatively limited attention to the structural patterns of L2 which are
learned, as well as in emphasizing learner activity and involvement over innate and universal
mechanisms; and it differs from most psychological approaches in its degree of focus on
factors outside the learner, rather than on factors which are completely in the learner’s head,
and in its denial that the learner is a largely autonomous processor. It also (as noted above)
differs from most other social approaches in considering interaction as an essential force
rather than as merely a helpful condition for learning.

According to S-C Theory, learning occurs when simple innate mental activities are
transformed into “higher-order,” more complex mental functions. This transformation
typically involves symbolic mediation, which is a link between a person’s current mental
state and higher-order functions that is provided primarily by language. This is considered the
usual route to learning, whether what is being learned is language itself or some other area of
knowledge. The results of learning through mediation include learners’ having heightened
awareness of their own mental abilities and more control over their thought processes.

Vygotsky pioneered the notion that children learn within communities, rather than
strictly as individuals. He is perhaps most famous for his discussion of the Zone of Proximal
Development, wherein children learn more with the support of adults around them. One way
in which others help the learner in language development within the ZPD is through
scaffolding. This includes the “vertical constructions” mentioned above as a type of modified
interaction between NSs and NNSs, in which experts commonly provide learners with chunks
of talk that the learners can then use to express concepts which are beyond their independent
means. This type of mediation also occurs when peers collaborate in constructing language
which exceeds the competence of any individual among them. More generally, the metaphor
of “scaffolding” refers to verbal guidance which an expert provides to help a learner perform
any specific task, or the verbal collaboration of peers to perform a task which would be too
difficult for any one of them individually (see Bruner 1985). Very importantly, scaffolding is
not something that happens to a learner as a passive recipient, but happens with a learner as an
active participant.

For L2 learners, L1 as well as L2 can provide helpful mediation. Talk between peers who are
collaborating in tasks is often in their common L1, which provides an efficient (and
sometimes essential) medium for problem-solving and can enhance learning of both L2 and
any academic subjects students are studying in the second language. Symbolic mediation can
be interactional without involving face-to-face communication: although we do not often
think of it that way, reading actually involves an interaction between the individual and the
author(s) of a text or book, resulting in an altered state of knowledge. Symbolic mediation
need not even necessarily involve language (although it usually does) but can also be
achieved with such non-linguistic symbols as gestures, diagrams and illustrations, and
algebraic symbols.

SUMMARY TO CHAPTER TWO

1.The importance of language input and its roles across approaches to SLA

Input is found necessary in almost all the approaches to SLA we have discussed even though
its roles vary across the approaches. Behaviouristic approach considers input to form the
necessary stimuli and feedback which learners respond to and imitate. Followers of Krashen’s
Monitor Model consider comprehensible input not only necessary but sufficient in itself to
account for SLA. Proponents of UG consider exposure to input a necessary trigger for
activating internal mechanisms, but of minimal importance for many aspects of language
development beyond the initial state. More cognitive than linguistic approaches discussed in
this course consider input which is attended to (i.e. intake of background knowledge) as
essential data for all stages of language processing and the quantity or frequency of input
structures to largely determine acquisition. In social approaches, interaction is generally seen
as essential in providing learners with the quantity and quality of external linguistic input
which is required for internal processing, in focusing learner attention on aspects of their L2
which differ from target language norms or goals, and in providing collaborative means for
learners to build discourse structures and express meanings which are beyond the current level
of their linguistic competence.

2.Behaviouristic approach to SLA claims that intensive exposition to stimulus, repeated

practice of the stimulus and reinforcement (S-R-R) are the main conditions for the learning
behaviour of an L2. Krashen (Monitor theory) proposes comprehensible input, as a means of
stimulating acquisition while the cognitive approach considers the mental processes such as
activation of learners’ background knowledge and mental activities is more likely to allow
learners to construct meaning available in the input. For the cognitivists, the input itself does
provide meaning unless the learner attends to it (i.e turns his attention to it) and act on it to
retrieve its meaning and construct knowledge by themselves and for themselves. The basic
functionalist claim is “the centrality of meaning and function in influencing language
structure and language acquisition” (Bardovi-Harlig, 2015, p. 55). Proponents of social
approach to SLA argues that to maximize the comprehensibility of L2 input, the mediation of
ongoing interactions with peers and more knowledgeable adults when performing tasks in
form of negotiation of meaning is the key predictor to L2 learning.

CHAPTER THREE: SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION APPROACHES AS A

FOUNDATION TO LANGUAGE TEACHING

Chapter three discusses the application of SLA approaches to language teaching

approaches/methods and practices. It examines how teaching methods and what teachers do in
the classroom reflect SLA theories.

3.1. The influence of behaviouristic SLA on language teaching

The case of Audiolingual Method (ALM) and Situational Teaching-Oral Approach

3.2. The influence of Krashen’s Monitor theory on the strong version of CLT

3.3. The influence of rationalist/cognitive approach to SLA on the light version of CLT

3.4. The influence of functionalist approach to SLA on CLT

3.5. The influence of social approach to SLA on CLT