TEFL Archer Lodge North Carolina

There is a plethora of research on the differences between, and effectiveness of, First and Second language acquisition – and much of it is inconclusive. There appears to be few definitive statements on why acquiring a second language is more difficult than the first but there are a number of interesting findings which are applicable to the tesol classroom. The main difficulty in researching this area appears to be that a child acquiring a first language is young and unable to explain the process, whereas second language acquisition happens in older or adult years so the comparison is unscientific, particularly given what we know about brain development through the course of a human life. A first language is acquired almost naturally and, because it happens at such a young age, it is difficult to research and explain. Despite the fact that everyone learns their first language easily and successfully in almost every case, it appears that very few people achieve a proficiency in a second language which is equal to their native or first language. In addition, age has some impact. Under the age of about 8, it is more likely that near-native proficiency can be achieved but afterwards – particularly beyond puberty – there is less chance of gaining high levels of proficiency, especially in the area of accent. One interesting article, “Comparing and Contrasting Second Language Acquisition”, notes that several hundred muscles are used in the creation of sounds to make speech. These are developed from birth but as a human gets older, the plasticity of these muscles declines and therefore it is harder to move the muscles to make the sounds required of a foreign language. The article also emphasises, however, that pronunciation is not the only measure of success in a second language. The communication and functional purposes of language is far more important than simply the correct pronunciation, according to the author as well as the researcher, Thomas Scovel. This is important to remember when teaching tesol courses because most students will be older than the 8 year old cut off when language develops naturally or intuitively. This needs to be recognised in terms of achieving absolute correctness and fluency, and also needs to inform teachers in terms of sounds and pronunciation. The fact is that most leaners of a second language will always speak with an accent. In fact the research seems to indicate that first language acquisition is always successful whereas complete success is rare second language acquisition. Some researchers (from the behaviouralist school) believe that learning a second language should be done in the same ways as the first or native language. They argue that a knowledge of grammar, for example, is not necessary for children to learn their native tongue, and therefore is not necessary for subsequent language acquisition. H. H. Stern argues that a small child does not know verbs and nouns and their function, yet learns language perfectly. “It is equally unnecessary to use grammatical conceptualisation in teaching a foreign language.” Naturally there are those who argue against this and, given the content of the ITTT course, it seems most foreign language schools do not – perhaps cannot – adhere to the behaviouralist theory. Another interesting observation made by Stern concerns the order in which people acquire language. He points out that a child listens and then speaks. Reading and writing come much later. He argues that this, therefore, should be the way a second language is learnt. Having learnt a second language recently, I can attest to the fact that speaking came last for me – it was easier to learn to read and to write before I spoke a sentence (apart from basic conversational language). I have also observed the same phenomenon in indigenous australian students; for them speaking is the most difficult activity. It appears therefore, that second language learning is more difficult and quite different to the ways in which we acquire our first or native tongue. The research is not definitive and is hampered by the fact that we seem to intuitively learn our first language. Second language acquisition is a more cerebral activity. The tesol teacher should be informed on some of this research and also mindful in the classroom, particularly if they are a first language speaker teaching english. References: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/L1%20and%20L2.htm http://www.csun.edu/~galasso/lang1.htm http://www.ielanguages.com/documents/papers/SLA%20Grammar%20Acquisition%20and%20Pedagogy.pdf http://www.literature.freeservers.com/image_polat/ccfsla.html