Language Acquisition and Language Learning

v Language Acquisition

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language. It is a process which can take place at any period of one's life. In the sense of first language acquisition, however, it refers to the acquisition (unconscious learning) of one's native language (or languages in the case of bilinguals) during the first 6 or 7 years of one's life (roughly from birth to the time one starts school).

 Acquisition is carried out in the first years of childhood and leads to unconscious knowledge of one's native language which is practically indelible. Note that acquisition has nothing to do with intelligence, i.e. children of different degrees of intelligence all go through the same process of acquiring their native language. Language acquisition is that process of building the ability to understand a language, using it to communicate with others. It’s the process of going from a wordless wonder into somebody who can’t stop talking during class.

That’s language acquisition or, more specifically, first language or native language acquisition. If you were born in Korea to parents who speak Korean with you, you’ll naturally end up talking Korean. The same goes for whatever native language you’re taught.

·       Characteristics of first language acquisition

1) It is an instinct: This is true in the technical sense, i.e. it is triggered by birth and takes its own course, though of course linguistic input from the environment is needed for the child to acquire a specific language. As an instinct, language acquisition can be compared to the acquisition of binocular vision or binaural hearing.

2) It is very rapid: The amount of time required to acquire one's native language is quite short, very short compared to that needed to learn a second language successfully later on in life.

3) It is very complete: The quality of first language acquisition is far better than that of a second language (learned later on in life). One does not forget one's native language (though one might have slight difficulties remembering words if you do not use it for a long time).

4) It does not require instruction: Despite the fact that many non-linguists think that mothers are important for children to learn their native language, instructions by parents or care-takers are unnecessary, despite the psychological benefits of attention to the child.

Language acquisition is the process whereby children acquire their first languages. All humans (without exceptional physical or mental disabilities) have an innate capability to acquire language. Children may acquire one or more first languages. For example, children who grow up in an environment in which only English is spoken and heard will acquire only English as their first language. However, children who grow up in an environment in which both German and English are spoken and heard equally will acquire both German and English as their first languages. Acquisition occurs passively and unconsciously through implicit learning. In other words, children do not need explicit instruction to learn their first languages but rather seem to just "pick up" language in the same way they learn to roll over, crawl, and walk. Language acquisition in children just seems to happen.

Acquisition (as opposed to learning) depends on children receiving linguistic input during the critical period. The critical period is defined as the window of time, up to about the age of twelve or puberty, in which humans can acquire first languages. Children must receive adequate linguistic input including phonology (speech sounds), semantics (vocabulary and meaning), grammar (syntax or word order and morphology or grammatical markers), and pragmatics (use and context) and prosody (intonation, rhythm, stress) before the end of the critical period in order to acquire their first languages. If linguistic input is not adequate, children will never fully acquire language . Language acquisition cannot normally occur after the critical period because the brain becomes "hardwired" to the first language.

Stages in First Language Acquisition : When human are born, he does not have suddenly the grammatical of his first language in his brain and completely with its rules. The native language is acquired through some stages. There are six stages in children‟s first language acquisition, namely:

1. Pre-talking stage / Cooing (0-6 months)- Pre-talking stage or Cooing is the vowel-like sound responding to human sounds more definitely, turns head, eyes seem to search for speaker occasionally some chuckling sounds.For example, Miles (at the age of 4 months) demonstrating the cooing stage of language acquisition. He is producing vowel-like sounds (especially, the back vowels [u] and [o])in the sounds of “oh”, “uh”, and “ah”,typical of "cooing".He still finds difficulties in producing the vowel sound [i] except when he is screaming in“hiii”. Moreover in producing the consonant sounds like [b], [p], or [m], she is not able to produce them yet.

2. Babbling stage (6-8 months)-Babbling is the sounds which infants produce as consonant-vowel combinations,).The sounds which are produced by infants but not all the speech sounds are same in language of the world such as [ma-ma-ma] or [da-da-da] and [ba-ba-ba] or [na-na-na].

3. Holophrastic stage (9-18 months)- Holophrastic from holo “complete” or “undivided” plus phrase “phrase” or“sentence”. So holophrastic is the children‟s first single word which represent to a sentence. Children using one word to express particular emotional state. For example, Debby‟s mother recorded the words she had pronounced during the 8 months after the appearance of her first word at 9 months (this was [adi], used both for her "daddy")During the two weeks from 17 months - 17 months and a half, she more than doubled her vocabulary.

4. The two-word stage (18-24 months)-Two-word stage is the mini sentences with simple semantic relations. Children begin to form actual two-word sentences, with the relations between the two words showing definite syntactic and semantic relations and the intonation contour of the two words extending over the whole utterance rather than being separated by a pause between the two words. The following “dialogue” illustrates the kinds of patterns that are found in the children‟s utterances at this stage. Basically, a child at this age is already able to produce the consonant sounds like [j], [p], [b], [d], [t], [m], and [n].Children First Language Acquisition At Age 1-3 Years Old

5. Telegraphic stage (24-30 months) -Telegraphic is merely a descriptive term because the child does not deliberately leave out the noncontent words, as does an adult sending a telegram, Fromkin (1983:330). When the child begins to produce utterances that ere longer than two words, these utterances appear to be “sentence-like”; they have hierarchical,constituent structures similar to the syntactic structures found in the sentences produced by adult grammar.

6. Later multiword stage (30+months)- At this stage is fastest increase in vocabulary with many new additions everyday; no babbling at all; utterances have communicative intent. There is a great variation among children, seems to understand everything said within hearing and directed to them.

v Language Learning

Language learning is broadly defined as developing the ability to communicate in the second / foreign language.

 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD LANGUAGE LEARNER

1. Good language learners find a style of learning that suits them- They are self aware ie they know themselves.. When they are in a learning situation which they do not like, they are able to adapt it to their personal needs. They believe they can always learn something, whatever the situation. They also know how they prefer to learn and choose learning situations that are suited to their way of learning.

2. Good language learners are actively involved in the language learning process- They take responsibility for their own learning. Besides regular language classes, they create opportunities to use the language. They know practice is very important. They are willing to take risks, to appear foolish if necessary.

3. Good language learners try to figure out how the language works.- They try to come to grips with the language as a system. They pay attention to form and look for patterns. They develop good techniques for improving their pronunciation, learning grammar and vocabulary. They welcome mistakes as a way of learning more about the language.

 4. Good language learners know that language is used to communicate- They pay attention to meaning. They have good techniques to practise listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In the early stages of their language learning they do not worry about making mistakes. They speak and try to become fluent. They look for opportunities to speak with native speakers.

5. Good language learners are like good detectives- They are always looking for clues that will help them understand how the language works. They make guesses and ask people to correct them if they are wrong. They compare what they say with what others say. They keep a record of what they have learned and think about it. they monitor themselves.

6. Good language learners learn to think in the language.

7. Good language learners realize that language learning is not easy- They try to overcome their feelings of frustration and their lack of confidence. They are able to come to terms with the affective demands of language learning, i.e they can manage their emotions. They are realistic in their setting of study goals.

8. Good language learners are also good culture learners aware of the very close relationship between language and culture.

9. Good language learners have a long term commitment to language learning. They are realistic in realizing that it takes time and practice.

·       Difficulties in learning the Second language

a)     The knowledge of mother tongue hinders the learning process of the second language

b)     The second language learner may not hear people around them using the same language.

c)     The learner may not have social context

d)     Psychological factors such as age, motive, native skill, etc. also effect the process of  language learning process

Hence, due to some reasons, there is a wide gap between acquisition of the language and learning of the second language. It is almost impossible for the teacher to bridge the gap. The teacher too has to face problems like learner. He/She too from the Indian situation. However, He/She cannot reduce the wideness of the gap. Both the teacher and the learner will have to make effort for the purpose.

5 Stages of Language Learning

v Differences

Language Acquisition is the manner of learning a language by immersion. It provides the student with the practical knowledge of the language. Whereas, language learning focuses on providing theoretical knowledge of a language.Language is the primary form of communication that humans use. However, language is not something that is taught to children. A child will pick up his/her native language just by being around other people, mainly their families. This is called language acquisition. The child acquires the language without any conscious thought or study. In fact, by the time a child is five years old, he/she can express ideas clearly and almost perfectly from the point of view of language and grammar. This is despite any formal studying of the language.

Language learning, on the other hand, is a structured learning of a language. This is the process that most people follow when trying to learn another language. Here the student is made to study lists of vocabulary, as well as sentence structure and grammar. This is the most common method used in schools and language learning centers.

Language learning is generally considered to be a slower process than language acquisition. There are people who study a language for years without mastering it.

The main difference between Language Acquisition and Language Learning is that Language Acquisition is the manner of learning a language by immersion. It provides the student with the practical knowledge of the language, for example, the student might not known the grammar rule but is still able to immaculately converse with a native.

Whereas, language learning focuses on providing theoretical knowledge of a language. In this case, the student might know all the proper grammar rules and the correct ways of sentence structuring, but might still lack the confidence to have a conversation with a native.

Hence, as stated by Stephen Krashen, students who are taught in a formal, structured way will “learn” the language but never fully acquire it.

Comparison between Language Acquisition and Language Learning:

	Language Acquisition (native or first language)	Language Learning (foreign or second language)
Meaning	Picking up a language (mother tongue, easy and natural process)	Studying a language (Difficult and artificial process)
Focus	Practical Knowledge (natural atmosphere)	Theoretical Knowledge (no such natural atmosphere)
Method	Unconscious, implicit	Conscious, explicit
Situations	Informal situations	Formal situations
Grammar	Does not use grammatical rules	Uses grammatical rules
Dependency	Depends on attitude	Depends on aptitude
Order of learning	Stable order of learning	Simple to complex order of learning