H. Douglas Brown is Professor of English at San Francisco State University (SFSU) where he is Director of the American Language Institute. Previously, he taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois. He was the President of TESOL in 1980-81. From 1970-79 he was the Editor of Language Learning. He has lectured across the USA and internationally.
Professor Brown has published many articles and books on second language acquisition and pedagogy. Some of his publications include:
Professor Brown has published many articles and books on second language acquisition and pedagogy. Some of his publications include:
- Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (Third Edition, 1994)
- Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (1994)
- Readings on Second Language Acquisition (co-edited with Susan Gonzo, 1994)
- Breaking the Language Barrier (1991)
- A Practical Guide to Language Learning (1989)
- Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide -- a strategies guide for ES/FL learners (in press, 1999)
- Vistas -- a multiple level ESL basal series (1992)
- Voyages -- an extensively modified and adapted new version of the above series (1998)
- Challenges -- a book on academic reading and writing (co-authored with Deboarah Cohen and Jennifer O'Day, 1991).
Brown
Purpose of this book is offer
What is SLA?
There are many theories about SLA.
Yoyio says:
1. A theory of SLA includes an understanding , in general, of what language is, what learning is, and fot classroom contexts, what teahing is.
2. Knowledge of children´s learning of their first language provides essential insights to an understanding of SLA .
3. However a number of importante differneces between adults and child learning and between first and second language acquisition must be carefully accounted for.
4. Second language learning is a part of and adherens to general principles of human learning and intelligence .
5. There is tremendous variation across learners in cognitive style and within a learner in strategy choice.
6. Personality, the way people view themselves and reveal themselves in communication, will affect both the quantity and quality of second language learning.
7. Learning a second culture is often intricately interwined with learning a second language.
8. The acquisition of communicative competence is in many ways language sociallization, and is the ultimate goal of learners as they deal with function, discourse, style ,and noverbal aspect of human interaction and linguistic negotiation.
Lightbown says:
1. Aduls and adolescents can “acquire “ second language.
2. The learner creats a systematics interlanguage that is often characterized by the same systematics errosr as (those of) the chils learning the same language as the first language, as wellas others that appear to be based on the learner´s own native language.
3. There predictable sequences in acquisition so that certain structures have to be acquired before others can be integrated.
4. Practice does not make perfect.
5. Knowing a language rule does not mean one will be able to use it communicative interaction.
6. Isolated explicit error correction is usually ineffective in changing language behavior.
7. For most adult learners , acquisition stop-“fossilizes”- before the learner has achieved nativelike mastery of the target language.
8. One cannot achieve nativelike (or near-nativelike) commmand of a second language in one hours a day
9. The learner´s task is enormous because language is enormously complex
10. A learner´s ability to understand language in a meaninful context exceeds his or her ability to comprehend decontextualized language and to produce language of comparable complexity and accuracy.
Popular Ideas of Lightbown & Spada. is important to say that those are not supported by researches.
1. Language are learned mainly through imitation
2. Parents usually correct young children when thay make errors.
3. People with high IQS are good language learners
4. The earlier a second language is introduced in school programs , the greater the likelihood of success in learning.
5. Most of the mistakes that second language learners make are due to interference from their first languge.
6. Learner´s errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits.
Chaos theory
It is an approach to describing a phenomenon that emphasizes its dynamic, complex, nonlinear , and unpredictable nature.
Diane Larsen Freeman outlining similarities between Chaos Theory and SLA.She argued that SLA is as much a dynamic , complex , nonliner system as are physics, biology, and other sciences.
She suggested several lessons from chaos theory that can help us to design a theory of SLA.
1. Beware of false dichotomies. Look for complementary, inclusiveness , and interface. We have examined a numbre of continua in this book; it is imoprtan to see them just as that, and not as dichotomies.
Vocabulary:
A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts, or in half. It is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets) that are:
- jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
- mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.
2. Beware of linear , causal approaches to theorizing. The “butterfly effect” in chaostheory reminds us that the fluttering wing of a butterfly in the Amazonian forest can have a chain of reactions and interreactions that extendb all the way to path pf a hurricane in Hawaii. SLA is so complex with so many intercting factor sthat to state that there is single cause for a SLA effect is to go too far.
3. Beware of overgeneralization .Pay attention to details. The smallest, apparaently mos insignificant of factors in learning a second language mat turn out to be important!
4. On the other hand , beware of reductionist thinking . it is very tempting, with any chaotic, complex system, to oversimplify by taking some little part of the whole and extracting it from the whole system.
Michael long
He also tackled the problem of theory building in a number of suggestion about “the last”a theory of SLA needs to explain. He offered eight criteria for a comprehensive theory of SLA:
1. Account for universals.
2. Account for environmental factor.
3. Account for variability in age , acquisition rate, and proficiency level.
4. Explain both cognitive and affective factors.
5. Account for form-focused learning, not just subconscoius acquisition.
6. Account for other variables besides exposure and input.
7. Account for cognitive/innate factors which explain interlanguage systematicity.
8. Recognize that acquisition is not a steady accoumulation of generalization.
The process of theory building may be best explored in two ways.
First, we will take aquick look at some of the “hot topics” in current SLA reserch and theory, issues about which there is considerable disagreement.
Second way of looking at theory building consist of an examination of several models of SLA that have appeared in recent history, models that propose to Unify our thinking about SLA and resolve disageements.Those models correspond to schools of thought that have been emphasized thoughout the book : an innatists model,two Cognitive models, and a Social Constructivist view of SLA . As you read on look,back at Larsen –freeman´s and Long´s list here and decide for yourself the extent to wich each model fulfills the criteria.
Hot topic in SLA research
Our purpose in offering this outline of hot topic is to provide a quick set ofdefinition of some terms not yet specifically covered in previous chapters.Another is t review some terms already covered, but to bring them to the forefront since they areso crucial in understanding theoretical models of SLA.
Explicit | Implicit Learning |
Involves conscious awareness and intention Is input processing to fin out wheteher the input information contains regularities | It is occurs without intention to learn and without awareness of what has been learned.. |
Awareness learning: Learner are in intentional control of their attention to some aspect of input or output. | ||
Concious | VS | Subconcious |
Input | output |
Is simple process the process of comprehending language (listening and reading) | Is production (speaking and writing) |
Frecuency :Frecuency or the number of times a specific word , structure, or other defined element of language draws the attention of a learner. | It is important because if there is mayor frecuency the most probable there will be mayor acquisition. |
An Innatist Model: Krashen´s imput Hypothesis.
Acquisitiion –Learning Hypothesis
Monitor Hypothesis
Natural Order Hypothesis
Input Hypothesis
Affective Hypothesis
Cognitive Models:
Difference between :
Child /Adults | Problems with these appeal |
Children have a knack for pick up a language (subconcious) | 1- Consciousnessis a tricky term 2- Younger (child language acquisition)is not necessarily better |
MCLaughlin´s Attention- Processing Model-
Controlles Process are “capacity limited and temporary” and automatic process are”relatively permanent”
Implicit and Explicit Models
Another set of constructs for conceptualizing the varied processes of second language learning is found in models that make a distintion between explicit and implicit linguistics knowledge.
Explicit category are the facts that a person knows about language and the ability to articulate those facts in some way.
Explicit processing differs from McLaughlin´s focal attention in that explicit signals one´s knowledge about language.
Implicit knowledge is information that is automatically and spontaneosly used in language tasks. For example Children learn phonology, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic rules for language, but do not have access to an explanation, explicitly, of those rules. Implicit process enable a learner to perform language but not neccessarily to cite rules govering the performance.
A social Constructivist Model : Lons´s interaction Hypothesis
The social constructivism perspectives that are associated both more current approaches to both first and second language acquisition emphasize the dynamic nature of the interplay between learners and their peers and their teachers and others with whom they interact. The interpersonal context in which a learner operates takes on great significance, and therefore, the interaction between learners and others is the focus of observation and explanation.
One of the most widely discusses social constructivism positions in the field originally emerged from the work of Michael Long. Taking up where, in a sense, Krashen left off, Long posits, in what has come to be called the interaction hypothesis, that comprehensible input is the result of modified interaction. The latter is defined as the various that native speakers and other interlocutors create in order to render their input comprehensible to learners.
THEORIES AND MODELS OF SLA
Innatist | Cognitive | Constructivist | ||
Krashen Subconcious acquisition superior to learning and monitoring Comprehensible input (i + 1) | MCL aughlin/ Controlled /automatics processing (McL) -------Implicit vs. -----Unanalyzed vs. Form- focused instruction | Bialystok Explicit Analyzed knowledge | Swain Long interactions hypothesis Intake through social interaction Output hypothesis | Seliger HIG Authenticity Task-based instruction |
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