Language Acquisition and Skills: On Reading

Consuela Popa, Romania

Consuela Popa is an English teacher. In the past she used to teach English and French. She has taught in state schools, high schools and secondary schools, at all levels, and different profiles. She is interested in linguistic research, cultural studies and writing in English and in the study of other languages: French, Spanish. Christian theology, sociology, psychology are her other fields of interest. She cherishes a lot the opportunity of writing for HLT, since the attitudes and values discovered this way help grow and feed the spirit. As artists, linguists should be aware of the fact that interdisciplinary aspects are unavoidable and that we should touch a variety of fields through our writing. E-mail: konskris2001@yahoo.com

Language acquisition is, not only in theory, but also at a factual level, a supernatural, divine process to my mind. And I am sure than any researcher, theorist, applied linguist, or just a devoted practicing teacher in class, recognize the existence and force of this concept.

Language acquisition is, like it has been said before by linguists observing and studying the process of acquiring and learning languages, comparable to what the first language, or mother language acquisition is to children. Some people might consider this similarity of phenomena between subjects (children acquiring their first language and second language learners acquiring a foreign language), as a law of nature, while others might choose to strike a balance between the concepts of natural mother language acquisition and foreign language acquisition, through the exposure to language principle, and through the “learning” component, or monitoring function that intervenes throughout the process, thus, also differentiating these issues a bit. Along their way, children using their mother language will as well, sooner or later, use the “learning” component, monitoring function or the “editing” function, as they will progress through the proper using of their skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing). Subjects who “learn” either their first languages, either foreign languages, will have as a basis the acquisition fundamental, while also, along the process, advancing in their language awareness and skills through the learning or monitoring components, or better said, “polished language” components, towards becoming more skilled and conscious language producers.

When mentioning above the subjects of language exposure, respectively children acquiring and using their first languages and foreign language learners, some thoughts crossed my mind. Let us consider subjects using their mother tongues first. The process comes naturally. Parents and family repeating words or whispering songs and phrases, to their children will, consciously or not, (as they “cuddle” words, while caressing and cuddling their children) envelop their verbal and non-verbal, associated, communication, with a strong affective cover or shield, but also, little by little, they will use the monitoring function, as they will say again, come back and express differently, mend their speaking through various versions of expression, thus, expanding the universe of those acquirers exposed to language. Starting from such incipient levels such as early infancy, childhood, (and here we can have kindergarten level, or elementary school) and moving on towards more advanced stages of language use, the monitoring, editing, or learning component function will evolve from simple, game-like repetitions and corrections, to words expressing, parts of sentences, more complex utterances.

Willingly or not, the speakers will have their attention drawn onto these more complex constructions that will develop for them, and they will, in one way or another, be forced to raise their language awareness, on an intimate, conscious, intellectual level, as well as on an outwardly manifested level, and more or less, every language acquirer will, during the increasing of their language level, as they use and produce more elaborate stretches of language and constructions, become their own “monitors”, making recourse to notions from the language study sphere, like sounds, from the phonetics domain, or verbs, nouns, word order, from the grammar sphere.

Even while producing language orally, or even in the most communicative and grammar-free, or language-study free language instruction programme and approach, the speaker will still need to monitor its production and will ask himself, eventually, about the proper use of one word or another, about sentence order and word order, about the nature of some words and the role of some utterance parts within the whole construction. Thus, the world of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives (qualities) properly named in grammar terms, or language study terminology, and everything that springs from there, syntax, etc, opens up for language producers. This world will remain as a tool in language instruction programmes, a tool more or less agreeable, or “pleasurably digested” for them, or will evolve, for those language specialists interested in having the domain of language study as a focus, into a world that deserves careful observation. Some other learners are exclusively passionate about communicating and fluently using the language in case, absorbing everything they hear with ever increasing hunger, besides being, of course, naturally endowed with a gift and ability for the languages in case. These language learners and users acquire language in the best way through maximum of language exposure. Other language learners will learn quite well the foreign languages in language learning environments that might use both maximum exposure to language means and language study programmes, practice, modern and old, mixed, methods, while at the same time willing (because of their language learner profile or personality type), to have some more answers on language study, to scholastically approach some linguistic aspects, to dissect more on theoretical issues.

Among all skills, special attention was given to reading, which is known as an accompanying tool in fostering good language acquisition. And not to just any type of reading, but to reading for pleasure. Of course, that type of reading which is imposed, and already exists in training programmes because it had been recommended through motivated research in the filed, can sometimes be against the particular taste of one learner or another, but can still help a lot. It is not the purpose of this article to delve into the subject of the types of reading within the instructional programmes, but I will certainly approach this subject in a future contribution.

Reading for pleasure is known to have had the greatest benefits upon language acquirers. We can see reading for pleasure from two perspectives as teachers: we can perceive reading as an important tool in incipient learning programmes, when we read to our young learners, to children (this can be done as well to older learners, however) in an unthreatening atmosphere, in class, different stories, passages, some of their own choices, some others of our own choices. We can stir their enthusiasm in ways that we could have never imagined, and we can make them enjoy what they hear, not only the message and the entertaining adventures in the stories, but also the sound of English in this exciting “nodding by the fire”, and cosy, but English, atmosphere. At incipient level, when our students do not really possess the necessary grammar or lexical skills in order to read alone, listening for pleasure and then interacting to guess and explain meaning, makes language acquisition and discovery efficient.

At further on levels, when our students are supposed to have reached a certain level in their English, and they possess the necessary language amount and lexical, as well as discourse confidence so as to be able to read more genuine and complex texts of their own choice by themselves, reading for pleasure by themselves, such as reading alone at home, at the school library, and bedtime reading also open up unimaginable universes for language progress and literacy development. Not only do they absorb, like a sponge, the flow of language that they read, and consciously or less consciously, they “acquire” new words, expressions, etc, but they also “polish” their language in an unthreatening and unhindering atmosphere.

I do not deny the huge benefits of error-correction done by the teacher by this previous statement, which must be done in a masterful way by any teacher who attempts to be successful in training his students. Error-correction, which is a part of the feed-back process in the learning process that has utmost importance, is not attacked by me in the previous statement, but I merely state that for some pupils in certain environments, and under certain conditions, the error-correction phase does not make them feel comfortable, and for all the teacher effort in class and outside class, they still have a phobia about being corrected regarding their stream of speech, reading, etc. I do not mean here, correction by the teacher during the process of reading, because methodology has long stated that feed back should be gentle and should not interrupt, as much as possible, their attempts, their utterance flow, etc, but should be given later on, with responsibility and accuracy, within the session. I speak about that feed-back which is given normally by the teacher, and nothing goes wrong at the level of organizing this type of class, because it is done properly and we cannot find any teacher’s fault. But this type of feed-back however, fails to build some learners` confidence and fails to cure their phobias and shyness.

In such situations, it is precisely the benefit of reading for pleasure which can bring about the readers` confidence throughout the process, and can make them comfortable about the new things that they discover and about their own gaps, since they do reading alone, unhindered by group or class dynamics if they are more individualist and difficult, and unhindered, at the subconscious level, by the teacher’s explanations and feed-back/correction.

Since their desire of reading for pleasure might have been triggered by things they were interested in, by a desire to “dig in” and discover new topics that are on trend, or fascinating subjects from various fields that are the day’s topic, like science or science fiction, or opposed subjects even , like romance issues, literature, old or modern, their reading will be, in consequence, extremely personalized, they will have the ability to discover, to search for themselves the new words they encounter, to reflect on the new expressions they encounter, to immerse within the language flow that they are exposed to, through individual pleasure reading at home, before going to sleep, in relaxed circumstances, etc.

Such casual encounter with literature to which they are exposed freely, is actually one encounter that might be the strongest incentive towards language development and confidence for them. There is no time pressure, no stress concerning any official requirements which have to be solved in a certain way, and thus, nothing intervenes during reading, during the exposure to language and information that our students are subject to. Tasks are not a factor which interrupts their reading and their free and pleasurable discovering of new information, and they have no “indirect suggestion” or preconceived, prefabricated ideas, as those coming from the task questions or requirements at this point. They can only bring their own imagination, desire for searching up things for themselves and according to their interest, and previous schemata regarding related knowledge on the topics they read. It is the most personalized method of individual exposure and instruction, we could say, when we refer to reading for pleasure or free choice, voluntary reading.

Reading for pleasure can be used in humanistic type of education, and students should be educated to gain those attitudes that will make them understand that abandoning themselves to pleasurable reading and to individualized, personalized reading activities (while they try to understand and deepen the knowledge of what they have been voluntarily exposed to), will shape them into making language acquisition/learning an easy process, a natural one. Through such everyday (reading) habits, the acquired language becomes a second nature, built upon the fundamentals of “the path of pleasure”. As language theorists and applied linguists such as Stephen Krashen have argued, taking after some spiritual life sayings, that there are two ways of advancing, through the path of pleasure and the path of pain, we know that in language learning only the path of pleasure works.

Finding a logical link to humanistic language teaching, affect and positive personal experience as humanistic “ingredients”, or key concepts, must be used in order to acquire and learn language in the best possible atmosphere. Drawing out a meaning out of each personal experience, bad or good, and through reflection and internalizing, being determined to self-educate themselves for language progress and to decide what was wrongly approached and practiced and brought about lack of interest, boredom and failure even, in language learning, and what was good, would be one discipline or responsibility that learners should be educated to acquire and master, if they wish to learn proficiently and efficiently. The withdrawal path, that of pleasure, of individual pleasurable approach, is the one that helps learners and readers, in this case, realize many aspects about themselves and be able to deal with their own abilities outside the instructional frame, not only inside it. Language acquisition through pleasure reading becomes a way of life.

Pleasure reading enhances creativity, more than any other imposed instructional language session or programme. Reading as a skill has, of course, numerous implications in terms of improvements in language mastery that are generated, and these improvements can be understood as improvements in the acquisition of other skills, such as speaking, writing, listening; the improvements in other skills come as associated effects. But creativity is one vital ingredient which is innate, and can at the same time be raised through a process of education. Students` awareness of creativity can be raised so that they should really know what creativity means, and its immense value. Creativity can be cultivated in many ways, but reading fascinating and “rich” fragments brings about an easiness in producing creative pieces of writing, as well as easiness in speaking, and an improvement in listening comprehension skills. Reading is a classical and reputed method, the most cultured one which helps us become full, accomplished language speakers, writers. Reading enhances fluency, and not only does it make us a lot more confident in speaking, but it gives us interesting ideas, our imagination is enhanced.

Also pleasure reading means that another important aspect in our language acquisition and learning process comes in the foreground: learner autonomy. As language learners, through pleasurable, individual learning, we get to know more about our own profile as learners, we get to know which are the things that make us “tick”, and most importantly, it builds us from every point of view, like the ones I have enumerated above, skills and creativity. The end results are fluency, literacy, erudite profile/raised cultural level.

References

Krashen, Stephen, D. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, Prentice Hall International, 1987

Krashen, Stephen, D. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Prentice-Hall International, 1988

Krashen, S (1985). The Input Hypothesis: issues and implications. Longman, New York

Lambert, W.E (1972), Language, Psychology and Culture, Stanford, UP

Harmer, Jeremy, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Pearson Longman, fourth edition

Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Literature course at Pilgrims website.