General Remarks on Second Language Acquisition

Adam Borowski, Poland

Adam Borowski studies English philology at the University of Warsaw. He participated in the ''NLP for teachers'' course in 2007, conducted by Bonnie Tsai. He successfully completed a monthly course at London School of Journalism in 2009.
E-mail: tethoril@interia.pl

Menu

Introduction
Background
Examples
Conclusions
References

Instead, students put teachers on the defensive, and the process of L2 acquisition is seriously impaired as the students who have a lot of target language experience are either ignored or their role minimized. This is an example I witnessed myself, when I observed a class where native English speakers were told to practice their grammar by a non-native teacher whose skills were acceptable at best – rather than helping their non-native friends.

Introduction

Second language is a vague concept. On the surface, it denotes a superimposition of L1 patterns upon L2. According to that paradigm, the way we perceive the world and the way we learn other languages will always reflect the way our native language has formed (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)1.

Sapir-Whorf posit linguistic relativity but do not seem to accept the fact that one can alter one’s native perception. I disagree with that approach. I believe that – if sufficient amount of intellectual capacity is involved – one can easily transcend the limitations imposed by L1 – the simplest way of defeating the hypothesis is bilingualism, whereby a child is raised with two (perhaps more) languages.

Background

First language does not necessarily mean the dominant language. The world is far too complex to compartmentalize linguistic competence by applying rigid criteria. It is easy to notice that modern educational system – the mainstream version of it at least – does not accept the possibility that an individual can become as proficient in L2 as they are in L1. However, given our complex global milieu where information is constantly exchanged, such notion is by no means a chimera.

Examples

Let us focus on English. It is fair to state that this is the lingua franca of the modern world. Thus, the number of non-native speakers clearly exceeds that of native ones. In other words, native speakers of English have lost their right to decide what is correct/incorrect, as even within the language itself (see Anglosphere) there are too many subdivisions to ascertain anything and set it in stone (in England alone there are approximately twenty seven thousand recorded accents – many were rendered extant thanks to inquisitive spirit of the BBC journalists, going from place to place recording people's voices).

This is one of the reasons that English does not have any official supervisory body, contrary to the case of – among many other languages – French and Polish (‘substandard/non-standard’ language varieties (patois, lingo, jargon, dialect, idiolect, slang, arcane, et al.) versus ‘educated’ varieties – for example Hochdeutsch, RP, General American, Standard Spanish, etc).

Mainstream education system is tailored to serve the ones that – overwhelmingly - do not have high intellectual capacity. If we understand intelligence as the ability to observe various patterns, draw conclusions from these patterns, and then apply these conclusions in practice, then it becomes obvious as to why intelligence is an essential tool in language learning. The sad fact of life is that ’average’ students are not going to attain the level of linguistic awareness accessible to the gifted.

Highly intelligent children that learn another language tend to be more sensitive in pattern discernment and this helps them with acquiring proper pronunciation/grammar and a wide vocabulary range. Moreover, they are capable of producing valid lexical items just by analyzing the linguistic blueprint

However, some stumbling blocks remain. Depending on one’s background and target language, a certain emotional charge can be involved. This can be due to association that student makes with L2 (considers it to be more useful than his L1 or considers it to be a representative of cultural environment that he dislikes). Modern education does not address the problem of ‘emotional charge’ properly, which results in impaired learning. Too many teachers conveniently ignore certain issues associated with language teaching, hoping they will just ‘fade away’.

Conclusions

Language teaching is relative in nature. Contrary to math where one’s abilities can be tested regardless of cultural background/et al., language is inextricably intertwined with person in question. If a teacher of English has a group of more talented students in his/her class, they are rarely ’utilized’ as they should be. Often they do nothing; this might stem from the fact that in today’s globalized world many children come from mixed marriages/lived in an English-speaking country/environment and their linguistic competence is higher than that of the teacher (nativization) . Again, many teachers fail to keep up with the ever-changing world around them.

Instead, students put teachers on the defensive, and the process of L2 acquisition is seriously impaired as the students who have a lot of target language experience are either ignored or their role minimized. This is an example I witnessed myself, when I observed a class where native English speakers were told to practice their grammar by a non-native teacher whose skills were acceptable at best – rather than helping their non-native friends.

To recap, many teachers choose the easy way: they do not want to apply themselves if they see a gifted student and help this student transcend the own limitations of L2. And that is the main reason why modern mainstream education will continue to lag behind the gifted.

To sum it all up, we need to remain practical. Motivation is an important factor, but its taste becomes rather sour if there's no financial incentive involved. We, as teachers, may not like this, but the ''real world'' does not suffer idealists gladly. And language is very much an expression of that ''real world'' , where tacit knowledge will always take precedence over strictly academic discourse. Unless you want your students to sound as if they were using ''Chaucerian'' English, that is.

References

www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html

Please check the Train the Trainer course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.