First Language Acquisition

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FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

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Pre Questions

• What is your first language?• How do you learn your first language?

• Remember!! First not foreign



Definition

• is the process which human acquire language to be comprehence in using words or sentences to communicate



How did you learn your L1?

• - Babbling (sound production)– One word stage (at about 12 months, the

children can speak name people or object, the entire sentence is one word)

– Two words stage (Approximately 18-24 months, Use consistent set of word orders: N-V, A-N, V-N)

– Phrases– Sentences



Theory of L1 Acquisition

• a) Behavior Approach• b) Nativist Approach• c) Functional Approach



Behavior Approach

• This theory was popular in 1950s and 1960s by B.F. Skinner.

• This theory explains that children learns their first language from other human behaviour. There are four steps:

• - Stimulus (lang. Input)Organism(the learners) Response (imitation)



• Four steps for a child acquires his/her first language :

• Imitation Reinforcement Repetition Habituation

For reinforcement, there are two possible effects: Positive reinforcement (a prise) and negative reinforcement (correction)

For habituation ,there are also two possible effects : Good habit and bad habit



The Advantages and Disadvantages of Behavior approach

• Advantage:– Observable, empirical, descriptive

• Disadvantage:– Not linear. What about imitation, creativity, &

interaction?



Nativist Approach

• That children’s ability to learn their first language is “innate” (Chomsky,1965)

• Learning first language through nativist approach :– Innate predispositions (LAD)– Systematic– Creative construction– Universal grammar

• Chomsky’s term for the abstract principles that comprise a child’s innate knowledge of language and that guide LA



Advantage and Disadvantage of Nativist Approach

• Advantage:– Explanatory, especially unobservable

language development– Construct common phenomena among

languages

• Disadvantage:– no explanation on function of meaning

constructed from social interaction



Functional Approach

• Functionalists (Bloom, 1971; Piaget)

• Children can learn a language successfully for the reason that they realize language could help do things.

– Constructivist – Social interaction– Cognition and language – Functions of language– Discourse: looking for cues



Some Issues in First Language Acquisition



Competence and Performance

• competence as an idealized capacity that is located as a psychological or mental

property or function and performance as the production of actual utterances

By:chomsky



Comprehension and Production

• Comprehension and production can be aspects of both performance and competence. One of the myths that has crept into some foreign language teaching materials is that comprehension (listening, reading) can be equated with competence, while production (speaking, writing) is performance.



Nature or Nurture??

• Nature : human is born with basic communicatory devices but Tabula rasa (the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions)

• Nurture : by using the devices a human is born with one can be acculturated and learn to communicate with those around them



Universals

• Closely related to the innateness controversy is the claim that language is universally acquired in the same manner, and moreover that the deep structure of language at its deepest level may be common to all languages.



Systematicity and Variability

• One assumption of current research on child language is the systematicity of the process of acquisition. Eversince Berko’s(1958)

• In the midst of all this systematicity, there is an equally remarkable amount of variability in the process of learning!



Language and Thought

• Thought and language were seen as two distinct cognitive operations that grow together. (schinke-liano,1993)

• The issue at stake in child language acquisition is to :

a) determine how thought affect language

b) how language affect thought

c) how linguistics can best describe and account for the interaction of the two



Imitation

• It is common informal observation that children are good imitator. Imitation is one of the important strategies a child use in the acquisition of language.



Practice and Frequency

• A behavior model of the first language acquisition would claim that practice- repetition and association- is the key to formation of habits by operant the conditioning.



Input

• The speech that young children hear is primarily the speech heard in the home, and much of that speech is parental speech or the speech of older siblings.



Discourse

• In order for successful first language acquisition to take place, interaction, rather than exposure, is required; children do not learn language from over hearing the conversations of others.



First Language Acquisition Insights Applied to Language Teaching

Francoin Gouin

“Language Learning is primarily a matter of transforming perception into conception”

Series Method



The principals of Series Method

1. Learners are taught directly (No Translation)

2. Learners are taught conceptually (No grammer rules and explanation)



Maximilian Berlitz

“Second language learning should be more like first language learning”

Direct Method



The Principals of Direct Method

1. Classroom instruction was conducted in Target Language.

2. Learners are taught only everyday vocabulary. – Concrete vocabulary by demonstration– Abstract vocabulary by association of ideas

3. Learners are taught Grammar inductively.

4. Learners are taught both speech and listening comprehension.


First Language Acquisition

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