TEMA 2.

TEORÍAS GENERALES SOBRE EL APRENDIZAJE Y LA

ADQUISICIÓN DE UNA LENGUA EXTRANJERA. EL CONCEPTO DE
INTERLENGUA. EL TRATAMIENTO DEL ERROR.

0. INTRODUCTION
1. FOREIGN VS. SECOND LANGUAGE
2. GENERAL THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING
2.1 CHILDREN´S LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
2.2 ADULT´S LANGUAGE LEARNING

3. INTERLANGUAGE
4. ERROR TREATMENT
5. CONCLUSION
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. INTRODUCTION

(….) to be human is to use language, and to talk is to be a person (…) (Lewis Thomas,
The Lives of a Cell, 1974,p.89)

Language makes us human. Whatever we do, language is central to our lives.

Understanding language gives us insight into ourselves and a tool for investigation.
Language is defined as a structured system, which serves the purposes of being an
instrument for communication and social interaction. In this topic, we will be concerned
with how we learn languages. Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge, skills,
attitudes or values, through study, experience or teaching.

To understand the process occurring in language acquisition, it is important to recognise

the complex, lifelong process that we go through in acquiring our first language and the
parallel process that occur in second language acquisition.

First of all, we will have a look at the general theories about babies´ learning of their
L1. Then, we will review the main theories dealing with second language learning:
behaviourism and cognitivism.

In relation to this, we will also explain the concept of interlanguage and we will
comment on error treatment.

2. FOREIGN VS. SECOND LANGUAGE

Before explaining the main theories of Language Teaching and Learning, we should
draw a distinction between the following concepts: L1, L2 and Foreign Language.
The L1 (or mother tongue) is the language all speakers learn from their parents when
they are still children. Everybody has a high level of competence in this L1. It is
distinguished from any other language we may later acquire. These languages fall into 2
different categories: second language and foreign language. It is important to distinguish
these concepts, because the aims of students learning them are different, as well as the
methodology used for teaching them.

The Foreign Language is considered a normative language taught at school, with no

status as everyday means of communication in the country of the speaker. That is the
case of English in Spain. This is what we are dealing with.
A Second Language, on the other hand, is a non-native language widely used for
communication, education, business and so on, in the country of the speaker. That
would be the case of Spanish for a Catalan speaker.

One of the main differences when learning languages is the amount and kind of contact
the learner has with the language. Usually, they have much more contact with a L” than
with a FL, because the L” is often used in his or her community.

For that reason, most learners of L2 have some understanding and fluency in the L2,
even without any formal teaching. This knowledge is got through acquisition. On the
contrary, a learner of a FL has a very limited contact with the FL. Unless he or she goes
to the country where it is spoken, the contact is likely to be limited to class time; other
contacts such as TV, recordings, radio broadcasts or magazines require a voluntary
effort on the side of the learner. That is why most knowledge of a FL is got through
learning.

After this brief comment on a very important distinction, we will move on to the second
point of this topic.

2. GENERAL THEORIES ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING

2.1. CHILDREN´S LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The language follows many basic rules common to all tongues, even though the children
were not taught them.
It indicates some language traits are not passed on by culture, but instead arise due to
the innate way human beings process language.
Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University and author of a seminar book on the
acquisition and evolution of language - The Language Instinct - claims that children
have some sophisticated mechanisms of language analysis which give language many of
its distinctive qualities.

According to many experts, there are three main theories on how children acquire their
mother tongue:

(1) Imitation Theory. For a long time, it was though that children learnt their L1 by
imitating adults´ speech. But it proved untrue; usually, adults talk to small
babies and toddlers in a special kind of language, full of incorrect sentences and
words. In spite of this, children learn how to speak properly. Moreover, if this
were the case, the children would only be able to produce sentences which they
had previously heard, and this does not happen.
(2) Reinforcement Theory. From this point of view, children learn to produce
correct sentences because they are reinforced in a positive way when they say
something wrong. It does not seem to be the case, for different reasons: not all
 incorrect utterances said by children are reinforced; some of them, can even be
repeated by the family; if a child is corrected, but he or she does not understand
what is wrong, he or she will repeat the mistake.
(3) Creative construction theory. From this point of view, language acquisition is
a creative construction process: children have to construct all the rules of the
grammar of their languages. They can do it because they are equipped with a
LAD (Language Acquisition Device – concept introduced by Chomsky) which
allows them make hypothesis about the rules of the language, and test them
against adults´ speech. This explains the fact that children repeat some particular
errors at certain stages of development, because they reflect how their grammar
is at these stages.

2.2. ADULT LANGUAGE LEARNING

I think first of all we should ask ourselves the following question: What is learning?
The question seems simple enough. However, philosophically it is a very hard
question to answer, and this is why it has been a challenging topic for philosophers
for centuries. The schools of thought on the nature of learning have been many and
varied, but at the most basic level they differ on only a limited number of basic
questions. These are questions like: “How does learning occur?” “What are the
properties of knowledge?”…We will not try to provide a comprehensive overview
of all the views of learning and knowledge that can be found, but we will
concentrate on the dominant ideas and views of our century.

If we speak in very broad terms about the trends in the century, we can identify 2
main perspectives: behaviourism and cognitivism.

Behaviourism

This view was very dominant in the 50´s and 60´s and it is influenced by
Structuralism. For our purpose, the important aspect of behaviouristic theories is
that the learner is viewed as adapting to the environment and learning is seen as a
passive process in that there is no explicit interest in mental processes.

In their view, FLL is a process of creating correct linguistic habits in the FL, by
means of imitation, intensive practice and repetition. The process is seen as the
acquisition of any other habit: Stimulus → Response (reinforcement)

      The following are examples of practices in textbooks following this methodology:
a) Substitution
Basic sentence: I like apples. 
(Orange): I like oranges. 
(Tom): Tom likes oranges. 
b) Conversion 
Basic sentence: I like apples. 
(Question): Do you like apples?
(Yes): Yes, I do. I like apples. 
(No): No, I don’t. I don’t like apples. 
7
c) Expansion 
Basic sentence: I like apples. 
(Very much): I like apples very much. 

In   these   patterns,   stimulus­response   chains   are   central   to   the   practice.   As   for   the
Substitution  a), students  are asked to change  the subjects  and objects  following the
teacher’s instructions. Students also make questions and answers in Conversion b) to
make basic conversations, and in Expansion c), they are asked to add modifiers to the
basic pattern. 
The   reinforcement,   then,   plays   an   important   role,   and   errors   have   to   be   corrected
immediately in order to avoid incorrect habits.

One of the main concepts of this theory is transfer: the students try to apply to FL
structures which exist in the L1. If the FL structure is similar, the transfer is positive,
and learning occurs. 

Fortunately for Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs), there are many
similarities between English and Spanish. First of all, both languages use the Roman
alphabet. Secondly, 30% to 40% of all words in English have a related word in
Spanish. With similar sound, appearance, and meaning, these cognates help students
transfer that word knowledge into their second language. Thirdly, except for a
couple of word order exceptions (adjective before noun in English and noun before
adjective in Spanish), sentences in both languages have the same basic structures

But if the structures are different, the transfer becomes a problem. It is called
interference. That would be the case of the so well-known “false friends”. Perhaps
the greatest difference between English and Spanish is that Spanish has only five
vowels while English has more than 14. This is the reason Spanish speakers have
difficulty distinguishing between vowel phonemes in words like seat or sit.

Some other Spanish interference into English would be:

 Combinations in Spanish that are pronounce differently: que, qui,

güe, güi. For example the u is not pronounced unless it is written as
ü; therefore, students may not be sure how to pronounce words like
queen, quiet, or quick.

 The use of quotation marks: "Come here," he said. –Ven aquí–le dijo
 There are also some differences in question and sentence structures
between both languages.

Question Do you want to go to the movies tonight?

markers ¿Quieres ir al cine esta noche?
(Spanish speakers will likely leave out do)
 Adjective-Nouns white horse
caballo blanco (horse white)
(Spanish speakers will often use the adjective after the
noun)

One of the main aims of this theory is to eliminate interference by means of negative
reinforcement.

This theory has received 3 main criticisms:

 Not all the errors can be predicted. In fact, some errors made by students with
different L1, which indicates that they are no the result of a negative transfer.

 Learners are able to cope with structures they have never practised
 This model is very different to the accepted model to children´s language
learning.

Cognitivism

This model has developed since the 70,s and as opposed to behaviourism, knowledge
acquisition is measured by what learners know, not necessarily what they do.

The learner is viewed as an active participant in the knowledge acquisition process. In

addition, instructional material that utilizes demonstrations, illustrative examples and
corrective feedback are helpful in providing mental models that the learner can follow.

The use of feedback to guide and support the learner to create accurate mental
connections is a key component in the cognitive theory.

Now I wish to turn to a highly influential and controversial account of second

language learning, which is based on the idea that second language learning is very
similar to the learning of a first language. The account has been put forward in it
fullest form by the American language teacher, Stephen Krashen.

Krashen sees five fundamental points - which he calls hypotheses - as the basis for
his language teaching method. These are :

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Krashen makes a distinction between what he calls acquisition of a language - which is

much the same as the process by which a child learns his first language - and learning,
which is the procedure employed in most traditional classrooms. Acquisition is a
relatively painless process. The child hears language all around him, and unconsciously
works out the grammar. This he can do because he is equipped with an LAD.
Learning, on the other hand, is a conscious process, requiring effort specifically directed
towards analysing the target language. This is what we do in grammar lessons, and
Krashen appears to be thinking mainly of grammar when he refers to

Some Techniques used during acquisition activities would be:

 a) Affective-Humanistic activities

 dialogues – short and useful - 'open' dialogues

 interviews – pairwork on personal information

 personal charts and tables

 preference ranking – opinion polls on favourite activities etc

 revealing information about yourself – e.g. what I had for breakfast

 activating the imagination – e.g. give Napoleon advice about his Russian
campaign

b) Problem-solving activities

 task and series – e.g. components of an activity such as washing the car
 charts, graphs, maps – e.g. busfares, finding the way

 developing speech for particular occasions – e.g. What do you say if …

 advertisements

c) Games, e.g. What is strange about … a bird swimming?'

d) Content activities, e.g. academic subject matter such as maths

Now, according to Krashen, one can only be said to master a language when it has
been acquired. Formal learning may give us the rules of grammar, but it does not
mean that we will use them correctly. He points to the fact that students may score
well on formal grammar tests, but, when they are concentrating on content rather
than form, make mistakes that they do not make in the tests.

2. The Natural Order Hypothesis

The second point is that learners make mistakes, and that these mistakes are a necessary
part of language learning. These mistakes are not random, but are very similar to
the errors that children make when learning their first language. If we follow the
mistakes that students make through time, we will see that they lie in a rough sequence.

Moreover, the sequence of errors for acquired language is not the same as the sequence
of learned grammar points - some grammatical morphemes which appear simple from
the learning point of view, are in fact acquired late - the 's' of the TPS. This, according
to Krashen, indicates that there is a natural order in which learners pick up a
language - and that this order is roughly the same for all learners, no matter what their
linguistic background.

3. The Monitor Hypothesis

Krashen does not think that formal grammar teaching is entirely pointless. The formal
rule system feeds in to what he calls the Monitor - we may think of this as a minute
grammar teacher that sits inside our brains and listens to what we say, or reads what we
write and yells out whenever he hears a mistake.

The Monitor is a dangerous ally - some people over-use it, and their speech becomes
slow, and hesitant - their interlocutors are likely to give up on them, and go and talk to
somebody else. This, as we shall see, is important, because a language learner needs
to hear a lot of language from native speakers.

The Monitor is best used when we have to be very careful - when language is
necessarily formal. This is obviously the case when writing letters of application, for
example, or when speaking to a hierarchical superior in a formal situation.

4. The Input Hypothesis

Starting from the observation that in what he calls Natural language learning
conditions, people often go through a silent period, when they observe and listen - this
appears to be true of the baby, for example, but is also true of adult learners in the
Amazon basin - he believes that it is not language use which is the key variable in
acquisition, but language input - what the learner hears and reads.

The most useful form of input has to be understandable - this does not mean that it has
to be one hundred per cent clear; in fact it should be just a little beyond the learner's
present capacity. If it is too far beyond, the learner will not pay attention to the input,
and if it is not far enough, the learner will learn nothing.

In the beginning of a lesson, learners need comprehensible input within their linguistic
comfort zone; as a lesson unfolds, they need to begin experiencing inpujt slightly
beyond what they themselves can produce. This is referred to as “input + one”. The
more demanding the language becomes, the more necessary contextual aids will be
required. Some of these aids include:

 Using contextual clues such as visual or tactile material, acting out words,
making drawings, using key words or using graphic organizers.
 Modifying the linguistic output by accentuating key vocabulary,
emphasizing and pausing where needed, using cognates, controlling the use
of idiomatic expressions and introducing gradually sophisticated vocabulary
for the same concept.

 Checking frequently for understanding

 5. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

One barrier to learning is to be found in any negative feelings that the learner may have
about the language, the method used, the institution or the teacher. These feelings may
constitute a kind of filter, which keeps the input out. It is therefore part of the teacher's
job to make language learning as free of stress and as enjoyable an experience as
possible.

Traditional language classrooms are often highly stressful places - pressure is put upon
pupils to produce language even when they do not feel ready to do so, or when they feel
they have no particular reason to say anything.The work itself must also bring
satisfaction. Clearly defined tasks, which are both interesting and sufficiently
challenging to give the child the sentiment that s/he is making progress, are of the
utmost importance.

Opportunity for meaningful communication is also necessary. At best, this should

include exchanges with schools in English-speaking countries - and language teachers
should be willing to use such technology as the Internet. As a minimum, it should
involve role-play, group problem solving and well-structured discussions.

Teachers can make a difference in motivation, in anxiety levels and in the self-
image of the student. Respect your pupils, listen to them, and take note of what they
say. They will respond more efficiently to your teaching.

3. INTERLANGUAGE

While learning a second language, learners build up a system for themselves which
is different in some ways from their first language and second language systems.
Selinker (1974) calls this system Interlanguage.

According to him, Interlanguage has two characteristics: silent periods and

fossilization.

During the silent periods, the students seem not to use the language, so it seems
that he/she is not progressing. However, the teacher may use activities aimed to test
the students’ comprehension of the language more than the production.

For example, the teacher might say “stand” and would stand up to show what the word
meant. Then they might say “sit” and would then sit down to model the command. Next,
the teacher works the commands together with the whole class. The teacher would say
stand again and again would model the command. This time, students would also stand.
Once students were responding confidently, the teacher would move on the next step.
This time, one or more students would be given commands but the teacher would not
model. This phase tests the students’ comprehension of the language.

Fossilizations, on the other hand, refers to the fact that some rules of L1 continue to be
used in FL although the speaker has already built the correct rule in FL. Some examples
of it would be:
  at the phonetic level, for example, learners of English, after having learnt to
master the English 'r', may take to placing it at the end of words, whereas in RP
it is not pronounced.

 at the grammatical level, a learner in the early stages may use nothing but the
present tense. Later, there may be extensive, non-native use of 'be - ing' forms of
the verb.
 at the lexical level - learners tend to use base terms and to stretch them - thus a
'goose' might be referred to as a 'chicken', or a teaspoon may be a 'little spoon'.
 at the level of discourse, lexical items and expressions may be used in
inappropriate social contexts.

4. ERROR TREATMENT

How do teachers actually treat errors? In fact, there is considerable variation from one
teacher to another, and also the treatment of error by any one teacher may vary from one
moment to the next.

Studies of what teachers do have shown that very often they are inconsistent. Also,
some errors are more likely to be treated than others - discourse, content and lexical
errors receive more attention than phonological or grammatical errors - and here there is
variation between native and non-native-speaker teachers. Many errors are not treated
at all.

Another question is 'Who does the repairing?'. In natural settings, there is a preference
for self-initiated and self-completed repair. However, in the classroom, it is the teacher
who initiates repair - at least during the language-centred phase - while he expects the
student or one of his peers to produce the correct form.

Error treatment seems to have little immediate effect upon student production - thus the
teacher may correct an error made by student A to have student B make exactly the
same error five minutes later - and hear student A do it again before the end of the
lesson!

Some experts - Krashen among them - have deduced that this suggests that
correction is a pointless exercise.

Another point to take into account would be: What about students' attitudes to error
correction? In the main they say that they want to be corrected, both in the classroom,
and in conversation with native speakers. However, when they are taken at their
word, they feel uncomfortable with the resulting style of discourse.

Most important, remember that the students errors are a precious resource for the
teacher, which inform her about the state of her pupils' interlanguage. This is why it so
important to avoid negative marking, where the student simply learns that if he makes
an error he will lose points.
Teachers have a responsibility to support learners do their best to overcome the error
and sometimes they need to draw the learners attention to persistent errors.
(Lightbown and Spada1999) The first step to deal with an error is to distinguish which
category it belongs to. If it is a developmental error, it will not be necessary to correct it.
In case the error is a transfer one, whether to correct it or not depends on many different
factors. Transfer errors might be repeated and the teacher needs to take different factors
into account for making the right decision whether to correct them or not. If a transfer
error occurs immediately after a new lesson is given, it can simply be ignored because
learners need enough time to be able to use that form correctly. However, if it has been
repeated for a long time, it might be a good idea to explain about the transfer form L1 to
L2 to the learners as a means of awareness-rising. Moreover, providing learners more
practice on that specific area can help learners to get a hang of it.

 Different error-correction techniques:

There are many different error-correction techniques, some of them I am going to define
briefly here:

1. Explicit correction: The teacher clearly indicates the error and provides the
correct from.

S: ‘ How many sugar is there?’

T: ‘Not how many, ‘ how much sugar is there?’

2. Recast correction: Without directly indication the incorrect utterance, the

teacher implicitly reformulated the learner’s error or provides the correct form.

(Lightbown and Spada1999)

S: ‘ How many sugar is there?’

T:’ How much sugar is there?’

3. Clarification request: the teacher indicates that the message is not understood
or it contains an error and inquires reformulation (ibid) by saying ‘I don’t
understand what you mean’ or ‘Excuse me’.

T: ‘ Would you like tea?’

S: ‘ Thank you.’

T: ‘ Excuse me, I don’t know if you want tea or not yet.’

4. Elicitation: The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the learner by
asking a question such as ‘How do we say it in English?’ and pauses to give the
learner wait-time to correct their own sentences. (ibid)

T: ‘Would you like tea?’

 S: ‘ Thank you.’

T: ‘ That is how we answer in Farsi, but how do we say it in English?’

5. Repetition: The teacher repeats the error and adjusts to complete their
intonation to draw learners’ attention to it.

S:’ I have been to china last year.’

T: ‘ I have been to china last year.

According to Brown ‘feedback has to genuinely responsive’: It means to let learners

experience the result of what they produce as a guide… in their future efforts.’
(1988:16) Giving feedback to learners’ might look easy but it is much more
complex.

Teachers’ behaviour specifically while correcting errors is a very sensitive part of

our job. Before deciding how to correct an error, we need to take into account that at
what cost is the correction going to take place. Most teachers would perhaps agree
that correcting an error is not worth at the cost of ruining their motivation. Both
teachers’ verbal and non-verbal behaviour at the time of correction errors are
crucially important in how the learner is going to react to it.

5. CONCLUSION

All through this topic we have been looking at Krashen's natural order hypothesis,
which holds that the grammar of a second language is learnt in a specific order,
whatever the learner's L1.

We have seen that there is some reason to believe that intralinguistic effects do occur,
and that there may well be some kind of a predictable sequence to the learning of a
specific L2. However, we have also noted that L1 does have some effects upon the
acquisition of the L2 - these effects are both positive and negative - some errors do arise
from interference.

We have looked at the concept of interlanguage, which sees learners as constructing

their own grammatical systems. The learner progresses through employing a number of
different strategies, some of which are based upon her L1.

We have also seen that learners of a second language tend to fossilize. They may be
partially fossilized, retaining certain errors while progressing in other ways.

We have seen that the sociological situation of the learner and of the learner's
community in relation to the community that speaks the L2 can have a significant effect
on language learning.
Within a school system the amount of motivation that children bring into the classroom
with them is highly variable. It depends both on age and on family background factors.
Younger children may be less firm in their cultural and national identities than are
adolescents, and therefore keener to open themselves to other cultures. Middle class
parents may encourage their children to learn a foreign language more, seeing the need
more clearly, and also accompanying their children on visits to foreign countries, or
paying for them to take part in exchange visits and so on.

Regardless of preferences for behaviourist or cognitive, we are responsible for our

students´ learning process and the more number of varied strategies we use, the more
able we will be to help our students.

Useful links

http://www.uib.no/People/sinia/CSCL/web_struktur-4.htm

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/planning1.shtml

http://www.its-teachers.com/reflections/blast-past.asp

http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/CM/OldLectures/L12_
Krashen_Review.htm

http://bubl.ac.uk/link/e/englishlanguageresearch.htm

http://www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/essays/Dawson2.pdf

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/med-magazine/December2002/03-language-
interference-false-friends.htm

http://maxpages.com/thena/Treatment_of_Errors