Second

Language Acquisition Age, Aptitude, and Other Things by: Putri Lamubra Bara Rizka Hartati
(Group 5 Putri & Rizka)

Presented

Age is not a stand-alone for factor influencing second language acquisition but merely one of a cluster of contextual and developmental factors that may make acquisition more difficult for mature learners.

(Group 5 Putri & Rizka)

Language learning involve biological, psychological and social factors. Biological factors are the mechanisms every body make us of, they are general cognitive procedures. Psychology more concerned with individual differences we are interested in. Social factors, clearly external, contextual features.

(Group 5 Putri & Rizka)

Age and L2 acquisition Some Substantive Findings :

Adults and teenies learn more quickly than the kids, specifically in morpho-syntax and in vocabulary acquisition Given similar conditions, however, the kids will soon overtake both groups in terms of ultimate attainment. Some studies support the notion of a critical age for morphosyntactic learning. Kids and teenies seem to be better to imitate than adults. Person who contact L2 as kids or teenies are more likely to develop good pronunciation and suprasegmental skills. Moreover, in terms of ultimate achievement: the earlier you start, the better. This has led to the Critical-Age Hypothesis (may be age 6) for oral production. However, other studies suggest that adults certainly can achieve near-native oral skills. The evidence therefore suggests a sensitive, rather than a critical age for production skills. Communicative fluency tends to co-vary with length of contact, but accuracy doesnt
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The term critical age for language acquisition refers to a period of time when learning a language is easy and typically meets with a high degree of success. Once this period is over, at or before the onset of puberty, the average learner is less likely to achieve native like ability in the target language.

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There are four types of explanation available, which may well overlap. In other words, they are mutually exclusive. They are: 1. The neurological 2. The cognitive-developmental explanation 3. The modified input explanation 4. The social environmental explanation.

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1.

2.

The neurological It invokes a biological development called lateralization whereby the two hemispheres of the brain begin to take over specific jobs. Before this period of lateralization, the brains workings are apparently much more flexible and diffuse. Cognitive-developmental Once this cognitive development has been achieved, then it is not possible to go through the same language learning steps once more, because cognitive and conceptual structure already exist.
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3.

4.

The modified input Children certainly up to the age of six are addressed in particular way, they are talked to using a particular register, and this might make it particularly easy for them to perceive, notice, imitate, memorize and learn relevant features of that input. The social environmental There is the social or environmental explanation, which says that children are not yet as tied into the surrounding social system. School and society have not yet labelled and classified them, and put them into appropriate little drawers
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Basic question: Why do some learners learn a second/foreign language quickly while others with the same opportunities fail? SLA acknowledge that there are individual differences in L2 acquisition. These differences are psychological. Ellis (1985) categorized these differences into: personal and general factors.

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Language aptitude refers to the potential that a person has for learning languages. It is a natural ability for learning an L2. Aptitude marks the degree to which you are likely to be relatively successful in learning a second or foreign language.

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1.

Phonetic/phonemic coding ability

2.
3. 4.

Grammatical sensitivity
Rote learning ability Inductive learning ability

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Carroll argues that aptitude can be taken as a capacity that enhances the rate and ease of learning. Aptitude tests therefore provide a prediction of rate of learning.

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Cognitive/ Academic Language Proficiency C A L P

As opposed to
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills B I C S (Cummins 1979)

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CALP refers to the specific literary language that is required in academic communication. Knowledge of the less frequent vocabulary of English as well as the ability to interpret and produce increasingly complex written (and oral) languages. BICS refers to the language that students for casual, face to face communication The ability to carry on a conversation in familiar face to face situations. It involves the use of high-frequency words and simple grammatical constructions.

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