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Anna Makaryeva

Prof. Helen Karanika

Integrating Activity

April 2021

Comparing First and Second Language Acquisition

Introduction

Anyone who has attempted the feat of learning a second (or third, or more-th) language in their adult life is familiar with the struggles of grammar and pronunciation, and has at some point wished they were younger, maybe a child, learning effortlessly and ending in perfection… But why do children seem to learn a language better than adults? After all, in any other matter, like mathematics or physics, adults are much better at grasping complex concepts and remembering formulas! Some theories suggest that we have an innate ability for language learning, and that this ability to smoothly pick up another language has an expiration date, which is called the critical period hypothesis (Fasold and Connor-Linton 458). The advantage might however also come from the learner’s circumstances -- i.e. children have their parents, who provide constant input, adults have less time to focus on the new language, etc.. Of course, the answer could, and probably does, lie somewhere in between. So, what is it that makes younger learners better, and could it be applied to adults to help boost their skills?

Adult learners’ seeming inability to master a second language might stem from their methods rather than their talents, since they skip some important parts for language development; for example, they spend less time on the sounds, thus having 'worse' pronunciation, but spend more time on writing, thus developing great written language skills. This paper explores First Language Acquisition (FLA), then Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and finally compares the two to find an answer to the leading question.

First Language Acquisition

Children typically go through five stages in learning their first language -- cooing, babbling, one-word and two-word stages, and telegraphic speech -- before being proficient in it. Interestingly, children seem to be primed to learn their native language since they were in the womb, showing a preference for their mother’s native language (Fasold and Connor-Linton 218). So, children start out by getting used to the sounds, learn to pronounce those sounds, and then move onto single words. In English, they tend to start with nouns, while in Korean it is verbs; in both instances, those words tend to appear at the end (Fasold and Connor-Linton 225). Babies have also been shown to react to familiar names (for example, their own) which, when recognised, can help them “break into a fluent stream of speech” (Fasold and Connor-Linton 223-224). They also start to show some overextension of the meanings of words at this stage (Yule 205). During the next stage, children start using two words to construct rudimentary sentences to convey some meaning, but often lack grammatical features (Fasold and Connor-Linton 225). Later on, children develop more elaborate grammar, which appears in a particular order (Yule 208-212).

Other aspects of FLA that are important here are some of the variables that we know affect children’s development, first of these being input. A child who grows up without hearing language, such as in the famous case of Genie, will remain linguistically impaired for life (Yule 197). More interestingly for us, however, is that “children do not learn language from overhearing the conversations of others or from listening to the radio” (qtd. in Brown 47). Most of the time, adults address the child in a simplified version of the language (Yule 202). This is however not always the case. In Samoa, for example, children over about 6 months are addressed without any simplification and aren’t engaged in proto-conversations as they often are in the West (Ochs and Schieffelin 295-296). When those children start producing speech, they often start with a term that is often thrown at them (Ochs and Schieffelin 296). In English, children often start out with nouns, and in Korean, with verbs (Fasold and Connor-Linton 231-232). These insights from different cultures are what lets us know what is and is not universal in FLA.

Second Language Acquisition or Learning

Just as FLA, SLA has five stages of learning. At first, the learner is in the receptive, preproduction stage, where they do not speak, but are able to understand some words and answer with gestures, or yes or no. This goes on anywhere “from ten hours to six months” (Yang 1). Then, they start producing simple, one or two-word utterances, which lasts, again, up to six months; this is the early production stage. In the third, the speech-emergence stage, they start using short, simple sentences and often make mistakes. Another year elapses during that time. Then, for another year, the learners enter the intermediate language proficiency stage, where they are able to “speak at greater length” and “share their thoughts”, though they are still learning (Yang 2). Finally, after five to seven years, the learners are in the advanced proficiency stage, where they hold near-native competence (Yang 1-2).

Over the centuries, different language learning and teaching methods have been developed. Some of them are: (1) The Grammar-Translation method, which, as the name suggests, focuses on the grammar, reading and writing, the accuracy of the production, and uses the learner’s native language to teach the content (Richards and Rogers 3-4); (2) The Oral Approach and Situational Teaching focuses on the oral learning of the new language, conducts drills, and goes from simpler to more complex grammar ; (3) The Audiolingual method “stresses the mechanistic aspects of language”, focuses on spoken language , and often features model dialogues (Richards and Rogers 58-61); (4) The Communicative Language Teaching approach focuses on communication, context and meaning rather than on form (Richards and Rogers 67, 83); Total Physical Response theory seeks to teach language through coordinating speech with actions (Richards and Rogers 87); The “Silent Way” has the teacher speak as little as possible, letting the learner do most of the production (Richards and Rogers 99); Community Language Learning takes inspiration from group counseling, and has the students sit in a circle and compose and repeat sentences with the help of the teacher (Richards and Rogers 113-115); The Natural Approach uses Krashen’s theory of language acquisition and provides learners with comprehensible input and presents grammar in a specific order, while trying to keep them at ease, in a positive affect (Richards and Rogers 129-133).

Knowing the components of both First and Second Language Acquisition, we can move on to comparing them and draw some conclusions.

Similarities and Differences

As we have seen, both FLA and SLA seem to be greatly affected by input. The child learns what it hears, and so do adults. Of course, the input has to be somewhat understandable, via context or simplicity (Yule 202; Fasold and Connor-Linton 224-226; Richard and Rogers 132). The major similarities mostly stop there. What is more interesting, though, are the differences.

If we look at developmental stages, children spend a lot of time on the sounds of their language, and then move on to everyday, meaningful vocabulary. Rarely does an adult spend several months cooing and babbling, or producing simple words with little structure. This, paired with the fact that we lose the ability to ‘hear like a native’ early on (Fasold and Connor-Linton 224) might explain why adults have an accent, even at the highest levels of an L2. Even the Natural Approach doesn’t account for that one factor. Again, most of the methods focus on teaching rather than on acquisition, which is why they would produce speakers who know about the language instead of being fluent in it (Yule 220). Finally, children dedicate their first years to their language, not having anything important to do or another language to use (Yule 221).

Conclusion

So, to put everything together: we know the path that most children take to mastery of their native language, and we know what the adults learning a second language tend to do, and the problems that they tend to have. If we superimpose SLA on FLA, we see that these problems correspond to what children do that adults do not. Adults tend to learn the proper grammar and how to write, but neglect working on the sounds of the language, as well as extensive use of the language in a casual setting, which explains why oral production and foreign accents are some of the areas where advanced learners still struggle.

Now, in order to reach a conclusive answer regarding the hypothesis laid out above, we need to conduct and reproduce studies where SLA would match FLA as closely as possible, and then compare the subjects’ competency to that of native speakers. Until then, we are left only to guess whether the current issues stem from the methods, or from inherent differences in ability between differently aged learners.

Works Cited

Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of language learning and teaching. Vol. 4., New York, Longman, 2000.

Fasold, Ralph W., and Jeff Connor-Linton. An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. “Language acquisition and socialization.” Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion, 1984, pp. 276-320.

Richards, Jack C., and Theodore S. Rodgers. Approaches and methods in language teaching. 3rd ed., Cambridge university press, 2014.

Yang, Hong. “On teaching strategies in second language acquisition.” US-China Education Review, vol. 5, no.1, 2008, pp. 61-67.

Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

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