Second Language Acquisition: The Complicated Process

The process of Second Language Acquisition is a very complicated one. I find having an order or acquisition helpful to a certain extent. There are many different formats one can use to structure or describe Second Language Aquisition. There is no "right" structure, although some are definitely more useful than others. But in reality, the "correct" Second Language Acquisition format is the one that works best for a particular individual.

The process most beneficial for me is shown in the form of a house. As I progressed in my research and expanded my own understanding of second language acquisition, my house changed as well. It went from presenting my findings in the form of a house, to presenting them in the form of a process. I decided to have a person go through the motions of getting ready in the morning to explain how second language acquisition works.

The beginning stage of my second language acquisition metaphor is input. My input rests in the form of an alarm clock. I decided to use an alarm clock, because it fit very well within my metaphor. It served to wake up my person, which is how they start their day. Once their day is started they can go through the motions of acquiring their second language. The input also represents different things. Since you set your alarm clock for different times depending on the situation, there can be more than one form of input. The input can come from a teacher, textbook, materials, other classmates, nonverbal stimulus, yourself, or something outside of the classroom. All of these different forms fit into my model by having the alarm clock set for different times, and each time represents a different form of input.

The next step in second language acquisition is what the input goes through. Right after you receive the input, the alarm clock, it goes through certain stages that can alter the input. These stages are the Affective Filter, Language Acquisition Device, intelligence, aptitude, and previous experience. These factors can either hinder or help the input on its way to long-term storage. For example, if the person goes through the affective filter right after or during the input, and its negative stress, they may not interpret the information correctly, or they may miss certain parts of the input and only take in what they understand the most. Previous experience, on the other hand, can sometimes help the input by making it clearer to the subject as to how the information works. I decided to show what the input goes through by her wardrobe. Each form of what the input goes through is designated by a certain outfit. Depending on which outfit the person chooses, then that is the designated form of what input has gone through at that time.

Next, the person must focus on the inferred competence intake. This consists of various things. These include: phonological rules, grammatical rules, discourse rules, sociolinguistic rules, pragmatic rules, reception rules, production rules, interlanguage system, and declarative knowledge. These are all forms of intake, which build for stronger language learners and being able to understand the material more effectively. I decided to have the intake metaphor be the stairs. Each stair that the person travels onto is a different form of intake that helps them develop their second language a lot more effectively.

After intake comes the style of second language acquisition. Second language acquisition happens differently for every person depending on their own personal styles. Each person is built differently depending on certain factors. These factors include problem-solving strategies, cognitive functions, their personality, and input generators. Even within these categories, people break down into smaller categories. For example, each person has a very unique personality. Though personalities can be alike in certain people, no two personalities are the same. Personality factors can differ within second language acquisition depending on their rate of intuition, empathy, self-esteem, extroversion, inhibition, imitation, anxiety, and attitudes. The list goes on. One can see that only within these few factors, the style of how they acquire second languages can differ greatly. I decided to have the bathroom setting fit into style. Specifically, style in second language acquisition is washing their face. The way someone washes their face in the morning follows a certain style. They can use soap and a washcloth, lather up soap in their hands, just use water, etc. Again the list can go on for quite some time, especially when you throw in factors such as the brand of soap the person uses, the fragrance of soap, the maker of the washcloth, etc.

After style, you must consider the strategies of second language acquisition. Strategies of second language acquisition fall under several categories. They can be direct, memory, affective, social, or metacognitive. These strategies of second language acquisition are methods of how we learn languages. For example, one of these methods is the direct method. This method use lots of oral interaction, on the spot language use, and they do not translate between the first and second language. It was widely accepted in the forties and fifties, but not so much nowadays. Another strategy is metacognitive. This strategy focuses on directed attention, self-management and monitoring, and self-evaluation. It is very different from the direct method. I chose to show strategies of second language acquisition in the bathroom as well. It was done by brushing their teeth. People brush their teeth in many different ways. They use different strategies to have a nice and clean mouth. They choose different types of toothbrushes, different toothpastes, etc. Depending on the different strategies chosen, they may have different outcomes including breath quality (good or bad) and teeth cleanliness (white to yellow).

The last thing that I decided to do in the bathroom of my metaphor is competence. People's competence at learning a language can differ greatly between every person. It changes depending on how much they understand the model presented, and the ability to perform the language chosen. It is not necessarily performance itself, but the ability to perform. This varies, again by such factors as personality. This is why I chose to make my mirror the metaphor for this part of second language acquisition. The mirror fit well because it relies on confidence and self-esteem, which can be parts of someone's personality. If they have low-self esteem they may look at themselves and not believe that they can perform a task which will make their competence at that task decrease.

Finally, I moved my person into the kitchen for the final parts of my second language acquisition metaphor. In the kitchen, I decided to make the cupboards be representative of comprehension and production strategies. The cupboards represent extroversion, anxiety, risk-taking, and empathy factors within a person. These factors directly impact a person's comprehension and production. If they are more extroverted, they may take more risks, and then produce more parts of their second language because they lack the fear of prosecution by their peers. Also, if someone does not take risks and has high anxiety within the classroom, they may understand the material and comprehend it, but they may never use it in production because they fear the prosecution of their classmates. I chose the cupboards to be the comprehension and production strategies because inside the cupboards lie the performance and comprehension types, which seemed very fitting.

Finally, I decided to end with the production and comprehension types within second language acquisition. These types are speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Speaking and writing are types of production, and listening and reading are types of comprehension. These are all forms of output, because they show what you know within the language you are learning. These production and comprehension types are shown in the form of cereal boxes. Whichever cereal the person chooses is the type of production or comprehension they will do.

After the person chooses the type of output they are going to perform or comprehend, they must actually do the output. While doing each type of output the person goes through different processes. These strategies can include such factors as scanning, skimming, keyword attention, nonverbal, prefab patterns, self-practice, dictionary use, appeal to authority and error monitoring. All of these factors affect how the output comes out. I decided to show this by having different factors in the kitchen that could affect the output while it is happening. For example, the person can read a newspaper while eating their cereal, listen to the radio, watch television, or just sit in solitude.

The last thing that I am going to discuss that affects second language acquisition is the context. The context is outside factors that affect your language acquisition, but you do not really have any control over. For example, some context factors would be dialect, style, register, formality, relationship, or function. These factors can affect your ability to learn by changing your attitude about the language, or the way you learn the language. I decided to show these factors by letting them be the weather outside. When the person first wakes up in the morning and looks out their window they are put into an instant mood. If it is sunny outside they may be chipper and willing to learn that day, but if it is grim outside, then maybe they do not want to learn at all.

Since this is still something that must be studied in great depth-there really is not any true answer for how second languages are acquired. This is my take on how second languages are acquired. I realize that I will have to change and modify my theory of second language acquisition as the field grows and more research becomes available. But as for now, second language acquisition stands like so.

Works Cited

Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning And Teaching. 5th. San Francisco: Pearson Education, 2007.

Lightbrown, Patsy, and Nina Spada. How Languages are Learned. 3rd. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.