Teach English in YangjinzhuAng Zhen - Tianjin

1st language vs 2nd language acquisitionAs children we all go through the language developmental stage of life. We utter our first words which usually are ?mama? or ?dada? and from there we start to build. By the time we are about five-six years old we are not experts nor have we mastered our language but we are very confident speakers. On the other hand we may study a second language as young adults or adults for an equivalent amount of time and be nowhere near as competent as we were after five years of learning in our early years. What is the real difference between 1st and 2nd language acquisition? In this paper I will cover two major topics regarding 1st and 2nd language acquisition and how we approach the 2nd language entirely differently than we do our first language. The topics I will cover are as follows: 1. Natural versus unnatural acquisition 2. The teaching method It is very common to hear a second language learning say, ?This language is so difficult.? This is not true according to Beverly A. Clark who says, ?One language is not more difficult than the other, as we can establish by observing the ease with which acquire different language by the same age.? (Clark, 181) If every language is the same difficultly as Clark hypothesizes, then why does 2nd language acquisition take a lot longer than learning the first? The answer is natural and unnatural acquisition is approached entirely differently. The first way we learn languages is natural acquisition. Natural acquisition or unconscious language learning is loosely defined by Stephen Krashen as, ??meaningful interaction in the target language?natural communication?in which speakers are concerned not with the form of the utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.? (Krashen, 1) Unnatural acquisition is explained by Krashen as containing error correction and the teaching of rules. I would agree with Clark that all languages are created equal in difficultly. The problem is the approach and amount of study time. If one were to compare the amount of time a baby studies a language to the amount of time an adult study the baby would be far ahead in terms of study hours. Baby?s study unnaturally all day, every day, while an average university language course will only total about 200 hours a semester. Of course most adults do not have the time to drop all responsibilities and just study only language, unless of course you are wrongfully imprisoned, which was the case of Kay Danes. Danes was an australian wrongfully imprisoned in Laos for 11 months. Kay Danes entered prison speaking very little Laos but through natural acquisition became fluent in Laos and even learned some Hmong. (Cote, 5-6) Unfortunately there are not many cases or research articles documenting language acquisition in prison. Even though all languages are the same difficulty for children the rates at which most adults acquire a 2nd language is most likely dramatically decreased due to uncontrollable outside factors such as work and family. Due to these uncontrollable events 1st language acquisition is much faster than 2nd language acquisition. The other differences between first and second language acquisition are the teaching methods. Children are just taught vocabulary and phrases as they come about in daily life, but in 2nd language acquisition there is almost always a structure to teaching. According to Clark, ?[1st Language Acquisition] is not arranged in an easy-to-difficult sequence? (Clark 182) In comparison to 2nd language acquisition we often organize our classes around topics such as, gerunds, greetings, or past and present tense. The other method which is not present during 1st language acquisition is translation. During 2nd language acquisition we have the ability to translate words at will. If we hear a word we have the option to open a dictionary and find out the definition. This luxury is not available during 1st language acquisition and babies are forced to understand and learn the meaning on their own. This ?luxury? of translation may also be detrimental toward 2nd language acquisition, because when using this method we are always reverting back to our native language. After doing research on both 1st and 2nd language acquisition I began to wonder if we are going about 2nd language acquisition incorrectly. In an ideal world the fastest way to learn a 2nd language might be total immersion, to live, and think in that language, without the use of translations to assist us. We might be able to learn a language like we did when we were infants and possibly just as fast. Of course we do not live in an idea world and 2nd language learning is organized and taught in a specific way for a reason. As humans it is much easier to deal with organized information such as vocabulary related to kitchens, or learning just one tense at a time. TESOL/TEFL?s teaching method has been taught for many years and if the method was not successful it would no longer be in use. I believe while the teaching methods in use by TESOL/TEFL for learning a 2nd language may not be idea, it is a tested method and a very successful one. Sources: Clark, Beverly A. First- and Second-Language Acquisition in Early Childhood http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/pubs/katzsym/clark-b.pdf Cote, Robert A. Motivation and Its Role in Language Acquisition http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rcote/SLAT596Y/Motivation%20and%20its%20Role%20on%20Language%20Acquisition.pdf Krashen, Stephen D. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning http://sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning.pdf