Teachers’ Declared Intentions to Shift Practice to Incorporate Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Theories

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1023 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Markham ◽  
Mary Rice ◽  
Behnaz Darban ◽  
Tsung-Han Weng
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Students ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Intentions To Change

While the number of English Learners (ELs) in the United States is steadily growing in most states, teacher preparation for working with ELs is far from universal. It fact, it is contested terrain as to whether information about topics like Second Language Acquisition (SLA) are helpful generally, and if so, what theories teachers are willing to adopt. The purpose of this study was to learn whether teachers in an SLA theory course would declare intentions to change their notions about SLA and express them as desire to shift practice. We also wondered if there were differences in pre-service versus in-service and international versus domestic students. The results confirmed that the participants were willing to change their initial theories because of participating in a second language acquisition course that presented information about SLA theories at a Completely Different or Somewhat Different level by the end of the course.

A love affair with pidgin

English Today ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-60
Author(s):  
Amy E. Tillman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Married Couple ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Love Affair

IN RECENT years, a married couple in the United States developed a pidgin-like patois (for their own use) out of three languages that one or the other knew well but both did not share. The following account, while telling something of their story, looks at how such a private ‘language’ can impact negatively on second-language acquisition. The study seeks also to gauge the effect of this personal ‘pidgin’ on Pierre, a native speaker of Wolof, and on his acquisition of English, a language he needs to know. In one sense their private language is a success, but in another it is a problem, because Pierre needs to become fluent in the language of his new home. He and Mary have created a language style that suits their daily needs, but their very success and originality may be preventing Pierre from moving on into conventional English.

Portfolios

2016 ◽  
pp. 166-183
Author(s):  
Joan Lachance
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Teaching Performance ◽  
Graduate Level ◽  
Capstone Project ◽  
K 12

Graduate level teacher candidates preparing to work with English learners participate in coursework related to theory and practice for many aspects of second language acquisition. In this presentation the author describes and discusses an innovative capstone project, completed in the context of the second language acquisition course, which conceptualizes and embodies performance-based assessments. What makes this exceptional is that teacher candidates demonstrate deep insight regarding the authenticity of using performance-based assessments with K-12 English learners while simultaneously connecting the concepts to their own pre-service teaching performance-based assessments; Portfolios2.

scholarly journals Morphological complexity in written L2 texts

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaclav Brezina ◽  
Gabriele Pallotti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Morphological Complexity

Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers’ proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant.

scholarly journals Common Problems in English Pronunciation Among Chinese Learners and Teaching Implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Lanqing Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
China English ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Common Problems ◽  
Difficult Part ◽  
Teaching Implications

In the process of learning any languages, pronunciation is an important part of language acquisition because pronunciation may influence a listener’s comprehension of one’s expression. An example is the classical mistake of pronouncing “sink” and “think.” Because Germans cannot pronounce /s/, the rescue worker cannot understand why a man who is “thinking” needs help. In China, English learners are also facing the problems of pronunciation. Gimson, a famous professor of linguistics in Britain, pointed out that when learning a language, one should understand 50%-90% of its grammar and 1% of its vocabulary, but it is necessary to fully master the pronunciation, thus highlighting the importance of pronunciation.[1] However, pronunciation is a difficult part of a second language acquisition. This article analyzes the problems of pronunciation and discuss some methods on how to resolve them.

scholarly journals The Case Against the Case Against Holding English Classes in English

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Rintaro Sato
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
High School Teachers ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Education ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
English Classes

15In senior high school, teachers are now officially supposed to conduct their English lessons mainly in English to develop students’ communication abilities (MEXT, 2011). However, some researchers in English education have raised the case against this “English lessons in English” principle, asserting that conducting English lessons in the target language of English is not only ineffective, but harmful. This paper aims to refute critics of MEXT’s guideline for conducting classes primarily in English by considering studies in second language acquisition (SLA), theories for English learners’ motivation in the Japanese context, and offering an alternative for judicious use of the L1, Japanese. 現在、高校での英語の授業は主に英語で行うことになっている。しかしながらこの「英語での授業」には一部の英語教育研究者から, 効果が無いばかりか害があるとの強烈な反対意見もある。本稿では、この「英語での授業への反対意見」を第２言語習得理論や日本人学習者の英語を話そうとする意欲、有効な日本語の活用などの観点から反論する。

scholarly journals Interactional Feedback in Naturalistic Interaction between L2 English Learners

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Mahishi Ranaweera
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Small Group ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Classroom Activity ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
Conversation Partner ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Small Group Activities

<p>Theoretical and empirical data support that the feedback given in small group activities promote second language acquisition. There are many studies that have examined the impact of interaction on second language acquisition in controlled language situations. This study examines the small group activity ‘conversation partner’ in order to find out how much feedback takes place in an out of classroom activity such as conversation partner where the language is not controlled. The conversations were recorded and examined for instances of interactional feedback. Later a tailor made test was given to find out whether the participants remembered the language items that they received feedback on. The results show that feedback in natural speech among learners occurs relatively at a low level but the learners remember whatever language that was used in feedback instances.</p>

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