Damaris Escobar

June, 2012

He is professor emeritus at the

University of Southern

California,[who moved from the

linguistics department to the

faculty of the School of

Education in 1994. He is a linguist, educational and

researcher.

Most recently, Krashen promotes

the use of free voluntary reading

during second language

acquisition, which he says "is the

most powerful tool we have in language

education, first and second."Dr. Krashen has published more than 350 papers

and books, contributing to the fields of second language acquisition, bilingual education, and

reading. He is credited with introducing various influential concepts and terms in the study of

second language acquisition, including the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input

hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis.[

The acquisition-learning hypothesis,

The input hypothesis,

The monitor hypothesis,

The affective filter,

The natural order hypothesis.

According to Stephen Krashen's

acquisition-learning hypothesis, there

are two independent ways in which we

develop our linguistic skills: acquisition and

learning.

Acquisition

Acquisition of language is a subconscious process of which

the individual is not aware.

According to Krashen, both adults and children can

subconsciously acquire language, and either written or oral

language can be acquired.

Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target

language, during which the acquirer is focused on meaning

rather than form.

Learning

Learning a language, on the other hand, is a conscious process,

much like what one experiences in school.

New knowledge or language forms are represented consciously in

the learner's mind, frequently in the form of language "rules" and

"grammar" and the process often involves error correction.

Language learning involves formal instruction, and according to

Krashen, is less effective than acquisition

Talking (output) is not practicing

Krashen stresses yet again that speaking in the target language

does not result in language acquisition.

When enough comprehensible input is provided, i+1 is present

That is to say, that if language models and teachers provide

enough comprehensible input, then the structures that acquirers

are ready to learn will be present in that input.

The teaching order is not based on the natural order

Instead, students will acquire the language in a natural order by

receiving comprehensible input.

If i represents previously acquired linguistic

competence and extra-linguistic knowledge, the

hypothesis claims that we move from i to i+1 by

understanding input that contains i+1.

Extra-linguistic knowledge includes our knowledge of

the world and of the situation, that is, the context. The

+1 represents new knowledge or language structures

that we should be ready to acquire.

Beginning level

Class time is filled with comprehensible oral input

Teachers must modify their speech so that it is

comprehensible

Demands for speaking (output) are low; students are

not forced to speak until ready

Grammar instruction is only included for students high

school age and older

Intermediate level

Sheltered subject-matter teaching that uses modified

academic texts to provide comprehensible input.

Sheltered subject matter teaching is not for

beginners or native speakers of the target language.

In sheltered instruction classes, the focus is on the

meaning, and not the form.

The monitor hypothesis asserts that a learner's

learned system acts as a monitor to what

they are producing.

Self-correction occurs when the learner uses the

Monitor to correct a sentence after it is uttered.

According to Krashen, for the Monitor to be

successfully used, three conditions must be met:

The acquirer/learner must know the rule

The acquirer must be focused on correctness

The acquirer/learner must have time to use the

monitor

There are many difficulties with the use of the monitor, making

the monitor rather weak as a language tool.

Knowing the rule:

Furthermore, every rule of a language is not always included in a

text nor taught by the teacher

Having time to use the monitor:

The rules of language make up only a small portion of our

language competence:

Due to these difficulties, Krashen recommends using the

monitor at times when it does not interfere with

communication, such as while writing.

The affective filter is an impediment to learning

or acquisition caused by negative emotional

("affective") responses to one's environment. It is

a hypothesis of second language acquisition

theory, and a field of interest in educational

psychology.

Major components of the hypothesis certain emotions, such

as

anxiety,

self-doubt

mere boredom

Interfere with the process of acquiring a second

language.

It suggested that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows

a 'natural order' which is predictable.

Krashen however points out that the implication of the natural

order hypothesis is not that a language program syllabus should

be based on the order found in the studies. In fact, he rejects

grammatical sequencing when the goal is language acquisition.

The sociocultural theory (SCT), based on Vygotskian thoughts,

claims that language learning is a socially mediated process.

meaning-making in collaborative activity with other members of a

given culture” (Mitchell and Myles, 2004:200). Lantolf and Thorne

(2007) defend that the principles of the SCT can also apply to SLA.

They explain that “SCT is grounded in a perspective that does not

separate the individual from the social

It is in the social world that the language learners observe others

using language and imitate them.

One of the main concepts borrowed from Vygotsky is ‘’,

understood as the assistance one learner gets from another person

(e.g. teachers, relatives, classmates) and which enables him or her

to perform am learning task.

Connectionism seeks to explain SLA in terms of

mental representations and information

processing while rejecting the innate

endowment hypothesis.

Any learning is understood as a matter of

neural networks. The networks learn in a

Parallel Distributed Processing (Rumelhart et

al, 1986) where connections are strengthened

or weakened.

Language learning misunderstood as the processing of

experience and the repetition of experiences causing the

strengthening of the connections.

In contrast with the linearity of behaviorism, connectionism

presupposes that some mental processes can occur in a

parallel or simultaneous way and that knowledge is

distributed among the various