The primary factor affecting language acquisition appears to be the input that the learner receives. Stephen Krashen took a very strong position on the importance of input, asserting that comprehensible input is all that is necessary for second-language acquisition. Conversational interaction in a second language forms the basis for the development of language rather than being only a forum for practice of specific language features. (Gass, 2003)

1. L i ngui sti c semi nar
Created by Facilitator:
Joel Acosta Mirna Quintero
June, 2012

2. Input and SLA
Primary Factor
affects
Language
Acquisistion
is
Input
Learner

3. Stephen Krashen
(1941)
He is an emeritus professor 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 researcher, and
activist.

4. Strong
position
INPUT
Comprehensible
UGM
necessary
SLA Mechanism
according
Language By which
Learn
People

5. The Input Hypothesis
(Krashen, 1985)
SLA
explains
Takes place
Learner improves /
Natural along SL Input
progresses
order
acquisition
Input Hypothesis concerned
not learning

6. Learning
takes place
learner’s access
to comprehensible
input
Humans
acquire
language
Understanding
Receiving
messages
comprehensible
input.

7. Input comprehensible
1. Pre-modify input
before it is offered
to the learner
(premodified input)
2. Negotiate the
input through
interaction
(interactionally
modified input).

8. Michael Long
(1982)
Input can be made
comprehensible
By modifying By modifying
speech the interactional
structure of the
conversation.
By providing
linguistic and
extralinguistic By orienting the
context communication
to the “here and
now;”.

9. Long asserts that all four ways may aid
communication, but he especially emphasizes that
the fourth is most likely to aid language acquisition.
He reports that the input that has not been
comprehended may become comprehensible
through the process of interaction or negotiation.

10. Interaction and SLA
A common theme underlying different methods of
language teaching is that second language learning is a
highly interactive process (Richards & Lockhart,
2000:138).
Interaction has two different but related meanings:
1. Interpersonal
2. Intrapersonal

11. People
communicate in
face-to-face
activity through
oral medium or
written medium.
Occur within one body,
inner speech, or when
different modules of the
mind interact to
construct meaning as a
response to a
phenomenon
(Vygotsky 1978, cited in Ellis, 1999).

12. The role of “interaction” in SLA has long
been a controversial issue.
On one hand, there are theories such as UG which
minimizes the role of interaction and maximizes the
learner internal mechanisms in acquisition. The
followers of this theory consider the “interaction” as a
kind of input to activate the parameter setting (Cook,
1996).
On the other hand, some interactionists believe that
interaction is the means through which learners obtain
data for learning (Ellis, 1999).

13. Interaction Hypothesis
(1996)
Development
The Theory states of language
proficiency
Interaction
by face-to-face promoted
Communication
Interaction itself contributes
Strong Form to language development.
Interaction
Hypothesis Interaction is the way that
learners find learning
Weak Form opportunities, whether or not they
make productive use of them.

14. Interaction is thought to improve intake and integration by
creating the need to negotiate meaning at points of
communicative breakdown, and through various types of
feedback (recasts, reformulations) which may be integrated
into learner production (uptake).
This hypothesis suggests that feedback obtained during
conversational interaction promotes interlanguage (IL)
development because it:
Connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly
selective attention, and output in productive ways.
(Long, 1996)

15. In this view, classroom interaction is important not just to
provide practice opportunities, but because interaction
actually activates acquisitional processes:
Conversational interaction in a second language forms the
basis for the development of language rather than being
only a forum for practice of specific language features.
(Gass, 2003)

16. Foreigner Talk and SLA
Reduced
version
is
Foreigner Talk
Simplified
version
address Native
Speakers Language
Speakers
Language is Speakers who do
not a native especially not know the
one language at all

17. Foreigner Talk exhibits a number of peculiarities in its lexicon,
syntax, and morphology, most of them consisting in attrition
(friction) and simplification.
“In the lexicon, we find most noticeably an attrition in terms of the
omission of function words such as a, the, to, and. There is also
a tendency to use onomatopoetic expressions such as
(airplanes--) zoom-zoom-zoom, colloquial expressions such as
big bucks, and words that sound vaguely international such as
kapeesh”.

18. "In the morphology we find a tendency to simplify by
omitting inflections. As a consequence, where ordinary
English distinguishes I vs. me, Foreigner Talk tends to
use only me."
Is important
I say bye-bye, I no want.
Why no talk?
He here.
I think I not good teacher
I write all student in office

19. Teacher Talk and SLA
Teacher Talk Language
Classroom Instruction Teacher
Foreign
Language Classroom
exposed
Target Language
Learners

20. For this term, Longman Dictionary of Language
Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines it as “that
variety of language sometimes used by teachers when
they are in the process of teaching. In trying to
communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their
speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner
talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to
language learners” (Richards, 1992: 471).

21. Rod Ellis (1985) has formulated his own view about teacher talk:
“Teacher talk is the special language that
teachers use when addressing L2 learners in the
classroom”.
“Teacher talk can be divided into those that
investigate the type of language that teachers use
in language classrooms and those that investigate
in the type of language they use in subject lessons.”
“The language that teachers address to L2 learner
is treated as a register, with its own specific formal
and linguistics properties” (Ellis, 1985: 145).

22. Special
communicative
activity
Goal
To communicate To develop
Students’ foreign
Students
language proficiency

23. Teacher talk is used in class when teachers are
conducting instructions, cultivating their intellectual
ability and managing classroom activities (Feng
Qican, 1999: 23).
Teachers adopt the target language to promote their
communication with learners.
Learners practice the language by responding to what
their teacher says.
Teachers use the language to encourage the
communication between learners and themselves.
Teacher talk is a kind of communication-based or interaction-based talk.

24. Error Analysis
branch
Error Analysis Applied Linguistics
es
d t ab
Compilation nc
er
ne
lis h
ed
co
1960 Stephen P.
Study Corder
Analysis
Contrastive
Errors Analysis Alternative
made
L2 Learners Formal
distinctions
L1 and L2
Learners predict
Errors

25. Error Analysis
Contrastive Analysis Error Analysis
Pedagogical orientation Scientific orientation
Focus on input, practice
Focus on linguistic and
and inductive learning
cognitive processes
Error of transfer Different types
of errors

26. Corder introduced the distinction between systematic and
non-systematic errors.
Unsystematic errors occur in one’s native language;
Corder calls these "mistakes" and states that they are not
significant to the process of language learning.
He keeps the term "errors" for the systematic ones, which
occur in a second language.

27. In second language acquisition, error analysis studies the types and
causes of language errors. Errors are classified according to:
 modality (i.e., level of proficiency in speaking, writing, reading,
listening)
 linguistic levels (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, style)
 form (e.g., omission, insertion, substitution)
 type (systematic errors, errors in competence vs. occasional errors
and errors in performance)
 cause (e.g., interference, interlanguage)
 norm vs. system

28. Errors are significant in three ways:
-To the teacher: they show a student’s progress.
-To the researcher: they show how a language is acquired,
what strategies the learner uses.
-To the learner: he can learn from these errors.

29. When a learner has made an error, the most efficient
way to teach him the correct form is not by simply giving
it to him, but by letting him discover it and test different
hypotheses.
(This is derived from Carroll's proposal (Carroll 1955,
cited in Corder), who suggested that the learner should
find the correct linguistic form by searching for it.

30. Sources
 http://es.scribd.com/fabysacchi/d/82955175/26-Input-and-interaction-in-
second-language-learning
 http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej09/r14.html
 http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/foreignertalkterm.html
 http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/monster.pdf
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-FOREIGNERTALK.html
 http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/esl0420.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis
 http://research.iaun.ac.ir/pd/shafiee-nahrkhalaji/pdfs/HomeWork_5173.pdf