First_Language_Acquisition_Vs_Second_Language_Learning.pdf

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First Language Acquisition Vs Second Language Learning:
What Is the Difference?
Fawzi Al Ghazali
The University of Birmingham / The Centre for English Language Studies (CELS) / July 2006
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Abstract
This paper investigates the potential differences between First Language Acquisition (FLA) and
New Language Learning (NLL) in the classroom. It examines the factors that influence language
acquisition in the two different environments. This includes explication of the age factor and its
impact on progress in language acquisition. It also involves studying the language input in terms of
quantity and quality in both cases and the limitations of NLL in the classroom. This paper also
studies the individual differences that influence language acquisition. This covers language
aptitude, language anxiety, language ego, and motivation. This paper, moreover, studies approaches
to FLA like behaviourism, innatism, and interactionist position. It finally explains more explicitly
how the teaching techniques influence the progress students achieve in learning a new language.
Key Words:
First language acquisition, second language acquisition, language anxiety, language
ego, motivation, language aptitude, behaviourism, innatism, interactionist approach
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1. Introduction
Language acquisition is one of the most impressive aspects of human development. It is an amazing
feat, which has attracted the attention of linguists for generations. First Language Acquisition
(FLA) and New Language Learning (NLL) have sometimes been treated as two distinct phenomena
creating controversy due to their variability in terms of age and environment. Oxford (1990: 4) in
distinguishing between FLA and NLL argues that the first arises from naturalistic and unconscious
language use and in most cases leads to conversational fluency; whereas the latter represents the
conscious knowledge of language that happens through formal instruction but does not necessarily
lead to conversational fluency of language. Fillmore (1989:311) proposes that this definition seems
too rigid because some elements of language use are at first conscious and then become
unconscious or automatic through practice. In another point of view, Brown (1994: 48) argues that
both learning and acquisition are necessary for communicative competence particularly at higher
skill levels. For these reasons, it can be argued that a learning acquisition continuum is more
accurate than a dichotomy in describing how language abilities are developed.
The interrelation between learning and acquisition does not prevent argument around the
long list of limitations of NLL in the classroom. Allwright (1987: 209), in his query 'why do not
learners learn what teachers teach?', argues that the apparent failure of teaching to have a significant
effect on learning can be ascribed to the failure to realise that planned teaching is only one part of
the input available to classroom language learners, even outside the four walls of the classroom.
Hence, formal and informal language learning are interwoven, acting as the two axes of language
fluency. Native speakers' speed of articulation is affected not only by their ability of retention, but
also by the amount of prefabricated chunks stored in the long-memory and retrieved when needed, a
skill which promotes fluency.
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This paper considers five prominent areas of difference between FLA in the pre-school
period, and NLL in the classroom. These are as follows: age factor, input, approaches to FLA,
classroom methodology, and psychological factors. My discussion of NLL in the classroom is
influenced by the progress my own students achieve in their NLL (English) in the classroom, which
represents the main source of input for most of them.
2. Differences between FLA and NLL
2.1 Age Factor
Do children learn languages better than adults do? Most linguists believe this is the case. Harley
(1986: 4) and Lightbown and Spada (1999) argue that „…childhood is the golden age for creating
simultaneous bilingual children due to the plasticity and virginity of the child‟s brain to make for
superior ability specifically in acquiring the early sets or units of language (1999: 29).‟ This mental
flexibility signifies the privilege attained by children over the adults in learning languages, which is
probably also due to the muscular plasticity used in the articulation of human speech by children to
produce a nativelike accent. Brown (1994) claims that this ability is almost missing after puberty
and this may explain the difficulty encountered by some adults in acquiring a native-like accent,
regardless of the way in which they learn new languages.
'Children who acquire a second language after the age of five may have a physical advantage
in that phonemic control of a second language is physically possible yet that mysterious
plasticity is still present. It is no wonder that children acquire authentic pronunciation while
adults generally do not, since pronunciation involves the control of so many muscles (Brown,
1994: 51).'
According to Brown‟s argument, young children can sound similar to their new-language
classmates very quickly and if young enough can become native speakers of the new language, with
all the cultural background that this implies. Adults, on the other hand, can rarely gain the depth of
cultural background that makes a real native speaker of a language. Ehrman (1996:180) renders this
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to the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), which may lead to adult resistance of language learning.
According to the CPH, adults no longer have the same plasticity as children that would enable them
to cope with new mental activities. The difficulty faced by adults to attain a nativelike fluency could
be due to the fact that the developmental changes in the brain that affect the nature of language
acquisition after the end of the critical period are no longer based on the innate biological structures
claimed by Chomsky (1981) to contribute to FLA or NLL in early childhood. Vygotsky (1978)
explains the CPH in a different way. He argues that the adults tend to be more analytical in learning
languages unlike children who tend to be more holistic. Children acquire the language as it is
formed and produced by others whereas the adults often think of how a construction is formed
before using it in conversation.
The impact of the CPH on NLL, nevertheless, does not receive the consensus of all linguists
and classroom researchers. Lightbown and Spada (1999: 60) give the example of a study carried out
by Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle on a group of English speakers learning Dutch as a second language.
This research was especially valuable because it included learners from all age categories, from six
to sixty year olds. Surprisingly, according to this study, the adolescents, not the children nor the
adults, were by far the most successful learners. Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle found that young
learners had some difficulty in learning tasks that were beyond their cognitive maturity whereas
adolescents learned faster in the early stages of second language development. The study eventually
signals that adults and adolescents were able to make a considerable progress in NLL when they
used the language on a daily basis in social, professional and academic interaction (1999: 60).
The impact of the age factor on NLL has become a popular excuse. When people run into
trouble in language learning, they attribute this to their age when it is really something else that can
be treated. I think there are a number of ways in which the adults are advantaged over children.
Young children speaking the new language still speak like children: relatively small vocabulary,
relatively simple grammar, and generally concrete topics. Adults, on the other hand, have a higher
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level of cognitive development, knowledge of the world, and experience of how to learn that helps
them achieve satisfactory levels of language proficiency in remarkably short periods. This
diminishes the influence of the critical period on language acquisition. A young age can be an
advantage in learning languages faster and gaining a native-like fluency; however, it does not
hinder the acquisition of new languages for those who have already skipped puberty. Other factors
may contribute to this acquisition such as language input.
2.2 Input
The form of the input children get in the home from their parents seems unlimited, constant and
variable in terms of quality and quantity. They experience formal, semi-formal, colloquial and
chatty forms of language. As they begin to speak, they become more competent in using language
as new skills are gained and the degree of interaction increases as they develop different strategies
of storage and retrieval. Halliday (1986) argues that children have the advantage to acquire the
culture simultaneously while acquiring language because the language children receive from birth
onward is contextual and wrapped in a cultural form. They are surrounded by text and there is a
constant exchange of meaning going on all around, in which they are on one way or another
involved (1986:123). Thus, the linguistic system develops in FLA as children develop their social
system. These two systems are interdependent and they mutually facilitate each other.
In the classroom, the type of input is limited and the restriction of the classroom materials
increases the infertility of such a soil. The means of input are confined to teachers' talk and course
books, whereas the language is often used in isolated settings for fulfilling certain tasks. Lemke
(1985: 5) points out that language in the classroom is used: (i) to perform specific kinds of actions
and (ii) to create situations in which those actions take their meanings from the contexts built
around them. This notion led some linguists, such as Fillmore (1989), to proclaim the unteachability
of language in the classroom because of the missing context.
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