Theories Of Second Language Development

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal or signed symbols used for human communication. It is the essential part of how people share information. Children grow up leaning language by imitation and largely without instruction. Children’s developing language comes naturally, but even more so by hypothesis testing. The process for learning language is different for adults. Second language acquisition development is more difficult and unlike child language acquisition. The two processes have similarities like, the development happens in stages. They also have many differences and limitations. The term language acquisition refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations. First-language …show more content…
As age rises, it is more difficult for to obtain second language acquisition. The process is unlike the biological process children acquire language, it does not happen naturally. Although they have difference the process has similarities as well. People learning a second language go through five stages. Preproduction, Early Production, Speech Emergence, Intermediate Fluency, and Advanced Fluency . How fast someone progresses differs, similar to child language acquisition. One of the most popular theories of second language acquisition is Stephen Krashen’s theory. He is an expert in the field from the University of Southern California. His main claim states language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill . He organizes his theory into five components. Overall, these components show that there are two ways of developing language: by acquisition and by learning. Acquisition is the subconscious process and learning is the conscious process. The language learning process focuses more on the grammatical …show more content…
In high school I took three years of Spanish class. I first began taking Spanish at the age of 15. In my first Spanish class, I was taught one single words, much like a child would acquire language. Remembering the words was not very difficult, it was the grammatical structures of the words that made it challenging. When I would look at the spelling of the words, it was often different that what I anticipated. This is mainly due to the critical point of language acquisition. I kept practicing and I memorized all of the words. I began to have more challenges as I reached my second Spanish class. This class focused on putting words together and using proper tense. When I would try to put the words in the proper tense, it was extremely difficult. The language Spanish has a very different grammatical structure. The language is like speaking English backwards. Because I have pasted the critical period for learning language, my brain was having a challenging time understanding the grammatical rules. As age rises, it is more difficult for to obtain second language