Introduction
Similarities and Differences
One similarity between L1 and L2 learners is that they follow a similar pattern of development despite some exceptions and variations among learners. For example, how to make basic sounds, then words, phrases and sentences. Both go through a silent period while they are listening to and learning language. According to Ipek (2009), L1 learners go through a silent stage when they are trying to make sense of language and L2 learners, who do not comprehend the new language, are listening to, absorbing and trying to make sense of the new language, as well. They also go through a formulaic stage using expressions and utterances memorized in chunks, which Krashen states can take “the form of routines…patterns…or …show more content…
L1 is said to activate mostly the left side of the brain while learning an L2 activates the whole brain. It is said that children who grow up bilingually can tap into a single language network in their Broca area of their brain while monolingual children have to build separate networks for other languages being learned. Learning an L1 is a life skill while learning an L2 is something people undertake for a variety of reasons: required subject in school, necessary to survive on the job or in a new country etc.…There also tends to be a difference in the quality and quantity of exposure and input. As an L1 learner, you receive constant input in that language from everyone and everything around you whereas an L2 s input may be limited to a classroom or part time (Ipek 2009), (Turnbull & Justice, …show more content…
found that newly arrived non-English-speaking children in the United States ages 8–12 years were the first to reach native-speaker norms (50th percentile), and they reached these norms within 4–5 years of arrival. . Another early Swedish study comparing 7–10-year-old Finnish migrant children … found children who arrived in Sweden before their first year of school were less competent in Swedish than children who had arrived after their first year of school. Also in Thomas and Collier 's large longitudinal study of 210, 054 children settling in the United States from 1996 to 2001. They found that students aged 8–12 years on arrival were faster and more efficient in language acquisition compared with younger arrivals aged 4–7 years, that this advantage was maintained over several years, and that the number of years of prior schooling in the child 's L1 was more important to their academic achievement in English than any other variable, including socio-economic status. Cummins theorized children require more than basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) in their L1 in order to successfully master a second or subsequent language. He differentiated cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) as a set of qualitatively different skills to BICS and proposed that children who have attained CALP in their L1 are better able to transfer these skills to L2 acquisition. (Clifford,
Similarities and Differences
One similarity between L1 and L2 learners is that they follow a similar pattern of development despite some exceptions and variations among learners. For example, how to make basic sounds, then words, phrases and sentences. Both go through a silent period while they are listening to and learning language. According to Ipek (2009), L1 learners go through a silent stage when they are trying to make sense of language and L2 learners, who do not comprehend the new language, are listening to, absorbing and trying to make sense of the new language, as well. They also go through a formulaic stage using expressions and utterances memorized in chunks, which Krashen states can take “the form of routines…patterns…or …show more content…
L1 is said to activate mostly the left side of the brain while learning an L2 activates the whole brain. It is said that children who grow up bilingually can tap into a single language network in their Broca area of their brain while monolingual children have to build separate networks for other languages being learned. Learning an L1 is a life skill while learning an L2 is something people undertake for a variety of reasons: required subject in school, necessary to survive on the job or in a new country etc.…There also tends to be a difference in the quality and quantity of exposure and input. As an L1 learner, you receive constant input in that language from everyone and everything around you whereas an L2 s input may be limited to a classroom or part time (Ipek 2009), (Turnbull & Justice, …show more content…
found that newly arrived non-English-speaking children in the United States ages 8–12 years were the first to reach native-speaker norms (50th percentile), and they reached these norms within 4–5 years of arrival. . Another early Swedish study comparing 7–10-year-old Finnish migrant children … found children who arrived in Sweden before their first year of school were less competent in Swedish than children who had arrived after their first year of school. Also in Thomas and Collier 's large longitudinal study of 210, 054 children settling in the United States from 1996 to 2001. They found that students aged 8–12 years on arrival were faster and more efficient in language acquisition compared with younger arrivals aged 4–7 years, that this advantage was maintained over several years, and that the number of years of prior schooling in the child 's L1 was more important to their academic achievement in English than any other variable, including socio-economic status. Cummins theorized children require more than basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) in their L1 in order to successfully master a second or subsequent language. He differentiated cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) as a set of qualitatively different skills to BICS and proposed that children who have attained CALP in their L1 are better able to transfer these skills to L2 acquisition. (Clifford,