Looking back by guy de maupassant

Second language acquisition

Foreign language: Learning language that is not generally spoken in the surrounding community.

Second language: Learning a language that is spoken in the surrounding community.

Acquisition and learning: Activities associated with learning have traditionally been used in language teaching in schools and have a tendency when successful to result in more knowledge about language.

Acquisition barriers: The optimum age for learning may be during the years from about ten to 16 when the flexibility of our inherent capacity for language has not been completely lost.

Affective factors: If we are stressed, uncomfortable, self-conscious, or unmotivated we are unlikely to learn anything.

Focus on method: Despite all these barriers, the need for instruction in other languages has led to a variety of educational approaches and methods aimed at fostering l2 learning.

The grammer_translation method: Vocabulary lists and sets of grammar rules are used to define the target of learning , memorization is encouraged and written language rather that spoken language is emphasized.

The audio lingual method: A systematic presentation of the structures of the l2 moving from the simple to the more complex in the form of drills that the student had to repeat.

Communicative approaches: The reaction against the artificiality of pattern practice and also against the belief that consciously learning the grammar rules of a language will necessarily result in an ability to use the lang.

Transfer: Using sounds, expression or structures from the L1 when performing in the L2.

Interlanguage: Process that certainly contains aspects of the L1 and L2 but which is an inherently variable system with rules of its own.

Communicative competence: The general ability to use language accurately appropriately and flexibly.