NAME: BENEDICT B.

SHABONG

REGISTRATION NO: H002200001

MA ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

1ST SEMESTER

CONTACT:8974205606

Topic: Definition and basic concepts of SLA

Assessment 1
1.What is the difference between ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’?

Acquisition is to obtain and absorbs information from one’s surrounding whereas learning usually
happens in a formal setup with information being imparted.

In language acquisition the learner is usually exposed to the target language and he/she immerse
oneself in the culture of the language and thereby the learner in due course of time is able to fluently
speak and communicate in the target language.This happens as a result of continuous interaction with
the members of a community speaking a particular language and hence they acquire the language
through such medium.

In language learning however the student is formally taught the target language within a classroom
where the language instructor would teach the student from the very generic aspects to subtle nuances
of the language. We are taught the phonology,morphology and syntax of the target language.

2.What are the synonymous terms for L2?

Synonyms for L2

 auxiliary language.
 second-language.
 foreign language.
 Library language
 Language for specifc purposes

3.Why is SLA an inter-disciplinary field of study.Explain.

SLA is an inter-disciplinary field of study as it deals with many branches of study of which are:
Linguistics,Sociology and sociolinguistics,psychology and pyscholinguistics,discourse
analysis,conversational analysis and education.
SLA which is the study of second language is a field which requires extensive research when one goes
attempts to find the SLA of various languages and as such these it involves collaboration of different
aspects of fields .
One major contributor to SLA research is interaction with the people speaking the very language we are
doing research on as such a lot of field work in mandatory which requires a lot of rapport building and
effective communication with the locals and hence it requires one to be equipped in the field of
sociology,also since language learning also relies heavily onpsychological aspects of an individual or a
group of people therefore SLA always takes into consideration theories of psychology when doing
research on language.At the end of all the field work it also SLA also requires heavy data
analysis,analysis on the conversations and the discourse and SLA is such a field which also demands
precision based data.

4.From your own experience give an example of SLA in an informal situation

I hail from a very diverse locality in Shillong which is laban and the community as such is mixed which
has allowed me exposure at an early age to multiple languages of which Hindi was more dominant .

As a kid I would meddle with other kids in my neighbourhood which spoke Hindi and through that I have
subconsciously absorb the language on a daily basis and which in turn made me acquire the language
simply by mere exposure to it ,not just that but many more factors contributed to me acquiring this
particular language of which the other reason being my mom having an obsession with Indian soap
operas and as such I was born in a time where there were no other means of entertainment other than
the Television , therefore even I was subjected to coutless hours of watching Indian soap operas which
my mom which I believe further nurtured my fluency in the language

Assessment 2
1.SLA is NOT about Language Pedagogy. Why?

SLA is as an important section of applied linguistics. Alternatively, if one can replace “applied linguistics”
with a phrase like “second and foreign language learning and teaching,” one may see SLA as
“inextricably entwined” with the study of S/FL pedagogy, but a field of study not subordinate to it, nor a
subsection of it. Although, as Ellis says, “SLA research has become a rather amorphous field of study
with elastic boundaries,” the surveys of SLA he lists (LarsenFreeman & Long, 1991; McLaughlin, 1987;
Spolsky, 1989; and his own earlier Ellis, 1985) do not equate SLA with applied linguistics and see it as an
area of inquiry separate from that into SL teaching itself, though an area with distinct implications for SL
teaching. Indeed, there would be less interest in examining the relationship between SLA and S/FL
pedagogy if SLA as generally understood included teachers and teaching. As a domain of inquiry, SLA is
in a continual process of change and reinvention, so for present purposes it is easier to consider SLA as it
was in the recent past than as it may be right now. This is the perspective that recent surveys such as
Ellis (1994) and Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) give us: an area of investigation arising out of a
concern for naturalistic second language acquisition and leading on to a set of topics that at least during
the 1980s seemed a delimitable set. Like any science, however, SLA is also a set of social practices. In
this case, they are those of a primarily European or American research community, tending to the
traditional (i.e., positivistic) in its use of research techniques. It should also not be overlooked that SLA,
like any science, can also be regarded (in the linguistic turn: Ricoeur, 1971) as a body of texts or a
collection of discourses. This way of looking at it is relevant to the problems of the relationship because
it has often been pointed out that such texts may be difficult to read and may privilege some roles or
voices at the expense of others (citeseerx.ist.psu.edu)

2. What is the role of SLA in language policy and language planning?

The role of SLA in language policy and planning can be determined through the case study of Indonesia
where was there was a need to introduce English at an early age on the recommendation of SLA
research

In 1992, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) Republic of Indonesia held a national symposium
on education. It was revealed in the symposium that there was greater awareness of the roles of English
in the world and that there was a need to regulate official early English instruction. The outcome of the
symposium was a recommendation for the government to officially regulate English teaching in
elementary schools. MoEC then followed this recommendation by releasing the Decree No. 060/U/1993.
The decree states that English instruction may start from Year 4 at elementary level onward. Its status in
the elementary school curriculum is local content subject. Being a local content subject means the
government authorizes English teaching in an elementary school provided: (1) the society in which the
school is located requires it; (2) the school can ensure the availability of qualified teachers and proper
facilities to accommodate teaching-learning activities (Sadtono, 2007). P. Arfiandhani and S. Zein 83 The
status of English as a local content subject remained in the following five years or so. Not all schools
taught English; only some did. However, there was a surge of interest in English entering the new
millennium. A nationwide educational phenomenon occurred when thousands of elementary schools
throughout the country showed a sudden enthusiasm about the idea of introducing children with
literacy in English (Supriyanti, 2014). In the early 2000s, school principals realized that with the status of
English as a local content subject, the government would not penalize them should they decide to offer
English instruction. As a consequence, many of them decided to start teaching English in Grades 4 and 5,
while the majority of them offered English instruction as early as Grade 1, despite having no qualified
teachers. The Ministry of National Education (MoNE) released the Decree No. 22/2006 about The
Structure of National Curriculum to strengthen the Decree No. 060/U/1993 by stipulating English to be
taught once a week (2 × 45 min. per lesson) with schools having the freedom to start earlier than Grade
4. The outcomes of English instruction at elementary level are Graduates Competency Standards
prescribed by the government in the Decree of Ministry of National Education No. 23/2006. The
Graduates Competency Standards place an emphasis on what students are expected to know and do in
terms of linguistic competencies (Zein, 2016)

The decision about starting age in language-in-education policy cannot be made on the basis of linguistic
consideration alone - there are other social, economic, and political considerations that drive
policymakers to officialize early foreign language learning (Enever, Moon, & Raman, 2009). The
tendency in our post-modern era is that language policy is subject to change with sociopolitical forces at
the macro level (Ricento, 2000). What motivate policies on early foreign language learning for strongly
nationalist governments are political reasons such as the increasing demand for foreign language
competency. In Indonesia, as a result of the increasingly globalized world, there is a strong perception
that English language competency is crucial for maintaining national development and achieving global
competitiveness. On the contrary, parents are more attracted by economic reasons, as they view the
value of a particular language in terms of economic development, that is, to enable children to benefit
economically from early foreign language instruction (Zein, 2009). These reasons make upgrading
citizens’ language proficiency profile imperative - language proficiency is valued and taught through
curriculum and schooling infrastructures. Despite this, there is also an SLA-related reason for providing
children with early English instruction. While Indonesian parents and various educational stakeholders
alike believe in the importance of English for globalisation, their view is synonymous Utilizing SLA
Findings to Inform Language-in-education Policy: The Case of Early… 84 when it comes to the belief ‘the
younger the better’ (Zein, 2009). In addition to the prevalent belief in the importance of English in the
global era, the surge of interest in English within this period was also attributed to the assumed
advantage that early English instruction offers to children. The majority of Zein’s respondents believed
in children having advantages over adults in terms of rate of learning and overall mastery in acquiring a
foreign language. They believed in the notion ‘the earlier the better’, that is, the value of an early start
and the advantages that it offers to children’s language acquisition. Some of the respondents cited SLA
theories that highlight how children’s language learning during this massive cerebral development
period is associated with effortless language acquisition process (e.g., DeKeyser & Larson-Hall, 2005;
Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2003). This massive cerebral development is considered to be a ‘golden
age’ range in which optimum results could be gained through language instruction. Being in ‘the golden
age’ range, children are perceived to be better language learners who can master foreign languages
faster and easier than their older counterparts (Singleton & Ryan, 2004). This belief stems from the
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) that contends that there is a language-related maturationally
constrained critical period that ends at a certain point during or at end of childhood that makes
language acquisition more arduous and may result in less satisfactory outcomes. The CPH has received
significant support from many SLA studies (see DeKeyser, 2000; Long, 2005 for review). A study by
Abrahamsson and Hyltenstam’s (2008), for example, shows that near-nativelikeness rate is consistently
higher among younger learners as opposed to older ones

It is now evident that grounding language-in-education policy on early English instruction on

ungeneralizable SLA findings is imprudent, as much as grounding it on the assumption ‘the earlier the
better’ that misinterprets SLA findings in L2 settings. Age-effect factors “will need to be interpreted in
the same light as age-related factors in every other domain of learning”
(https://www.researchgate.net/)

Works Cited
(n.d.). Retrieved from citeseerx.ist.psu.edu:
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.456.2052&rep=rep1&type=pdf
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331315725_Utilizing_SLA_Findings_to_Inform_Language-in-
education_Policy_The_Case_of_Early_English_Instruction_in_Indonesia