IBU Second language

International Burch University

learning

associate professor Vildana Dubravac

 L1 L2
Young child Young child Adolescent Adult
(at home) (playground) (classroom) (on the job)
Learner characteristics
Another language
Cognitive maturity
Metalinguistic
awareness
World
knowledge
Anxiety about
speaking
Learning conditions
Freedom to be silent
Ample time
Corr.feedback
(grammar, pron)
Corr. feedback
(meaning, word
choice, politeness)
Modified input
Contrastive analysis
Contrastive analysis: Analysis of the differences between the L1
and the L2 to predict in advance the problematic areas in which
transfer is likely to occur.
Limitations:
Over-predicted errors
Under-predicted errors
Not all errors are ‘bi-directional’
Doesn’t account for developmental errors (e.g. simplification,
overgeneralization).
Error analysis
Analyzing second language learners’ errors rather than predicting
the errors they might make
Start with the errors that learners make and try to understand them.
With reference to the L2, the L1, and other factors
Descriptive not prescriptive in nature
Yesterday she run away.

Yesterday she runed away.

Yesterday she runned away.

She falls a piece of note into dough by mistake.

It was falled down in order to get a bigger green house.

Interlanguage processes:
- Simplification

- Overgeneralisation

- Restructuring

U-shaped behaviour
Fossilization: ‘permanent lack of mastery of a TL despite continuous exposure to the TL
input, adequate motivation to improve and sufficient opportunity to practice’ (Han,
2004:4)

Problems with concept

1.Very hard to conclusively demonstrate
2.Hard to verify optimal learning conditions
3.No consensus on cause(s)

2 meanings: premature vs. inevitable

Interlanguage error types

Developmental (intralingual)errors:
Reflect understanding of the L2 system

Interlingual errors: based on cross-linguistic

influence:
Reflect L1 grammar – due to transfer
 Developmental Errors
1.She looking around.
2. She run to escape.
3. Yesterday he play soccer.
4. Why you don’t like cheese?
5. The dog run fastly.
Cross-linguistic influence
French speaker: The boy kiss her mother.

Spanish speaker: He no speak e-Spanish.

German speaker: Like you ice cream?

Arabic speaker: The boy that I saw him was running fast.
 Cross-linguistic influence
French speaker: The boy kiss her mother. (French possessive
determiners agree with object possessed.)

Spanish speaker: He no speak e-Spanish. (Spanish has no initial

consonant clusters.)

German speaker: Like you ice cream? (At Stage 4/5 of question
formation, learner hypothesizes that full verbs can be inverted in
questions.)

Arabic speaker: The boy that I saw him was running fast. (In relative
clauses, Arabic does not delete the pronoun from its ‘original’ place.)
 L1 Order L2 Order
Present progressive -ing (progressive)
(Mommy running) Plural
Plural –s (Two books) copula (to be)
▼
Irregular past (Baby went) Auxiliary: progressive
Possessive ‘s (Daddy’s (He is going)
hat) Article
▼
Copula (Mommy is happy) Irregular past
Articles the and a ▼
Regular past –ed
Regular past –ed (She Third person singular –s
walked) Possessive ’s
Third person singular simple
present –s (She runs)
Auxiliary be (He is coming)
Negation:
No bicycle.
I no like it.

He don’t like it.

He don’t can sing.

You cannot go there.

He was not happy.
She don’t like rice.

It doesn’t work.
I didn’t went there.
Questions:
Dog?
Four children?
What’s that?
It’s a monster in the right corner?
The boys throw the shoes?

Do you have a shoes on your picture?

Where the children are playing?
Does in this picture there is four astronauts?

Where is the sun?

Is there a fish in the water?

How do you say proche?

What’s the boy doing?

It’s better, isn’t it?

Why can’t you go?
Can you tell me what the date is today?
Reference to past:

My son come. He work in restaurant.

Me working long time. Now stop.

We went to school every day. We spoke Spanish.

My sister catched a fish.

She has lived here for fifteen years.
The accumulative evidence suggests that knowledge of two (or more) languages can
accelerate the learning of an additional one.

Not only the L1 but all previously learned languages can influence additional
language learning.

Which language will become the source for transfer does not appear to be random.
- typological closeness

- Ls may be more prone to transferring aspects of whichever language they are more
proficient in.

- Perhaps the most recently learned language shows a stronger influence than the
language learned earlier.

Codeswitching: switches to the L1 are more or less intentional (asking for help,
clarifying the intended meaning); switches to the L2 are unconscious and involve
mostly function words that aid in language production.
What Lies Beneath? (Šta laže Benet?)

Greenhouse effect (efekat zelene kuće)

Faro didn’t allow Jews to leave Egypt.

Hope springs eternally. (proljeće živi vječno)

He drives me crazy.(on me vozi ludo)

conserve - konzerva

concurrent – konkurent

evidence – evidencija

familiar – porodičan

fabric - fabrika

devise – deviza

receipt – recept

self-consciousness – samosvijest
ultimate – ultimativan

cabinet – cabinet

officer – oficir

policy – polica

liquor – liker

table – tabla

mast - mast...
"The vodka is all right, but
the meat is bad."
Russian way of saying:
“The spirit is willing but the
flesh is weak"
English: Waiting on needles
and pins

Bosnian: K’o na iglama

Arabic: ‫( اصبر بفارغ استني‬to be

waiting with empty patience)
English: He dug his own grave

Bosnian: Iskopati samom sebi

grob

Arabic: ‫( السحر انقلب على الساحر‬the

magic of the magician has
turned against him)
“Not a snowball’s chance in
hell”
‫امل ابليس‬
‫بالجنة‬
“The hope of Iblis (devil)
in heaven”
English: Get over it

Bosnian: Preboli to/Završi sa

tim

Arabic: ‫اقتالع ضرس و ارتاح منه‬

Get that bad tooth out and
finally relax from it
 Vocabulary
20 000

2 000

16
Word knowledge includes the mastery of the word’s:
Meaning(s)

Written form

Spoken form

Grammatical behaviour

Collocations

Register

Associations

Frequency
 pragmatics
pre-basic: Me no blue. Sir

formulaic: Let’s play the game. Don’t look.

unpacking: Can you pass the pencil please?

pragmatic expansion: Can I see it so I can copy it?

fine tuning: Is there any more white?

 Phonology
From audio-lingual to communicative approaches

L1-L2 differences

Ethnic affiliation and the sense of identity

Instruction