Second

Language
acquisition
RECEPTIVE OR
PRE
PRODUCTION
STAGE
 Language
acquisition
First Second Language
Language Acquisition
Acquisition
 Stephen Krashen

Students learning a second language move

through five predictable stages: Preproduction,
Early Production, Speech Emergence,
Intermediate Fluency, and Advanced Fluency
Tracey Terrell
(Krashen & Terrell, 1983).
 Stage 1: -This is what is known as a silent time.

Pre- -Those learning a new language may have

Productio
a vocabulary of up to 500 words, but they
cannot yet communicate with others.

n
 Some may just repeat everything they have heard somewhere.

They don’t actually create their own sentences, they just retell them.

At this level, students will need plenty of repetition and trainings. They will benefit
from having a “buddy” who is fluent in the language they are learning.

Teachers and peers should not force the student to speak and should accept the fact
that this is a challenging time for the student.

Display some “parroting” speech repetition practice

Teaching and developing the student's BICS is key at this stage.
Total Physical Response (TPR) is effective at this stage as well as
repetition of vocabulary words and phrases.

Focus on vocabulary and listening comprehension. Ask students to

identify objects, people, colors, etc. Having a classmate that can
communicate with them in their first language can be very
beneficial.
It is important that
you tie instruction for
each student to his or
her particular stage of
language acquisition.
ARIVACI & CO. Back to Agenda Page

Tiered Questions
Research shows that high levels of student engagement are "a robust
predictor of student achievement and behavior in school" (Klem &
Connell, 2004, p. 262). At the same time, one way for mainstream teachers
to engage their ELLs more is by asking tiered questions. We recommend
that teachers ask frequent questions throughout their lessons, as doing so
lets ELLs practice their new language and helps teachers assess how much
of the content the ELLs understand.
ARIVACI & CO. Back to Agenda Page

Many people think that students in the initial stages of acquisition can only
answer low-level questions, and that those in the advanced stages are more
likely to answer high-level questions. However, this is not the case.
What we
can do?
We ask questions that allow the child to respond
with nods of “yes” or “no”.
We watch the child on the playground.

We accept as response facial expressions like We ask the child to draw a picture of what they
smiles. are trying to tell us.

· Emphasize listening comprehension

We share a word or two in the child’s language.
by using read-alouds and music.

· Use visuals and have students point to

We ask the child to teach us words in their
pictures or act out vocabulary.
language.
 Avoid excessive error correction. Reinforce
· Speak slowly and use shorter words,
learning by modeling correct language usage
but use correct English phrasing.
when students make mistakes.

· More advanced classmates who speak the same

Model "survival" language by saying and
language can support new learning through
showing the meaning.
interpretation.

· Gesture, point and show as much as

possible.