FIRST

LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION (1°
PART)
Didáctica Específica 1
WHAT IS LANGUAGE
ACQUISTION?
 IT IS THE STUDY OF THE PROCESSES THROUGH

WHICH HUMAN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE.

How is the FIRST language acquired?

WHY IS FIRST LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
OF INTEREST TO EYL TEACHERS?
 The younger the child is, the

more similar the two

processes will be, because
very Young children lack the
ability to manipulate and think
about language in a
CONSCIOUS way.
 SINCE CHILDREN ARE NOT BORN
SPEAKING, THEY MUST LEAN
LANGUAGE…
When do children master
? the skills needed for using
l e arn language successfully?
av e to
t hey h
at do
Wh

What stages do they go

through as they learn to
understand and talk?
 LANGUAGES DIFFER
Conceptual
Formal complexity
complexity
 a ti o
n
SOCIAL DIMENSION
rs
ve pro
con nun
c i at i
on

Language use
sounds

gestures

words

gaze stance Facial expression

 COGNITIVE DIMENSION
e
b y th
kn ow t age
i l d ren king a
do ch rt tal
h at ey sta e?
W e th on
ti m
STAGES
HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/_1DLXMLIN3S
STAGES IN ACQUISITION
CHILD LANGUAGE HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS FALLING
INTO SEVEN FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES BY HALLIDAY:

 1. Instrumental
 2. Regulatory
 3. Interactional
 4. personal
 5. heuristic (enabling a person to discover or learn sth for themselves)
 6. imaginative
 7. informative
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
 Here is what to expect at different ages from infancy until school
age in a typically developing child (one who is not advanced or
delayed in language development)

 First Year
 3 months: Makes cooing and gurgling sounds
 6 months: Babbles and makes sing-song sounds
 12 months: Babbles with inflection, which sounds like talking;
says first word
 16 months: Says two to five words or more
AT 18 MONTHS
 Says eight to 10 words others can understand
 Has a vocabulary of about five to 40 words, mostly
nouns
 Repeats words heard in conversation
 Uses “hi,” “bye,” and “please” when reminded
AT 2 YEARS
 Has a vocabulary of 150 to 300 words
 Uses two- to three-word sentences, usually in noun-verb
combinations, such as "Dog bark," but also using
inflection with combinations like "More cookie?"
 Refers to self by name and uses “me” and “mine”
AT 3 YEARS
 Uses three- to five-word sentences
 Asks short questions, usually using "what" or
"where"
 Has a vocabulary of about 900 to 1000 words
AT 4 YEARS

 - vocabulary of more than 1.000 words

 - at least count to 4
 - Some words that a 4 yr old uses can not be fully understood
 - learn / sing simple songs
 - more understanding of time (difference between night and day)
 - lack concept of right or worng
 - can tell the difference between two objects on size and weight
AT 5 YEARS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 - Clark, Eve; “First Language Acquisition”. Cambridge University Press- Third Edition 2016
 https://prezi.com/ogi5ykrpzkj8/language-acquisition-theories/
 https://prezi.com/d6qbhlbpfc5i/bruners-constructivist-theory/