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asecondlanguageclassroomisquitelimited,nomatterhowAnatural’wemake
it.Thereissimplynowaytheclassroomcanmatchthevarietyoftheoutside
world,althoughwecancertainlyexpandbeyondourcurrentlimitations.”Ithas
tobeacknowledgedthattheclassroomcontextprovideslotsoflimitations,but
itcanstill,however,succeedinpreparingstudentstofunctionlaterinthereal
worldbybringingthemtothepointHwheretheycanbegintousetheoutside
worldforfurtheracquisition”(Krashen,1982,p.59).Thediferencesbetween
genuineandnon-authenticlanguageproducedasaresultofexposureeither
tonaturalormodified(simplified)inputcanalsoaccountforoverallsecond
languagecommunicationeficacy.
Inbothprocesses,thatis,firstandsecondlanguagedevelopment,ageplays
asignificantrole.AccordingtoArabski(1983,p.65),Htheageofalearnerisone
ofthemostimportantfactorsdecidingaboutthedegreeofsuccessinsecond
andforeignlanguagelearningandteaching.”Theprocessoffirstlanguageac-
quisitionstartsvirtuallyatthebeginningofourlivesandundergoesvarious
stages,frompre-languageperiodtotelegraphicspeech.Mothertonguemastery
ispossibleduetoconstantexposuretothenaturallinguisticenvironmentsur-
roundingthechildinalldaily-lifecontexts.Tobeginwith,achildisprovided
withso-calledcaretakerspeech(Yule,1996,pp.177-178),asimplifiedformof
humaninteractioncharacterisedbygrammaticalandlexicallimitation,repeat-
edquestions,exaggeratedintonationandevenchildishspeaking(Hbaby-talk”).
Repetitionisanotherimportantcomponentofthisformofcommunication.It
isduetothesefeaturesthatachildstartsgraduallyunderstandingthestruc-
turalorganisationofthelanguage.Thespeedoffirstlanguageacquisitionis
remarkableandbythetimeofenteringprimaryschoolachildhasbecome
afully-fledgednativespeaker.Thishappensasaresultofpossessingsome
innatepredispositiontoacquirealanguage.NoamChomsky(1965)calledthis
facultyaLanguageAcquisitionDevice(LAD)anddefineditasahypothetical
toolhardwiredintothebrainthathelpschildrenrapidlylearnandunderstand
language.Itistruethatmanychildrengrowupinbilingualenvironmentsand
areexposedtotwo,orevenmore,languagesfromtheverybeginningoftheir
lives.However,theprocessoflearningasecondlanguageismoreoftenthan
notassociatedwithpickingitupatanolderage,forinstance,whenoneenters
kindergartenorelementaryeducation.Bythistimeachilddoesnothaveto
startwiththepre-languagestagesofdevelopmentasweassumethatthey
havealreadydevelopedtheabilitytospeaktheirmothertongue.HThegeneral
1.1TheNatureofL2Communication
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