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The famous linguist, Noam Chomskey, formulated the hypothesis of the
LAD (Language Acquisition Device) in 1964 to explain the astounding phenomenon
of human language. Today the LAD is universally accepted by psycholinguists.
These subnormal youngsters speak and understand a language; some
even more than one language. Each language is a linguistic system
which is so complex that today linguistic science, with the support of
the most sophisticated computers, is not capable of describing any language
completely.
It is estimated that the linguistic system that a subnomral adolescent
uses is more complex than all the systems used to send the Pathfinder to
Mars in July, 1997.
Therefore, these youngsters did not “learn”
their languages; they “acquired” them with their
LADs! |
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If we knew how the LAD works, we could optimise our acquisition
of language. But neurolinguistics is far from being able to
go into our brains and see how the LAD functions. It does not even
know where it is located.
Stephen Krashen (1981) was the first psycholinguist to try to
explain, with a model, how the LAD works so we can manipulate the parameters
so that adults can optimise their acquisition of languages.
Krashen supposes that the adult’s LAD remains intact and as operational
as a child’s LAD. Note that the LAD functions by processing enormous
quantities of input. Babies that were abandoned by thier parents
and raised by animals do not acquire any human language. Nevetheless,
even
subnormal children, exponsed to large quantities of input in one or more
languages always end up acquiring that or those languages! |
Input Alone Is Not Enough.
Even if I listened to Radio Pekin
six hours a day
I would not acquire Chinese.
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Enormous quantities of input is a necessary condition for acquisition,
but it is not sufficient. The input must be comprehensible for your
LAD to tag the different forms (words, expressions, prefixes, suffixes,
etc.) of the new language with their corresponding gramatical functions
and semantic meanings.
Your LAD does all of this subconsciously while you pay attention
to messages. Besides, your LAD does not degenerate with age.
If everyone has a LAD and all LADs are equally efficient, then how does
Krashen explain the evident fact that even with exactly the same input
at the same degree of comprehensibility, two people acquire at different
speeds? |
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Krashen explains that there’s a filter
between our organs of perception (eyes for reading and ears for listening)
and our LAD. He calls it the affective filter.
This filter can be thicker or thinner. The
thicker it is, the less input gets past it to the LAD and the LAD acquires
less. The thinner it is, the more acquisition.
He calls it the “affective” filter because its
thickness depends on myriad pyschological factors. |
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Some of these factors are relatively stable or constant. For
example, some people are very ethnocentric (they
can’t stand English people or Americans) and all English input crashes
against a thick affective filter since language
is the most essencial manifestation of a culture.
If a person believes he is a very poor language learner, his
affective filter will tend to be quite thick.
Motivation is another factor that
influences the affective filter quite permamently.
Then there are temporary factors. For example, if you don’t
like crosswords in your own language and your teacher makes you do a crossword
in English, the input of the definitions for the crossword will run into
a thick affective filter.
If the teacher brings an article about fashion, some men will
read it with a thick affective filter. If the article were about
fly fishing, probably all the students will read it with a thick affective
filter! |
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Some differences between the
Acquisition Process
and Learning Processes
subconscious/cognitive
You don’t realise that you are
acquiring something when you acquire it, but
you do when you learn something.
relatively slow/relatively
fast
Acquisition is a slow process;
learning,
fast.
relatively permanent/is
forgotten quickly
What you acquire, stays;
what you learn, you forget.
comes out spontaneously/time
to think
What you have acquired comes out
spontaneously; to use what you have learned, you need time to think.
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More differences between the
Acquisition Process
and Learning Processes
natural order/arbitrary
order
It has been proven that adults
acquire the structural elements of a language in the same order in which
children that acquire that langauge as their mother tongue acquire those
structures. For example, English children don’t start using the third
person singular “s” until a little over four years of age (on the average).
Adult learners of English don’t start using it spontaneously until their
general level is quite high.
The order in which structures are
learned depends on the teacher, the text book, etc.
They’re completely independent
processes.
Prior learning of something does
not (at least directly) facilitate its acquisition;
nor vice versa.
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Acquisition: huge quantities of input pass through
the affective filter and get to the LAD, where they are processed and the
forms are gradually acquired following the natural order inherent in that
particular language.
The monitor: the ability to use learned
language. In order to monitor what you say or write, you need 1)
to know the rule (and not have forgotten it), 2) feel the need to not make
a mistake and 3) have time to think.
Therefore, generally
you should not monitor when you speak because you speak
much more slowly and tire your listener. On the other hand, when
you write you should monitor because you have
time. |
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If writing (reports, business letters, etc.) is not among
your objectives with English and you only need to be able to speak and
understand the language, we can conclude that you
should spend most of your time and effort on activities that produce acquisition
or develop fluency with what you have acquired… perhaps 90%.
If you need to write in English, you’ll
need more grammar in order to be able to monitor. Then, perhaps 20%
of your effort should be spent on learning grammar. |
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