Stephen Krashen's theories on language acquisition - ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISCTINCTION

I would just like to remind everyone that Professor Stephen Krashen will
join us for one week beginning September 4 to discuss his theories on
language acquisition and other topics related to language teaching and
learning. In these few days before our virtual seminar I would like to
share a few key points of Professor Krashen's theories in case you are
not already familiar with them. The following is taken from "A Summary
of Stephen Krashen's 'Principles and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition'" by Reid Wilson. - Dave Kees

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There are five key hypotheses about second language acquisition:

1. THE ACQUISITION-LEARNING DISTINCTION

Adults have two different ways to develop competence in a language:
language acquisition and language learning.

Language acquisition is a subconscious process not unlike the way a
child learns language. Language acquirers are not consciously aware of
the grammatical rules of the language, but rather develop a "feel" for
correctness. "In non-technical language, acquisition is 'picking-up' a
language."

Language learning, on the other hand, refers to the "conscious knowledge
of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being
able to talk about them." Thus language learning can be compared to
learning about a language.

The acquisition-learning distinction hypothesis claims that adults do
not lose the ability to acquire languages the way that children do. Just
as research shows that error correction has little effect on children
learning a first language, so too error correction has little affect on
language acquisition.


Part Two coming tomorrow...






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