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Pronunciation Problems for Spanish-Speaking ELs

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Pronunciation Problems for Spanish-Speaking ELs

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Although a strong Spanish accent is usually easier to understand than a similarly strong French or Portuguese one, the pronunciation can cause considerable strain for the listener and seem somewhat harsh and flat. More importantly, Spanish speakers often have listening comprehension far below their other skills.

School English lessons in most Spanish-speaking countries also tend to focus much more on reading and grammar than speaking and listening, and so pronunciation work will both help redress the balance and be considered worthwhile by students.

This article will focus mainly on pronunciation problems that cause miscomprehension, including some attempt to prioritise the entries in each section. The sections themselves are arranged more traditionally, starting with individual sounds.

Points That Spanish-Speaking Learners Of English Find Difficult

Vowels

Short and long vowel pairs

Perhaps the single biggest pronunciation problem for Spanish speakers is that their language does not have a distinction between short and long vowels. They often stretch all vowel sounds out too much and confuse pairs of short and long English vowel sounds like "ship" and "sheep" both in comprehension and speaking. Relevant pairs include:

As the pairs above are all pronounced with different mouth positions as well as different lengths, focusing on that can help students distinguish between the minimal pairs above even if they don't fully get the hang of vowel length.

Other vowels

In common with most learners, Spanish speakers find the distinction between the very similar sounds in "cat" and "cut" difficult to notice and produce. Perhaps more importantly, they can also have problems with the two closest sounds to an "o" sound in "not" mentioned above, making "boat" and "bought" difficult to distinguish. The unstressed schwa "er" sound in "computer" does not exist in Spanish, and neither do the closest long sounds in "fur" and "her". Spanish speakers tend to find it much more difficult to recognise not rhotic versions of vowel sounds.

Consonants

Words written with "b" and "v" are mostly pronounced identically, making this perhaps the most common spelling mistake in Spanish. There is also no distinction between the first sounds in "yacht" and "jot" in Spanish and which of those two sounds is perceived by English speakers tends to depend on the variety of Spanish spoken (this being one of the easiest ways of spotting an Argentinean accent, for example). There may also be some confusion between the first sound in "jeep" and its unvoiced equivalent in "cheap" (a common sound in Spanish).

The "ch" in "cheese" may also be confused with the "sh" in "she's", as the latter sound does not exist in Spanish. The difference is similar to that between "yacht" and "jot" mentioned above, being between a smooth sound (sh) and a more explosive one (ch), so the distinction can usefully be taught as a more general point. Alternatively, the "sh" in "sheep" may come out sounding more like "s" in "seep", in which case it is mouth shape that needs to be worked on.

Spanish words never start with an "s" sound, and words which are similar to English tend to have an initial "es" sound instead, as in escuela/school. This is very common in Spanish speakers' pronunciation of English as well, leading to pronunciations like "I am from Espain". Spanish speakers have no problem producing a hissing sound, so the secret is to have them make the word directly after that "ssss" and then practise reducing the length of that down to a short initial "s".

Unlike most languages, the "th" sounds in "thing" and "bathe" do exist in Spanish. The problem with "bathe" is that the sound is just a variation on mid or final "d" for Spanish speakers and so some work on understanding the distinction between initial "d" and initial "th" is usually needed before it can be understood and produced in an initial position - in fact making the amount of work needed not much less than for speakers of languages entirely without this sound. The problem with "thing" and "sing" is different as it is a distinction that exists in some varieties of Spanish and not others, meaning that again for some speakers practice will need to start basically from zero.

Some speakers also pronounce a final "d" similar to an unvoiced "th". "d" and "t" can also be a problem at the end of words, as can "thing"/"think" and sometimes "thing"/"thin" or even "ring" and "rim". In general, Spanish consonant sounds vary more by position than English consonants do.

Although a "w" sound exists in Spanish, it is spelt "gu" and can be pronounced "gw", sometimes making it difficult to work out if a "g" or "w" is what is meant.

As a "z" is pronounced as "s" or "th" (depending on the speaker, as in the two pronunciations of "Barcelona"), a "z" sound does not exist in Spanish. However, perhaps because not so much air is produced in a Spanish "s" I find that this version rarely produces comprehension problems.

Although a Spanish "r" is different from most English ones, it rarely causes comprehension problems. However, the English "r" can seem so soft to Spanish speakers that it is sometimes perceived as "w".

The Spanish "j" in José (similar to the Scottish "ch" in "loch") and the English "h" in "hope" rarely if ever cause communication problems, but is perhaps the main thing to work on if students are interested in accent reduction. An English "h" is like breathing air onto your glasses so you can polish them, and students can actually practise doing that to help.

Spanish doesn't have the soft, French-sounding sound from the middle of "television" and "pleasure", but this rarely if ever causes comprehension problems.

Number of syllables

Particularly when it comes to final consonant clusters in English, Spanish-speakers can suffer both from adding extra syllables (e.g. three syllables for "advanced" with the final "e" pronounced) and swallowing sounds to make it match the desired number of syllables (e.g. "fifths" sounding like "fiss"). With words that are similar in Spanish and English, they can also often try to make the English word match the Spanish number of syllables.

Word stress

Trying to make Latinate words in English match Spanish pronunciation is also true for word stress. There is also a more general problem that Spanish, unlike English, has a pretty regular system of word stress.

Sentence stress

Spanish is sometimes described as a "syllable-timed" language, basically meaning that each syllable takes up about the same amount of time. This means that the English idea of unstressed syllables and weak forms being squashed in between stressed syllables doesn't really exist in Spanish. This can make it difficult for Spanish speakers to pick out and point out the important words in a sentence.

Intonation

Spanish speakers, especially males, can sound quite flat in English, and this can cause problems in formal situations and other times when polite language is needed (especially as Spanish speakers also have other problems with polite language such as over-use of the verb "give").

Alphabet

The names and pronunciations of the letters of the alphabet in Spanish can cause confusions between these pairs in both listening and speaking, e.g.

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Pronunciation Problems For Spanish-Speaking Learners Of English

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Although a strong Spanish accent is usually easier to understand than a similarly strong French or Portuguese one, the pronunciation can cause considerable strain for the listener and seem somewhat harsh and flat. More importantly, Spanish speakers often have listening comprehension far below their other skills.

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Cultural Background for Students Resource

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Cultural Background for Students Resource

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Use this for research on a student's cultural background! Very great!

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Support USAHello | Organization Helping Immigrants in the US

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USAHello is a non-profit offering free multilingual information and classes to immigrants and refugees. Learn how to support our efforts.

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THIS WEBSITE IS SO INFORMATIVE AND HELPFUL!

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Do you sometimes feel like you are being asked to do the impossible? Teach 'em academic English language, cover the content, get ready for high stakes tests - and do it all with limited time and resources. More Than English is my ongoing collection of resources and strategies that have worked the best for me. Teachers - ESL and mainstream - can use these tools to teach both language When we work together, we are all powerful! Go to my blog, Loosely Speaking, for updated strategies, resources, suggestions, and opinions. My most recent post is 10 Offers of Wisdom from Fictional Characters - Give the Gift of Reading. and content to all English Language Learners (ELLs) in grades K-12. ESL teachers need to be familiar with content area standards and mainstream teachers need to understand and support English Language Development (ELD).

Who are our students?

While over 100 languages are represented, the majority of ELLs in the United States come from Spanish speaking families. Most of our students were born in the US to parents whose first language is not English. We have also seen a recent influx of non-English speaking immigrants. Students and the teachers alike are struggling to survive. Newcomers need basic communication skills (BICs) , teachers need effective strategies, and all students need to gain academic language proficiency (CALPS) more quickly so they aren't stuck in the LTELL (Long Term English Language Learner) quagmire.

To teach English learners effectively, it helps to know how a language is learned and/or acquired. This is a quick introduction for classroom teachers with no specific training in teaching English to speakers of other languages. For a more detailed presentation, read Language Acquisition: An Overview by Kristina Robertson and Karen Ford.

So how do we accelerate language acquisition?

There are quite a few factors that affect Second Language Acquisition (SLA):

We only have control over the last factor - quality of instruction. Marzano and others have conducted research that indicates that the most important factor in a student's success in school is the teacher. Whether or not our students are ELLs, we have to take into account all the factors - social, economic, and personal - that affect their ability to learn and succeed in school. But we can't change them. As a colleague once told me, "The parents are sending us what they have. They aren't keeping the best ones at home."

The following resources and strategies for teaching ELLs are the ones I have found the most effective over the years. I hope they help you meet the challenge of accelerating language acquisition for your ELLS - short term, long term, and newcomers.

ELD standards Standards developed by WIDA for English Language Development in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing

Common Core Standards Common Core Standards for ELA and Math with resources specifically designed to teach these standards. These standards are demanding but they can be taught to students at all levels of English language proficiency with the appropriate corresponding strategies.

Essential Standards Standards developed by North Carolina for the other content areas

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy In this rapidly changing world we must work to develop higher level thinking skills in our students, regardless of language proficiency. Andy Griffith knew this.

So did Harry Potter.

Tools, templates, and vocabulary lists to help you combine content and language objectives in your classes. The World Depends on Them!

An historical overview of major court decisions and legislation, and how they guide instruction, plus information on immigration reform

Research based suggestions on how to determine if a struggling ELL also has a learning disability

Handy tools for everyone, not just ESL teachers

A handful of my favorite sites

My take on current issues, challenges, and strategies for teaching content and language to ELLs

Padres de Familia: Information in Spanish for parents to empower greater involvement in their child's education

Bilingual Letters and Forms

I continue to add new finds to this site so if you would like to be updated automatically, enter your email at the upper right and "subscribe." I welcome suggestions for other resources to be included in this site. Please use my contact form or email me directly at jessicaloose.obx@gmail.com.

Jessica Loose - MsED TESOL, Reading Specialist, Curriculum Specialist

photo credit: Eve Turek, Yellowhouse Gallery, Nags Head, NC

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More Than English: Teaching Language & Content to ELLs

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Do you sometimes feel like you are being asked to do the impossible? Teach 'em academic English language, cover the content, get ready for high stakes tests - and do it all with limited time and resources. More Than English is my ongoing collection of resources and strategies that have worked the best for me.

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Even if these are resources for our final project, they're still incredibly helpful!

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Amazing resource for teaching grammar

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To find more books about great grammar lessons, you can use related keywords : Great Grammar Lessons, What Makes Great Leaders Great Management Lessons , Life Lessons From The Great Myths The Great Course, montessori great lessons, great commission lessons, PDF The Great Depression Of The 1930s Lessons For, Drawing Lessons From The Great Masters, Life Lessons From The Great Books, Great Elders Quorum Lessons, Anatomy Lessons From The Great Masters Pdf

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Great Grammar Lessons.Pdf - eBook and Manual Free download

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To find more books about great grammar lessons, you can use related keywords : Great Grammar Lessons, What Makes Great Leaders Great Management Lessons , Life Lessons From The Great Myths The Great Course, montessori great lessons, great commission lessons, PDF The Great Depression Of The 1930s Lessons For, Drawing Lessons From The Great Masters, Life Lessons From The Great Books, Great Elders Quorum Lessons, Anatomy Lessons From The Great Masters Pdf

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Hello Patrick, you've given me a difficult question to answer because there is a rule about pronouncing 'g' but, typically with the English language, there are many exceptions to this rule!

The pronunciation of 'g' generally (but not always) depends on the letter that follows it. The general rule is this: if the letter after 'g' is 'e', 'i' or 'y', the pronunciation is a 'soft g' as in 'fringe'. Some examples of words with the soft 'g' are:

general, giant, gymnastics, large, energy and change.

Any other letter that follows requires a 'hard' pronunciation of 'g' as in 'progress' and some more examples are:

golf, pig, great, grasp and gum.

A bit of extra info for you: if a word derives from German, it's usually a hard 'g', and if it is a Latin or French derivative, it's a soft 'g'.

So can you think of a word which has two g's and uses both rules? That'd be 'language'! And 'garage' and 'gigantic' too. However, as I mentioned before, there are many irregularities. Words like 'get' and 'give' break the rule which is unfortunate for learners of English. What I'd suggest is making a note of exceptions to help you remember them, so here are a few exceptions to 'get' you started:

tiger, gift, girl and gear.

Good luck!

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trudi faulkner-petrova explains the two different ways of pronouncing 'g' in english

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Hello Patrick, you've given me a difficult question to answer because there is a rule about pronouncing 'g' but, typically with the English language, there are many exceptions to this rule! The pronunciation of 'g' generally (but not always) depends on the letter that follows it.

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by LaurieGardner 11,118 views

In English, there are letters that represent more than just one sound. Two examples of this are the letters C and G. Both of these letters represent two sounds that can be referred to as hard and soft.

Letter

Hard Sound

Soft Sound

C

/k/

/s/

G

/g/

/d3/

Because of the fact that these letters can be pronounced differently, here are some pronunciation rules to help teach your students when to use what sound.

The basic rules can be explained as followed:

If C/G is followed by A, O, or U, then it makes the hard sound.

If C/G is followed by E, L, or Y, then it makes the soft sound.

Here are some examples of each rule:

C + A → candy, cake, arcade

Because of the fact that these letters can be pronounced differently, here are some pronunciation rules to help teach your students when to use what sound.

The basic rules can be explained as followed:

If C/G is followed by A, O, or U, then it makes the hard sound.

If C/G is followed by E, L, or Y, then it makes the soft sound.

Here are some examples of each rule:

C + A → candy, cake, arcade

C + U → cuddle, cube, cub

G + U → guy, gulp, guilty

C + E → cell, celebrate, center

G + E → gem, angel, gentle

C + I → circle, cinnamon, decide

G + I → ginger, giant, engine

C + Y → cyber, recycle, bicycle

G + Y → gym, apology, gypsy

Here are some great resources from BusyTeacher.org to help you with teaching this:

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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by LaurieGardner 11,121 views In English, there are letters that represent more than just one sound. Two examples of this are the letters C and G. Both of these letters represent two sounds that can be referred to as hard and soft.

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Suprasegmentals: Pronunciation Practice for ELL Classrooms

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Suprasegmentals: Pronunciation Practice for ELL Classrooms

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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Cohen-Suprasegmentals.html

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The Internet TESL Journal Joshua Cohen
cohenjoshua2000 (at) yahoo.com
(Osaka, Japan)

Introduction

Studying English as a second or foreign language can be a challenging effort for students whose goal is effective communication. The grammar rules of English don't always make sense, spelling can be difficult and at the discourse level, the nuances of rhythm, sentence stress and intonation are incredibly complex and difficult to master. One reason for the students' difficulty is the sound system of English. In many settings, areas like pragmatics and pronunciation get passed over for vocabulary and grammar. This is often due to lack of time or syllabus demands. Fortunately, this is changing. English teachers across the world have begun devoting more and more class time to discourse-level communication.

One area of English pronunciation that is worth focusing on is the stress-timed quality of English. The amount of time it takes to say a sentence depends on the number of syllables that receive stress in the sentence - not the total number of syllables. The diagram below is a good example of how stress timing affects English. Notice how each sentence takes approximately the same time to say:

HORSES EAT GRASS.
The HORSES EAT GRASS.
The HORSES EAT the GRASS.
The HORSES will EAT the GRASS.
The HORSES will have EATen the GRASS.
The HORSES might have been EATing the GRASS.

Many begining learners focus on reading and pronouncing each word correctly and fully. By assigning equal weight to each syllable, they give their speech a choppy-sounding, unnatural rhythm that can affect their comprehensibility. Therefore, focusing students' attention on the stress-timed factor of English may assist them in sounding more natural and fluid in their speech.

In English, there are two types of words: content words and function words. Content words are principle words that express meaning. They include nouns, main verbs, adjectives, question words, demonstratives and adverbs; and they all receive stress. Function words are those words that have little or no meaning themselves but help express grammatical relationships. These words include articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, and pronouns.

Warm Up

As an awareness task the teacher reads an example sentence aloud to students, first by pronouncing each word carefully (i.e., teacher talk,) and then a second time using natural speed and intonation.

Ask students, which seemed more natural and why. Pair students and have them discuss the differences between the two readings. Then using the ideas the students came up with, explain the concepts of stress - timing and how English makes use of this device. (If necessary, point out the differences between syllable-timed and stress-timed languages here too.)

Talk about the differences between stressed words and non-stressed words. Point out to students that content words (nouns, most verbs, adjectives, etc.,) receive stress, where function words (determiners, prepositions and pronouns,) do not.

Lay the content/function game (see the appendix, worksheet 1). Pair students and hand out a sheet to each pair. Ask students to identify which words are content words and which words and function words. Check the answers as a class.

Then, using some of the words from the exercise, write out two sentences on the board underlining the stressed words in both. Ask students to try reading the sentences aloud. Point out how each sentence seems to take approximately the same length in 'stress time.' For example: Say, 'Birds eat worms.' Then say, 'The birds will eat the worms.'

Main Task

Again, pair students and hand out the sentence worksheets (see appendix, worksheet 2.) Ask students to look over the example sentences and underline the words that receive stress on the worksheet.

Ask students (again in pairs,) to read the sentences with the appropriate intonation after they have decided which words need stress. (It may be helpful to show students how to mark sentences for intonation using dots-for-emphasis and slashes / for pauses.) Encourage students to add as many dots above the content/ function words as possible until the sentence takes an almost sheet music appearance.

Next have students read the sentences again, first with each word pronounced equally (i.e., syllable timed,) and then again using their stress-timed versions.

Avery and Ehrlich (1992) offer an excellent classroom activity that can easily be segued into from the above task. According to Avery and Ehrlich (p.188,) by working with nonsense words rather than English words, students can be trained to listen for the acoustic signals of stress-particularly those words that are said more loudly, more clearly and more slowly. Further, by using nonsense words the teacher can ensure that students' full attention is on the words that receive stress.

Distribute sheets with a set of nonsense sentences modeled on real English sentences (see appendix, worksheet 3).

Read the sentences aloud, with students marking the stressed and unstressed words. To help illustrate the function of suprasegmentals, the use of dots to indicate stress and length may be helpful for this exercise. Again, encourage students to mark the stressed words with bigger dots, smaller dots for those words that receive less emphasis. For savvy or advanced students, teach intonation arrows for pitch change and slashes and sharp marks to indicate juncture or pauses.

For example, the teacher could read the following sentences with the stressed words as indicated by the dots (or, if students are more comfortable using an underlining method, have them continue to underline content words.) Be careful to reduce the nonsense function words.

Model: The pilots flew their planes expertly.

Son geefies flugged min hox wazily.

Model: My dear old friend is busy in the garden.(Ehrlich, 1992.)

Hy fiss pold deesh tut looty wo um trewy.

Conclusion

The above activities are an excellent way to practice word suprasegmentals while at the same time gently introducing the concept of (vowel, word) reduction. Because of its significance in English, teaching suprasegmental aspects to students is quintessential to their comprehension and their comprehensibility. The exercises above were designed to raise the students' awareness of these elements (through listening exercises,) and offer an opportunity to practice and reproduce them as discourse structures. Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step!

Appendix

Content /Function Worksheet 1

1. birds (c) 6. just 11. doctor 16. he

2. as (f) 7. quickly 12. next to 17. in order to

3. many (f) 8. worms 13. however 18. slam dunk

4. went 9. the 14. activity 19. Cambridge University

5. with 10. mustard 15. eat 20. in front of

Content/Function Example Sentences Worksheet 2

1. The cat chased the mouse across the street.

2. I'd like fries with that, please.

3. Could you tell me the quickest way from here to London station?

4. France is bracing for fresh mass protests over a controversial new labor law.

5. Of course, Olivia is not at all sleepy.

Nonsense Sentences (and Models) Worksheet 3

1. a. Kai dupe chu me lo runt, Sprunt

1. b. Model: I'll meet you at the bank, Frank.

2. a. la rove dirk um tink.

2. b. Model: The X marks the spot.

3. a. don me wanana fil yo zeeking to la pillypolally.

3. b. Model: It was another day of losing for the 76ers.

4. a. Boa my wee jah bloppy-go.

4. b. Model: Six times seven is 42.

5. a. Germ twa lee bosen ra choley.

5. b. Model: "John," said the teacher, "is lazy."

References

Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Avery, P., Ehrlich, S., & Jull, D. (1992). Connected Speech. In P. Avery & S. Ehrlich (Eds.), Teaching American English Pronunciation. (p. 73-90). Oxford: Oxford University Press

The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 11, November 2007
http://iteslj.org/ http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Cohen-Suprasegmentals.html

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Suprasegmentals: Pronunciation Practice for Your EFL Classroom

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The Internet TESL Journal Joshua Cohencohenjoshua2000 (at) yahoo.com(Osaka, Japan) Studying English as a second or foreign language can be a challenging effort for students whose goal is effective communication. The grammar rules of English don't always make sense, spelling can be difficult and at the discourse level, the nuances of rhythm, sentence stress and intonation are incredibly complex and difficult to master.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtf8zGQj9GY&list=PLfLdA1jGDSu6exdSf9yQJWKgNqPviO4b4

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Useful website that describes what phonology is.

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Whereas phonetics is the study of sounds and is concerned with the production, audition and perception of of speech sounds (called phones), phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language and operates at the level of sound systems and abstract sound units. Knowing the sounds of a language is only a small part of phonology. This importance is shown by the fact that you can change one word into another by simply changing one sound. Consider the differences between the words time and dime. The words are identical except for the first sound. [t] and [d] can therefore distinguish words, and are called contrasting sounds. They are distinctive sounds in English, and all distinctive sounds are classified as phonemes.

Minimal Pairs
Minimal pairs are words with different meanings that have the same sounds except for one. These contrasting sounds can either be consonants or vowels. The words pin and bin are minimal pairs because they are exactly the same except for the first sound. The words read and rude are also exactly the same except for the vowel sound. The examples from above, time and dime, are also minimal pairs. In effect, words with one contrastive sound are minimal pairs. Another feature of minimal pairs is overlapping distribution. Sounds that occur in phonetic environments that are identical are said to be in overlapping distribution. The sounds of [ɪn] from pin and bin are in overlapping distribution because they occur in both words. The same is true for three and through. The sounds of [θr] is in overlapping distribution because they occur in both words as well.

Free Variation
Some words in English are pronounced differently by different speakers. This is most noticeable among American English speakers and British English speakers, as well as dialectal differences. This is evidenced in the ways neither, for example, can be pronounced. American English pronunciation tends to be [niðər], while British English pronunciation is [najðər].

Phones and Allophones
Phonemes are not physical sounds. They are abstract mental representations of the phonological units of a language. Phones are considered to be any single speech sound of which phonemes are made. Phonemes are a family of phones regarded as a single sound and represented by the same symbol. The different phones that are the realization of a phoneme are called allophones of that phoneme. The use of allophones is not random, but rule-governed. No one is taught these rules as they are learned subconsciously when the native language is acquired. To distinguish between a phoneme and its allophones, I will use slashes // to enclose phonemes and brackets [] to enclose allophones or phones. For example, [i] and [ĩ] are allophones of the phoneme /i/; [ɪ] and [ɪ̃] are allophones of the phoneme /ɪ/.

Complementary Distribution
If two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme, they are said to be in complementary distribution. These sounds cannot occur in minimal pairs and they cannot change the meaning of otherwise identical words. If you interchange the sounds, you will only change the pronunciation of the words, not the meaning. Native speakers of the language regard the two allophones as variations of the same sound. To hear this, start to say the word cool (your lips should be pursed in anticipation of /u/ sound), but then say kill instead (with your lips still pursed.) Your pronunciation of kill should sound strange because cool and kill are pronounced with different allophones of the phoneme /k/.

Nasalized vowels are allophones of the same phoneme in English. Take, for example, the sounds in bad and ban. The phoneme is /æ/, however the allophones are [æ] and [æ̃]. Yet in French, nasalized vowels are not allophones of the same phonemes. They are separate phonemes. The words beau [bo] and bon [bõ] are not in complementary distribution because they are minimal pairs and have contrasting sounds. Changing the sounds changes the meaning of the words. This is just one example of differences between languages.

Phonological Rules
Assimilation: sounds become more like neighboring sounds, allowing for ease of articulation or pronunciation; such as vowels are nasalized before nasal consonants
- Harmony: non-adjacent vowels become more similar by sharing a feature or set of features (common in Finnish)
- Gemination: sound becomes identical to an adjacent sound
- Regressive Assimilation: sound on left is the target, and sound on right is the trigger

Dissimilation: sounds become less like neighboring sounds; these rules are quite rare, but one example in English is [fɪfθ] becoming [fɪft] (/f/ and /θ/ are both fricatives, but /t/ is a stop)

Epenthesis: insertion of a sound, e.g. Latin "homre" became Spanish "hombre"
- Prothesis: insertion of vowel sound at beginning of word
- Anaptyxis: vowel sound with predictable quality is inserted word-internally
- Paragoge: insertion of vowel sound at end of word
- Excrescence: consonant sound inserted between other consonants (also called stop-intrusion)

Deletion: deletion of a sound; e.g. French word-final consonants are deleted when the next word begins with a consonant (but are retained when the following word begins with a vowel)
- Aphaeresis: vowel sound deleted at beginning of word
- Syncope: vowel sound is deleted word-internally
- Apocope: vowel sound deleted at end of word

Metathesis: reordering of phonemes; in some dialects of English, the word asked is pronounced [æks]; children's speech shows many cases of metathesis such as aminal for animal

Lenition: consonant changes to a weaker manner of articulation; voiced stop becomes a fricative, fricative becomes a glide, etc.

Palatalization: sound becomes palatal when adjacent to a front vowel Compensatory Lengthening: sound becomes long as a result of sound loss, e.g. Latin "octo" became Italian "otto"

Assimilation in English
An interesting observation of assimilation rules is evidenced in the formation of plurals and the past tense in English. When pluralizing nouns, the last letter is pronounced as either [s], [z], or [əz]. When forming past tenses of verbs, the -ed ending is pronounced as either [t], [d], [əd]. If you were to sort words into three columns, you would be able to tell why certain words are followed by certain sounds:

Hopefully, you can determine which consonants produce which sounds. In the nouns, /s/ is added after voiceless consonants, and /z/ is added after voiced consonants. /əz/ is added after sibilants. For the verbs, /t/ is added after voiceless consonants, and /d/ is added after voiced consonants. /əd/ is added after alveolar stops. The great thing about this is that no one ever taught you this in school. But thanks to linguistics, you now know why there are different sounds (because of assimiliation rules, the consonants become more like their neighboring consonants.)

Writing Rules
A general phonological rule is A → B / D __ E (said: A becomes B when it occurs between D and E) Other symbols in rule writing include: C = any obstruent, V = any vowel, Ø = nothing, # = word boundary, ( ) = optional, and { } = either/or. A deletion rule is A → Ø / E __ (A is deleted when it occurs after E) and an insertion rule is Ø → A / E __ (A is inserted when it occurs after E).

Alpha notation is used to collapse similar assimilation rules into one. C → [Α voice] / __ [Α voice] (An obstruent becomes voiced when it occurs before a voiced obstruent AND an obstruent becomes voiceless when it occurs before a voiceless obstruent.) Similarly, it can be used for dissimilation rules too. C → [-Α voice] / __ [Α voice] (An obstruent becomes voiced when it occurs before a voiceless obstruent AND an obstruent becomes voiceless when it occurs before a voiced obstruent.) Gemination rules are written as C1C2 → C2C2 (for example, pd → dd)

Syllable Structure
There are three peaks to a syllable: nucleus (vowel), onset (consonant before nucleus) and coda (consonant after nucleus.) The onset and coda are both optional, meaning that a syllable could contain a vowel and nothing else. The nucleus is required in every syllable by definition. The order of the peaks is always onset - nucleus - coda. All languages permit open syllables (Consonant + Vowel), but not all languages allow closed syllables (Consonant + Vowel + Consonant). Languages that only allow open syllables are called CV languages. In addition to not allowing codas, some CV languages also have constraints on the number of consonants allowed in the onset.

The sonority profile dictates that sonority must rise to the nucleus and fall to the coda in every language. The sonority scale (from most to least sonorous) is vowels - glides - liquids - nasals - obstruents. Sonority must rise in the onset, but the sounds cannot be adjacent to or share a place of articulation (except [s] in English) nor can there be more than two consonants in the onset. This explains why English allows some consonant combinations, but not others. For example, price [prajs] is a well-formed syllable and word because the sonority rises in the onset (p, an obstruent, is less sonorous than r, a liquid); however, rpice [rpajs] is not a syllable in English because the sonority does not rise in the onset.

The Maximality Condition states that onsets are as large as possible up to the well-formedness rules of a language. Onsets are always preferred over codas when syllabifying words. There are also constraints that state the maximum number of consonants between two vowels is four; onsets and codas have two consonants maximally; and onsets and codas can be bigger only at the edges of words.

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Whereas phonetics is the study of sounds and is concerned with the production, audition and perception of of speech sounds (called phones), phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language and operates at the level of sound systems and abstract sound units.

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Language Acquisition  vs. Learning  | Second Language Theory | TESOL

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Affective Variables in Language Teaching

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Affective Variables in Language Teaching

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Affective Variables in Language Teaching

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Acquiring a new language is part of the process of acculturation.

Two important factors play a role in acquisition: social distance and psychological distance.

Social distance: the greater the social distance, the harder it is to learn the language. the smaller the social distance, the easier the learning situation will be.

social dominance

the more equal power is, it diminishes the social distance

integration pattern

less integration between two cultures= greater social distance

more integration= less social distance

enclosure

social distance increases when the learner doesn't interact with members of the target culture

but it decreases with more interaction

size

when there are a bigger group of learners, there is more of a chance for social distance

a smaller group of learners is less likely to experience social distance

cultural congruence

very different culturally=increased social distance

very similar culturally=decreased social distance

cohesiveness

learner group less united=less social distance

tight-knit group of learners= more social distance

attitude

negative attitude towards members of target language culture=increased social distance

positive attitude= decreased social distance

intended length of residence

learners intending to stay in the country for a short period of time tend to have greater social distance

learners intending to stay longer have a decrease in social distance

Psychological distance:

motivation

high motivation=more likely to learn the language

attitude

positive attitude=more likely to learn the language

cultural shock

less culture shock= more likely to learn the language

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Can we Learn a Second Language Like we Learned our First?- Web Article

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Can we Learn a Second Language Like we Learned our First?- Web Article

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1. We acquire languages when we can understand messages
2. Getting the right level is crucial
3. The silent period
4. Anxiety is the student's arch enemy
5. The monitor hypothesis
6. The natural order hypothesis

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Robert William McCaul, winner (with Marek Kiczkowiak) of the TeachingEnglish blog award, examines the influential ideas of linguist Stephen Krashen, and the implications they have for the language classroom.
If you've ever doubted whether you're a good language learner, then bear in mind that you've already learned one language very well indeed - your first. But this raises an interesting question: can adults learn a second language in the same way they learned their first as children? And if so, what are the implications for the classroom?
Stephen Krashen and the acquisition of languages
Perhaps no-one has looked at the question more closely than the linguist Stephen Krashen, who has introduced some of the most influential concepts to the study of second-language acquisition.

In his input hypothesis, first proposed in an article published in 1977, and expanded upon in later years, he makes the distinction between learning: the conscious, traditional grammar-based process in the classroom; and acquisition: essentially how we, as children, pick up our first language. He says that our mistake is trying to teach languages in the same way we teach science, history and mathematics. Instead, he believes that learners should acquire second languages in the same way children learn their first.

Krashen sums up the idea in a famous documentary on the subject called A child's guide to learning languages, produced by BBC Horizon in 1983. In the documentary, he says that acquisition is 'where the action is'. In other words, in every successful example of language-learning - an infant mastering a first language, an adult learner of English scoring a band 9 on the IELTS test - the reason for their success is that they have 'acquired' rather than 'learned' the language.

So, how do children and proficient adult learners perform the seemingly magical trick of mastering a language, and what can teachers learn from this? Krashen offers the following ideas:
1. We acquire languages when we can understand messages
Learners need to be exposed to what Krashen calls 'comprehensible input' - that is, exposure to interesting and understandable listening and reading material. In Krashen's view, we acquire languages when we understand messages. He stipulates that the emphasis should be on meaningful interactions and not on form. When parents speak to their children, for example, the emphasis is on meaning rather than the correct use of grammar. If the child says, 'Daddy fish water!', the parent is likely to respond, 'Yes, you're right, there's a fish in the river', rather than by correcting the child's grammar. The theory here is that exposure to sufficient quantities of comprehensible input always results in acquisition.
2. Getting the right level is crucial
Krashen makes the important point that comprehensible input needs to be at the right level for the learner, namely just higher than the learner's own. He calls this theoretical level 'i + 1'. A good practical example of this in action are graded readers. These are books that are specially created for learners of foreign languages at various levels, such as A2, B1, C2, etc, on the common European framework ( CEFR).
3. The silent period
Children don't start speaking their mother tongue straight away. Until they utter their first words, they are acquiring language, even if they are not using it. The miraculous first words and sentences that quickly follow are the result of this acquisition. Adult learners, both inside and outside the classroom, need this silent period, too. Teachers shouldn't be afraid when their students don't participate in debates in class - perhaps they are simply acquiring the language. Moreover, putting pressure on the learner to speak before they are ready will result in anxiety.
4. Anxiety is the student's arch enemy
This brings me to one of Krashen's most famous insights, namely the affective filter. This means that the rate of acquisition decreases if we are under stress, or if we experience anxiety. Luckily, most children have a virtually stress-free language-learning environment at home with their mothers and fathers. But for learners of a second language, the classroom can be a cause of anxiety, greatly affecting the way they receive and process comprehensible input.

By contrast, a house party with lots of international guests is a great place to practise languages, as everybody is relaxed and having a good time. Such an environment offers the language learner plenty of comprehensible input, but (hopefully) none of the anxiety. The lesson here for teachers is that they can create a similar environment by turning the classroom into a sort of house party where people feel comfortable and relaxed.
5. The monitor hypothesis
According to Krashen, conscious language-learning cannot be the source of spontaneous speech, it can only monitor output, i.e., production in speech or writing. In other words, when learners freely formulate an utterance in the target language, they can only draw upon their repertoire of acquired language to check whether it is grammatically correct. This reduces errors as the learner can apply consciously learned rules to an utterance before producing it, or after production through self-correction. As many people place a high value on accuracy, especially in formal situations, the existence of the 'monitor' could be seen as a reason for retaining a grammar focus in a given lesson.

One way to apply this in the classroom would be to have learners notice grammatical features in listening and reading texts using a guided discovery approach. For example, if the learners were given a listening task to do on the biography of a famous person who is still alive, the teacher could hand out the transcript and get the students to underline all of the examples of the present perfect tense. This might be followed by a short discussion, led by the teacher, as to why the tense is being used in this particular situation, followed by some concept-checking questions to ensure students understand how to use the target language. However, Krashen is clear that the main focus of classroom activity should be on giving learners as much comprehensible input as possible. Teachers should base their lessons on meaningful interactions with plenty of graded listening and reading input.
6. The natural order hypothesis
The grammar and vocabulary of a language are acquired in the same general order, irrespective of who the learner is, which language they are acquiring and the order of the grammar syllabus. You can teach students reported speech, such as in the sentence, 'she mentioned that she had been at the shop that morning', but learners won't acquire it unless they are ready to. Certain elements of grammar are 'late-acquired', such as the third person '-s', and others are 'early-acquired'. This explains why my little niece continues to say things like 'Daddy go to work every day', even when she has already mastered more complex grammatical structures such as a conditional sentence like, 'I would do it if I had time'. Evidence for this 'natural sequence' of language acquisition can be found in the morpheme studies by Dulay and Burt. This casts doubt on the teaching of many points of grammar too early, that is, before students are ready to acquire them, such as the future perfect tense at intermediate level.
The advantages children have over adult learners
Before looking at the classroom implications of Krashen's insights, we should remind ourselves of some of the advantages that children learning their first language have over adults learning a second language. One of the principle advantages is that children are exposed to copious amounts of comprehensible input at just the right level, and there is no pressure on them to speak until they are ready to do so. Children can also take their time and wait until they feel confident before attempting to speak. Moreover, they often have lower expectations of themselves and this helps to ensure that their anxiety levels are low, which, in turn, increases their rate of acquisition.

One of the most surprising things is that when children acquire a language, the language acquisition itself is not their objective. Rather, it is a by-product of the achievement of some other purpose, such as making friends in a school playground. Moreover, they pick up the elements of their first language in its natural order. They are not 'force-fed' grammar too early before their language acquisition devices are ready for it. Instead, they acquire the language first and then consider its structure after acquisition has already taken place. Finally, they learn the elements of a language in the natural order.
The practical implications of Krashen's ideas for the classroom
From Krashen's theories, and having looked at the advantages that children have over adults when it comes to learning languages, we can draw certain conclusions about what conditions make for a successful learning environment. First, class time should be taken up with as much comprehensible input as possible. Second, classes should be stress-free environments where students are encouraged to relax and acquire the language by having fun with it.

One particularly important implication of Krashen's findings is that students, particularly at lower levels, should have lower demands made on them to speak, and materials and teacher talking time should be modified for each student's level. Furthermore, grammar instruction should be done on a need-to-know basis, and only with older learners. Last, but perhaps most important, lessons should not be based on grammar points, but rather on the exchange of meaning.
Listen to Robert William McCaul and Marek Kiczkowiak discuss Krashen's theories of language acquisition on their award-winning podcast. Teachers, visit our TeachingEnglish website for more lesson plans and activities, and find out how you can become a TeachingEnglish blogger.

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Can we learn a second language like we learned our first?

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Robert William McCaul, winner (with Marek Kiczkowiak) of the TeachingEnglish blog award, examines the influential ideas of linguist Stephen Krashen, and the implications they have for the language classroom. If you've ever doubted whether you're a good language learner, then bear in mind that you've already learned one language very well indeed - your first.

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Is There a 'Right' Way to Learn a Language? -Web Article

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Is There a 'Right' Way to Learn a Language? -Web Article

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One way to think about different approaches to learning a language is to look at two ends of the spectrum, i.e., two diametrically opposite ways to go about learning a language.

At one end of the spectrum, we have a tourist who wants to order a coffee in a country where she doesn't speak the language. How can she order the drink without embarrassing herself or causing offense or confusion?

To find out what to do, she listens to other customers and tries to pick out the word for coffee. Initially, this foreign language sounds like a babbling stream of syllables with no discernible boundaries between words. However, after some time, one word seems to recur again and again at a moment where customers seem to be stating their order, and the tourist latches on to this word as being the word for 'coffee'. She also notices a word that always follows it (never precedes it), which she interprets as a token or marker of politeness. She says the phrase to herself, rehearsing it so that it is right for her 'performance' in front of the server, and then approaches the counter, says the words in a slightly garbled way, possibly in the wrong order, tentatively with a smile, but meets with success: the coffee is ordered. The server might also provide a friendly correction of her pronunciation and word order, which our tourist can then repeat out loud or to herself.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have a literature-lover in his home country, who wants to learn a language by translating the front page of a newspaper. Knowing nothing of the language, he has a private teacher sit with him and translate the text word for word, sentence by sentence, while pointing out tense forms and parts of speech. As a result, he learns words such as 'coffee', among such other things as grammar.

What puts these approaches at opposite ends of the spectrum? Scott Thornbury, author of ' An A-Z of ELT ', has spoken of how all so-called 'methods' need to answer the following nine fundamental questions about the process of language acquisition; and each answer needs to fall somewhere on the end of two opposites, given in brackets.

1. What are the features of the language that the learner needs to concentrate on primarily (function or form)?

2. How does learning happen mostly (via experience or analysis)?

3. What is the main goal (communication or accuracy)?

4. What is most important on the syllabus (skills or systems)?

5. How should this syllabus be delivered (integrated or segregated)?

6. What is more important in how the learner approaches the language (affective or cognitive)?

7. What is the most prevalent teaching style (dialogic or transmissive)?

8. How are predictable patterns of the language learned (inductive or deductive)?

9. How much is the learner's mother tongue necessary to help them to learn (monolingual or bilingual)?

The example of the café tourist showed an approach to learning that was more based on function (the need to order a coffee) as part of a real-life experience where she needed to communicate. Immersed in an second-language (L2) speaking environment, she concentrated her efforts on listening and speaking skills primarily. She took into account the emotions involved in the interaction, interpreted the language and modelled (copied) from a dialogue. In this way, she worked out the correct language, learned via the target language alone. She might also receive real-time corrections on her output from the server, which will improve her performance whenever she will repeat the task.

The literature-lover will focus on meaning, of course, but when he learns the rules, the most important thing will be the patterns in the sentences and the text. He can analyse these and possibly write similar examples to ensure he has understood the rule correctly. He will concentrate on labelling the parts of speech and the sentence elements such as subject, verb, and object. The focus is on learning the language as a separate subject during a certain time of the day. The learning involves a lot of 'brain-crunching' to understand the patterns, but his own personality and emotions do not really play a major part. Of course, his teacher is informing him as to what all the words mean, so he does not have to work out meanings for himself. Lastly, the learning is very much dependant on his mother tongue being used as the medium through which he learns the other language.

If we look back at the history of language-teaching in the UK, both of these approaches are present at its origins. The tourist's approach is reflected in the earliest known manual for learning a language (for tourists going to France) which was written in 1396 by an unknown author, and consisted of typical dialogues one might hear in real life. There was no emphasis on grammar, since no description of French grammar for learners would be published until 1530: John Palsgrave's book, helpfully written in English, aimed to help those who wanted to learn French. Later on, the first pedagogical grammar of English, 'for the benefit of all strangers', was penned by Ben Johnson in 1640.

The approach of the literature-lover has a long history from ancient times, eventually evolving into the grammar-translation method, which started in schools in Prussia in the 1780s. It included grammar rules, word lists to be memorised and translation exercises. The term 'grammar-translation' was actually a pejorative term used by critics of the approach, who wanted to point out the two things they most took issue with. And indeed, both school teachers and educational authorities did go overboard with the grammar and translation aspects of learning, resulting in course books stuffed with ever more tables of conjugations as the emphasis became accuracy for examination purposes.

In the mid 1800s, the private sector, perhaps capitalising on the increasing dissatisfaction with how state schools taught other languages, started flooding the market with books detailing new methods that promised quick results. This led to the rise of Berlitz in the late 1800s, which ushered in monolingual-only teaching, and a lesson shape very similar to the presentation-practice-production (PPP) approach to teaching languages.

Today, teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) incorporates these two extremes in some way. Task-based learning (TBL) is very much like the approach of the tourist: she has a task to accomplish, uses a model, and tries it out for herself to achieve a particular outcome. This is followed by feedback which helps her re-shape her output.

Dogme, which is a sort of offshoot of TBL, prefers that the students choose the task and topic themselves. Where it was developed, chiefly in Barcelona, the task was often a long, heated conversation and the topics those of everyday life.

The other extreme of a grammar-translation method still exists all around the world in many traditional teaching contexts.
English language teachers, sign up for our free online course Understanding Language, which started yesterday, 20 April 2015.

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Is there a 'right' way to learn a language?

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One way to think about different approaches to learning a language is to look at two ends of the spectrum, i.e., two diametrically opposite ways to go about learning a language. At one end of the spectrum, we have a tourist who wants to order a coffee in a country where she doesn't speak the language.

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Language Acquisition vs. Learning: Second Language Theory

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Language Acquisition vs. Learning: Second Language Theory

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·      Both acquisition and learning can promote second language development

·      Teachers need to consider how they can use the two complementary methods to best help their students

·      Teaching your students how to notice gaps in their knowledge and/or new structures within the input may be of benefit

·      Both passive and active study methods have a place in SLA. Although active study (or engagement with the language) is currently believed to be more beneficial

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Language Acquisition  vs. Learning  | Second Language Theory | TESOL

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·      Simultaneous Bilingual First Language Acquisition: concern about what happened to babies who were learning two different languages at once.

·      Children build a grammar for both languages just fine and don’t get them mixed up when speaking a sentence.

·      Three age groups

o   4-month-old can differentiate between any pair of sounds

o   8-month-old who is somewhat less good at telling the difference between vowels

o   12-month-old who are basically locked into their language’s sound system.

·      Code mixing is due to societal cues and is controllable.

·      These were all studies of little kids learning two languages from the start.

·      Linguists think that bilingual kids use two different grammars for their two different languages.

o   It’s been decided because of a lot of data from bilingual kids’ speech and perception.

·      Even though kids do some code-mixing, it doesn’t mean they’re confused about their different grammars.

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Ted Talk: Mia Nacamulli- The Benefits of a Bilingual Brain Notes

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Ted Talk: Mia Nacamulli- The Benefits of a Bilingual Brain Notes

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·      Knowing two or more languages means that your brain may look and work differently than those who are monolingual.

·      Language ability is typically measured in two active parts: speaking and writing, and two passive parts: listening and reading.

·      A balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions.

·      Depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be classified into three general types:

o   Compound Bilingual: develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts, learning two languages as they process the world around them.

o   Coordinate Bilingual: working with two sets of concepts, learning one language in school while continuing to speak the primary language at home or with friends.

o   Subordinate Bilinguals: learn a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.

·       All types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language regardless of accent pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to a casual observer.

·      Critical Period Hypothesis

o   Children learn languages more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains lets them use both hemispheres in language acquisition.

o   In most adults, language is lateralized into one hemisphere, usually the left.

o   If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts.

o   Recent research has showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit less emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than in their native.

·      Regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages.

·      The heightened workout a bilingual brain receives through its life can also help delay the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia by as much as 5 years.

·      Bilingualism makes your brain healthier, complex, and actively engaged.

·      It’s never too late to learn a new language.

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Mia Nacamulli: The benefits of a bilingual brain

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It's obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier -- like traveling or watching movies without subtitles. But are there other advantages to having a bilingual (or multilingual) brain? Educator Mia Nacamulli details the three types of bilingual brains and shows how knowing more than one language keeps your brain healthy, complex and actively engaged.

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Examples of English Language Learners five stages of oral development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoca1Ou_6TE&t=240s

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Five Stages of Second Language Acquisition Language Article Notes

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Five Stages of Second Language Acquisition Language Article Notes

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Mechanics of Second Language Acquisition

o   Each language has its own set of rules for speaking and writing the language properly, and individuals trying to learn a new language often blur the lines between which set of rules to use.

o   Second language learners face a certain degree of fear or anxiety about tackling a new language, which can in turn affect how easily or how well they acquire the second language.

1. Silent/Receptive

a. May last several hours to several months, depending on the learner.

b. Learner typically spend time learning vocabulary and practice pronouncing new words.

c. They may engage in self-talk, but don’t normally speak the language with any fluency or real understanding.

2. Early Production

a. May last about 6 months, during which language learners typically acquire an understanding of up to 1,000 words.

b. They may also learn to speak some words and begin forming short phrases, even though they may not be grammatically correct.

3. Speech Emergence

a. Learners typically acquire a vocabulary of up to 3,000 words and learn to communicate by putting the words in short, phrases, sentences, and questions. They may not be grammatically correct, but this is an important stage during which learners gain greater comprehension and begin reading and writing in their second language.

4. Intermediate Fluency

a. This stage may last a year or more after speech emergence. Learners typically have a vocabulary of as many as 6,000 words. They usually acquire the ability to communicate in writing and speech using more complex sentences.

b. This crucial stage is also when learners begin actually thinking in their second language, which helps them gain more proficiency in speaking it.

5. Continued Language Development/Advanced Fluency

a. It takes most learners at least two years to reach this stage, then up to 10 years to achieve full mastery of the second language in all its complexities and nuances.

b. Second language learners need ongoing opportunities to engage in discussions and express themselves in their new language, to maintain fluency in it.

c. The key to learning a new language and developing proficiency in speaking and writing that language is consistency and practice.

d. A student must converse with others in the new language on a regular basis to grow their fluency and confidence.

c. Haynes says it’s important for students to continue to work with a classroom teacher on specific content area related to the new language such as history, social studies, and writing.

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The Silent Period of Second Language Acquisition Web Article Notes

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The Silent Period of Second Language Acquisition Web Article Notes

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Five Stages in the Second Language Acquisition Process

1.    The Silent Period

a.    Students aren’t doing much talking yet

b.   Depending on the student, this period may be shorter or longer ranging between 2 to 6 months- it may take longer.

c.    After some initial exposure to the language, the learner can understand much more than they can produce. Sort of like 2-year-olds.

d.   Just give them more time.

2.    The Early Production Period

3.    The Speech Emergence Period

4.    The Intermediate Production Period

5.    The Advanced Production Period

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Three Positions on First Language Learning

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Three Positions on First Language Learning

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Behaviorism

The mind is considered a blank slate.

Learning is imitation and habit formation.

When their actions are "reinforced" with praise or successful communication, children learn.

Most people believe this is the way that language is learned.

Kids learn a complete language in about five years.

Nativism/Innatism

Suggests that humans are genetically programmed to acquire language.

We have the capacity to acquire language readily and with minimal input.

The language we acquire depends on our surroundings.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD) was used by Chomsky.

Steven Pinker's video discussed a quote from Chomsky about how children are pre-wired with a universal grammar.

Universal Grammar (UG) are principles that are hardwired in our brains.

The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) is a crucial piece of evidence for nativists. In its strongest form, CPH says that children must acquire their first language before puberty if they are to ever acquire it at all.

Video by The Ling Space mentioned that Nativist ideas mean we think language is innate.

Interactionism

Covers a wide variety of perspectives, which is central to the acquisition of a first language.

Motherese: child-directed speech (CDS) is used to make the flow of speech easily understandable.

Children learn language out of a desire to communicate with the world around them.

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The Jean Piaget Stages of Cognitive Development

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The Jean Piaget Stages of Cognitive Development

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A helpful resource that describes Piaget's Stages of Development.

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In the 1960s and 1970s, as Freudian and Jungian psychology were rapidly being replaced by more empirical methods of studying human behavior, a Swiss philosopher and psychologist named Jean Piaget stepped in to offer a new experimentally-verified theory of cognitive development.

Like Freud, Jean Piaget thought that human development could be described in stages. However, unlike Freud, Jean Piaget didn't believe that growth and learning were driven by repressed sexuality. Rather, in his experiments with children, adolescents, and young adults, Piaget learned that as we grow, we gradually add new skills to our cognitive repertoire.

According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, he described four stages of cognitive development.

Let's take a look at these four Piaget's stages.

Sensorimotor Stage

Children at the sensorimotor stage are explorers. They want to see, hear, taste, and touch everything around them. They generally don't appear to be thinking about what they do - no obvious rationale underlies their motives.

Children at this stage are reveling in sensory experience and enjoying their rapidly-improving abilities to move around and take in new experiences. They use language to catalog objects in their environment (e.g. "doggie!", "horsey") and make demands of their caregivers.

Sensory stimuli are paired up with voluntary motor responses, and sensory/body coordination is established. Syntax and grammar have not yet been developed, and relations between concepts are vaguely understood at best.

During the late sensorimotor stage of cognitive development, children begin to learn the concept of "object permanence". In other words, they learn that objects still exist even if they cannot see them.

Preoperational Stage

Around age two, children enter the preoperational stage where they learn how to think abstractly, understand symbolic concepts, and use language in more sophisticated ways. During this stage of cognitive development, children become insatiably curious and begin to ask questions about everything they see. They can imagine people or objects that do not exist (such as a lizard with wings) more readily than younger children, and they like to make up their own games.

According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children at this stage understand object permanence, but they still don't get the concept of conservation. They don't understand that changing a substance's appearance doesn't change its properties or quantity.

In one experiment, Piaget poured the exact same amount of water into two identical glasses and asked children whether the glasses contained the same amount of water. The children said that both glasses contained the same amount of water. Piaget then poured the water in one glass into a tall, narrow beaker and repeated the question. This time, the children said there was more water in the cylinder because it was taller.

Concrete Operational Stage

By the time they are 7 years old, children can understand much more complex abstract concepts, such as time, space, and quantity. They can apply these concepts to concrete situations, but they have trouble thinking about them independently of those situations.

As Jean Piaget pointed out in his theory of cognitive development, the children's ideas about time and space are sometimes inconsistent at this stage, but a basic logic is present that governs their cognitive operations. Children can learn rules fairly easily, but they may have trouble understanding the logical implications of those rules in unusual situations.

Formal Operations Stage

Starting at around 11 years old, children become capable of more abstract, hypothetical, and theoretical reasoning. They can apply rules to a variety of situations, and engage in counterfactual "if-then" reasoning. "Counterfactual" refers to the fact that the "if" is known to be untrue. For example "if dogs were reptiles, they would have cold blood." Children at the formal operations stage can accept this as valid reasoning, even though the premise is obviously false.

At this stage of cognitive development, formal logic becomes possible and verbal explanations of concepts are usually sufficient without demonstration. Strategy-based games become more enjoyable, whereas rote games like "chutes-and-ladders" become repetitive.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development has been the subject of some criticism over the years, particularly from cross-cultural psychologists who question whether Piaget's stages are unique to Western children. However, it has fared considerably better than Freud's. Piaget's stages of cognitive development have been the basis for a number of other famous psychological ideas, including Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

Here are some other child development theories that you might be interested in:

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Piaget's theory of cognitive development

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In the 1960s and 1970s, as Freudian and Jungian psychology were rapidly being replaced by more empirical methods of studying human behavior, a Swiss philosopher and psychologist named Jean Piaget stepped in to offer a new experimentally-verified theory of cognitive development. Like Freud, Jean Piaget thought that human development could be described in stages.

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A cute video that demonstrates the nature of language production among children. The child has probably never heard anyone say, "you poked my heart!", but those are the words he found to express his hurt.

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"You poked my heart......" © all rights reserved

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Notes:
- Language sets us apart
- Young children learn a language very quickly
- Noam Chomsky: "children learning to speak just don't have enough information to form the complex grammatical maneuvers that allow them to generate unlimited new and original sentences." They do so with ease.
- There's a poverty of stimulus, something else must be going on
- Chomsky's hypothesis: there are inborn structures in our brain. What he called a language acquisition device (LAD). Gives us a natural propensity to organize the spoken language that we hear in various grammatical ways. Without that, we couldn't get started as langauge learners.
- If he's right, language structure is hardwired as a kind of universal grammar our slates have been written on before we emerge from the womb.

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Steven Pinker: How Children Learn Language

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Steven Pinker: How Children Learn Language

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Steven Pinker on How Children Learn Language

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Applied Linguistics: Focus on Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

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Applied Linguistics: Focus on Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

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Behaviorist Theory of Second Language Acquisition

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A video by The Ling Space

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Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar

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What is Linguistics? The Five Branches Explained

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What is Linguistics? The Five Branches Explained

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What is Linguistics? | The Five Branches Explained

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Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain

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Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain

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Fascinating video that discusses linguistics as a window to understanding the human brain.

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Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain | Big Think

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This unit introduces the idea of thinking scientifically about language by making empirical observations rather than judgments of correctness.

Check Yourself

1. What does it mean to say that Linguistics is a science?

The field consists of a set of true facts that can be proven objectively.

The field uses the scientific method to determine objective rankings of language quality.

The field uses empirical observations to develop theories of language behaviour.

2. Each of the following sentences represents something someone might say about language. Which of them illustrates a descriptive view of language?

The use of quotative like in sentences such as, "She was like, I can't believe you did that!" began to enter Canadian English with the generation of speakers born in 1971.

The song "I can't get no satisfaction" should really mean that "I can get some satisfaction" because two negatives always make a positive.

In a phrase like, "the people who the bride invited to the wedding," it's proper to use whom rather than who.

3. Which of the following kinds of data would a linguist be likely to observe?

Which method is most effective to help a child stop stuttering.

Whether Korean includes tones that change the meaning of words.

How many undergraduates can correctly use the words affect and effect in their essays.

If second-language speakers can pronounce English words correctly.

Video Script

Linguistics is one of those subjects that not many people have heard of, so you might well be wondering exactly what it is.

The simplest definition of Linguistics is that it's the science of language.

This is a simple definition but it contains some very important words. First, when we say that linguistics is a science, that doesn't mean you need a lab coat and safety goggles to do linguistics. Instead, what it means is that the way we ask questions to learn about language uses a scientific approach.

The scientific way of thinking about language involves making systematic, empirical observations. There's another important word: empirical means that we observe data to find the evidence for our theories.

All scientists make empirical observations: botanists observe how plants grow and reproduce. Chemists observe how substances interact with other. Linguists observe how people use their language.

A crucial thing to keep in mind is that the observations we make about language use are NOT value judgments. Lots of people in the world - like your high school English teacher, various newspaper columnists, maybe your grandparents, and maybe even some of your friends - make judgments about how people use language. But linguists don't.

A short-hand way of saying this is that linguists have a descriptive approach to language, not a prescriptive approach.

We describe what people do with their language, but we don't prescribe how they should or shouldn't do it.

This descriptive approach is consistent with a scientific way of thinking. Think about an entomologist who studies beetles. Imagine that scientist observes that a species of beetle eats leaves. She's not going to judge that the beetles are eating wrong, and tell them that they'd be more successful in life if only they eat the same thing as ants. No - she observes what the beetle eats and tries to figure out why: she develops a theory of why the beetle eats this plant and not that one.

In the same way, linguists observe what people say and how they say it, and come up with theories of why people say certain things or make certain sounds but not others.

In our simple definition of linguistics, there's another important word we need to focus on: linguistics is the science of human language.

There are plenty of species that communicate with each other in an impressive variety of ways, but in linguistics, our job is to focus on the unique system that humans use.

It turns out that humans have some important differences to all other species that make our language unique.

First, what we call the articulatory system: our lungs, larynx & vocal folds, and the shape of our tongue, teeth, lips, nose, all enable us to produce speech. No other species can do this in the way we can, not even our closest genetic relatives the chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans.

Second, our auditory system is special: our ears are sensitive to exactly the frequencies that are most common in human speech. There are other species that have similar patterns of auditory sensitivity, but human newborns pay special attention to human speech, even more so than synthetic speech that is matched for acoustic characteristics.

And most important of all, our neural system is special: no other species has a brain as complex and densely connected as ours with so many connections dedicated to producing and understanding language.

Humans' language ability is different from all other species' communication systems, and linguistics is the science that studies this unique ability.

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This unit introduces the idea of thinking scientifically about language by making empirical observations rather than judgments of correctness. 1. What does it mean to say that Linguistics is a science? The field consists of a set of true facts that can be proven objectively.

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This unit addresses some of the common myths that people believe about languages, and responds to these misconceptions with fundamental truths about human language:

All languages have a grammar.

All languages & grammars are equally valid, in linguistic terms.

All languages have some universal properties in common.

Every language changes over time.

Most of our knowledge of the mental grammar of our language is unconscious.

Check Yourself

1. It's important to study Latin because Latin is more logical than other languages.

2. Spending too much time texting will ruin your ability to write proper English.

3. The dictionary gives the only correct meaning and pronunciation for words.

Video Script

Because everybody speaks a language, just about everybody has opinions about language. But there are lots of things that are commonly believed about language that just aren't true.

You might have heard someone say that a given language has no grammar. I've heard people try to argue that Chinese has no grammar, that English has no grammar, that the languages spoken by Indigenous people who live in what is currently Canada have no grammar, even that Swiss German has no grammar.

When people say this, they might mean a few different things. Sometimes they just mean that there's not much variation in the forms of words, which is true of Chinese, but the grammar of Chinese has lots of complexity in its sound system.

But sometimes people who argue that a language has no grammar are actually trying to claim that that language is inferior in some way.

The truth is that all languages have grammar. All languages have a sound system, a system for forming words, a way of organizing words into sentences, a systematic way of assigning meanings. Even languages that don't have writing systems or dictionaries or published books of rules still have speakers who understand each other; that means they have a shared system, a shared mental grammar.

When we're investigating mental grammar, it doesn't matter whether a language has a prestigious literature or is spoken by powerful people. Using linguists' techniques for making scientific observations about language, we can study the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of any language.

Another opinion that you might have heard about language is that some languages are better than others. Maybe you've heard someone say, "Oh, I don't speak real Italian, just a dialect," implying that the dialect is not as good as so-called real Italian. Or maybe you've heard someone say that Québec French is just sloppy; it's not as good as the French they speak in France. Or maybe you've heard someone say that nobody in Newfoundland can speak proper English, or nobody in Texas speaks proper English, or maybe even nobody in North America speaks proper English and the only good English is the Queen's English that they speak in England.

The truth is that all languages are equally valid. Just as we said that all languages have grammar, it's also the case that there's no way to say that one grammar is better or worse than another grammar. Remember that linguistics takes a scientific approach to language, and scientists don't rate or rank the things they study. Ichthyologists don't rank fish to say which species is more correct at being a fish, and astronomers don't argue over which galaxy is more posh. In the same way, linguists don't assign a value to any language or variety or dialect.

It is the case, though, that plenty of people do attribute value to particular dialects or varieties, and sociolinguistic research tells us that there can be negative or positive social consequences for people who speak certain varieties. When people say that British English is better than American English, for example, they're making a social judgment, based on politics, history, economics, or snobbery. But there is no linguistic basis for making that value judgment.

One of the common misconceptions about language arose when scholars first started doing linguistics. At first, they focused on the languages that they knew, which were mostly the languages that were spoken in Europe. The grammars of those languages had a lot in common because they all evolved from a common ancestor, which we now call Proto-Indo-European. When linguists started learning about the languages spoken in other parts of the world, they thought at first that these languages were so unfamiliar, so unusual, so weird, that they speculated that these languages had nothing at all in common with the languages of Europe.

Linguists have now studied enough languages to know that in spite of the many differences between languages, there are some universal properties that are common to all human languages. The field of linguistic typology studies the properties that languages have in common even across languages that they aren't related to. Some of these universal properties are at the level of phonology, for example, all languages have consonants and vowels. Some of these universals are at the level of morphology and syntax. All languages make a distinction between nouns and verbs. In nearly all languages, the subject of a sentence comes before the verb and before the object of the sentence. We'll discover more of these universals as we proceed through the chapters.

A very common belief that people have about language is something you might have heard from your grandparents or your teachers. Have you heard them say, "Kids these days are ruining English! They should learn to speak properly!" Or if you grew up speaking Mandarin, maybe you heard the same thing, "Those teenagers are ruining Mandarin! They should learn to speak properly!" For as long as there has been language, there have been people complaining that young people are ruining it, and trying to force them to speak in a more old-fashioned way. Some countries like France and Germany even have official institutes that make prescriptive rules about what words and sentence structures are allowed in the language and which ones aren't allowed.

The truth is that every language changes over time. Languages are spoken by humans, and as humans grow and change, and as our society changes, our language changes along with it. Some language change is as simple as in the vocabulary of a language: we need to introduce new words to talk about new concepts and new inventions. For example, the verb google didn't exist when I was an undergraduate student, but now googling is something I do every day. Language also changes in they we pronounce things and in the way we use words and form sentences. In a later chapter, we'll talk about some of the things that are changing in Canadian English.

Another common belief about language is the idea that you can't learn a language unless someone teaches you the rules, either in a language class or with a textbook or a software package. This might be partially true for learning a language as an adult: it might be hard to do it on your own without a teacher. But think about yourself as a kid. Whatever language you grew up speaking, whether it's English or French or Mandarin or Arabic or Tamil or Serbian, you didn't have to wait until kindergarten to start speaking. You learned the language from infancy by interacting with the people around you who spoke that language. Some of those people around you might have taught you particular words for things, but they probably weren't teaching you, "make the [f] sound by putting your top teeth on your bottom lip" or "make sure you put the subject of the sentence before the verb". And by the time you started school you were perfectly fluent in your language. In some parts of the world, people never go to school and never have any formal instruction, but they still speak their languages fluently.

That's because almost everything we know about our language - our mental grammar - is unconscious knowledge that's acquired implicitly as children. Much of your knowledge of your mental grammar is not accessible to your conscious awareness. This is kind of a strange idea: how can you know something if you're not conscious of knowing it? Many things that we know are indeed conscious knowledge. For example, if I asked you, you could explain to me how to get to your house, or what the capital of Canada is, or what the difference is between a cow and a horse. But our mind also has lots of knowledge that is not fully conscious. You probably can't explain very clearly how to control your muscles to climb stairs, or how to recognize the face of someone you know, or how to form complex sentences in your native language, and yet you can do all of these things easily and fluently, and unconsciously. A lot of our job when we study Linguistics is to make explicit the things that you already know implicitly. This is exactly what makes linguistics challenging at first, but it's also what makes it fun!

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This unit addresses some of the common myths that people believe about languages, and responds to these misconceptions with fundamental truths about human language: All languages have a grammar. All languages & grammars are equally valid, in linguistic terms. All languages have some universal properties in common. Every language changes over time.

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Videos:
Good Grammar, Bad Grammar- Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jxC3zqkEE

The Ling Space: Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFlBwBwL_iU