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First And Second Language Acquisition Theories

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1.1 First and Second Language Acquisition Theories
The language acquisition theories explain how people learn a language. In their article, Mehrpour and Forutan (2015) highlight several first language acquisition (FLA) theories including behaviourist, cognitive, linguistic, social interactionist, and connectionist theories. The behaviourist theory asserts that language is similar to other learned behaviours and that people acquire it via the general learning laws like operant and classical conditioning, Osgood’s mediation theory, and social learning (Mehrpour & Forutan, 2015). The cognitive theory states that language is a subordinate part of cognitive development (Aljoundi, 2016). The linguistic theory has a varied opinion explaining that …show more content…

As previously explained by the FLA theories, the first language is taught via interaction, trial and error, through rewards, and it occurs as an innate ability through the subconscious mind. There are no instructions when teaching this language. It instead comes naturally because of interaction, behaviour, and connections.
Conversely, (some) people volunteer to learn a second language, while for some, the second language (especially in some countries where bilingualism is the norm) acquire it just as easily as the first language. Natives who speak the language teach learners interested in SLA (Rico, 2014). Teaching here involves the student interacting and connecting with the native speakers, understanding their culture, and understanding the language instructions. The learners need to practice consistently to become fluent in the language. The process varies with each learner thus the teachers need to understand the abilities of the learner to develop the best curriculum that ensures …show more content…

Individuals need to be conversant with these skills to ensure language fluency. These skills are divided into several sub-skills. Listening sub-skills include dictation, discriminating similar words, deducing meaning from context, task listening, listening for detail, predicting, inferring mood, feeling, and attitude (Apsacssectt, 2014). Learners need to employ these sub-skills when inside and outside class to learn more about a language. They should be attentive during conversations to identify the usage of words and their pronunciation. Examples of speaking sub-skills are role-played, conversations, story building, problem-solving, requesting for and providing information, and responding to visual cues. They provide learners with an opportunity to use the target language when communicating. Learners should communicate using the target language in more situations other than the language class for better knowledge and

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