Acquisition Theories Flashcards

An ESL teacher, Mr. Chen, notices that his intermediate student, Maria, often says things like, 'I goed to the store yesterday.' Although she has been taught the correct past tense of 'go,' she consistently uses the '-ed' suffix, a common pattern for regular past tense verbs in English. This is an example of which concept in second language acquisition?

Answer: Overgeneralization

Overgeneralization occurs when a learner applies a grammatical rule in cases where it doesn't apply. Maria is applying the regular past tense '-ed' rule to an irregular verb ('go'). This is a natural and common phase in language development.

According to Stephen Krashen's Monitor Model, which of the following conditions is necessary for a learner to use the 'Monitor' to self-correct their speech?

Answer: The learner must have sufficient time, focus on form, and know the rule.

Krashen's Monitor Hypothesis posits that for the learned system (the 'Monitor') to edit the output of the acquired system, three specific conditions must be met: the learner needs enough time to think, they must be focused on grammatical correctness (form), and they must know the explicit rule.

Which of the following scenarios best illustrates Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in an ESL classroom?

Answer: Students work in pairs to complete a grammar exercise that is challenging but achievable with peer support.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) refers to the gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable other, such as a teacher or peer. The scenario where students collaborate on a challenging task that they couldn't complete alone perfectly exemplifies learning within the ZPD.

Noam Chomsky's Nativist theory proposes that humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language. What is the name of this hypothetical, inborn mental faculty?

Answer: Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chomsky's theory suggests that humans are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), a hypothetical tool in the brain that contains a universal grammar, allowing children to acquire the rules of any language they are exposed to.

The Sociocultural Theory of second language acquisition, largely based on the work of Lev Vygotsky, emphasizes that learning is primarily a...

Answer: social process that occurs through interaction and collaboration.

Sociocultural Theory posits that learning, including language acquisition, is fundamentally a social process. It argues that cognitive development originates in social interaction and that learning is mediated by language and collaboration with more knowledgeable others.

Larry Selinker's Interlanguage Theory describes the linguistic system that a second language learner develops. Which statement accurately characterizes this system?

Answer: It is a separate, dynamic system with rules from both the native and target languages.

Interlanguage is the learner's own evolving linguistic system, which is distinct from both their native language (L1) and the target language (L2). It is systematic and dynamic, meaning it has its own rules but changes over time as the learner is exposed to more input and refines their hypotheses about the target language.