Describing the different stages of second language acquisition and explaining

how each stage can be enhanced.

Teaching and learning a second language have always been of a highly important

matter for linguistics. Fillmore and Snow (2002) and Hamayan (1990) stated that

teachers can play a positive role in improving second language acquisition if they

understood how to improve the learner’s ability. Mother tongue and second language

acquisition share different aspects, acquiring a second language requires ample

opportunities for practice, interaction and feedback. Anything that allows people to

practice and get used to its patterns can contribute to successful language learning.

Teachers who apply theories of second language acquisition through well designed

methods that fit their teaching style can significantly enhance student’s success. I

am a primary teacher and I teach English Reading in grade 1, 2 and 3. In the private

school in which I work we use the series of phonics work book by “Smile Education

Systems Ltd” which includes book 1 “Bad Fat Cat”, book 2 “Jim and the Fish”, book

3 “ Smokey the Dragon”, book 4 “Holidays”, book 5 “ My Fun Book” and book 6 “

Off We Go” and at the end of the six books done and mastered by the kids, they

become fluent speakers of English and are able to understand English without

difficulty.

The first stage of second language acquisition is the “Receptive Stage”, it is also

known as the silent stage whereby the learners develop a survival vocabulary. In this

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particular stage, teachers are recommended not to force learners to speak. As a

primary teacher, I teach my students the sound letters, not the traditional “a, b, c, d”

and this may be done through songs whereby I encourage all children to sing, flash

cards are used which makes the learner identity the different alphabets so that when

they will start to write they will know and most importantly, they should know the

vowels and consonants and this may be done through songs. In this stage, it is crucial

to think of long term goal to make them appreciate the new language that they will

learn. Miming fun games are also encouraged so that the students may have fun

while learning and this approach is called the Montessori method where there is

collaborative and hands on learning which emphasizes on individuality and

independence in learning. In this stage, I usually use the first book “Bad Fat Cat”

where the students are taught the short vowels “a, e, i, o, u” and the consonants. The

students are taught how to make syllables “ba, be, bi, bo, bu” and there are “sight

words” which are taught because all words cannot be pronounced using the sound

letter like, “this, the, and, a, by” but can be pronounced just by learning by heart.

There is another lesson which comes after and it is the word segmentation that is,

blending of words which are practiced orally known as “cv” (consonant vowel)

words.

Chomsky (1960) argued that the human brain is pre-wired to use language through

the language acquisition device (LAD), it is the special aspect of the human brain

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that allows children to acquire and produce language however, second language

acquisition is not genetically programmed therefore it is not a part of the learner’s

general cognitive development, it requires effort and learners might find some

difficulties in acquiring some structures of the language that’s why it is crucial for

the teacher to adopt the right strategy while teaching a second language. The

preparation need to be customized according to the focus of the class, the age of the

students, the size of the class and the set duration of the class given to teach the

subject.

The second stage of second language acquisition is the early production stage where

the learners must have developed 1000 words. I usually use the second book which

is “Jim and the Fish” whereby the students are taught the consonant digraph which

consists of two consonants joined together to make a new sound for example: sh in

ship/ ch in church/ ck in rock/ th in thick/ wh in when/ ng in bang and the consonant

trigraph which consists of three consonants that join together to make a new sound

like tch in catch. They have also learnt to speak some words and have started to form

short phrases even though they may not be grammatically correct.

In this stage, audio and videos are highly encouraged for example, a movie in the

language being taught might be watched with the class then allow them to listen and

read subtitles even if they do not clearly understand everything, then pause every 10

minutes to ask questions and give them prompts to answer the questions being asked

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and give them time to answer correctly in the second language being taught which

is one way of collaborative learning. I also use book 3 which is “Smokey the Dragon’

and book 4 which is “Holidays”, where the students are taught consonant blend

which consists of two or three consonants sounded together and the sound of each

consonant can be heard for example r-blends in brick, crib, drop, grab, pram, trap. A

consonant blend can appear at the beginning, middle or at the end of a word. These

small steps are necessary in second language acquisition so that the students may

properly understand the mechanisms of the words and also might visualise them

while speaking in the second language learnt.

Furthermore, role play might also be done for example, teaching the students about

kitchen vocabulary: I usually take a kitchen set then label the different equipments

like the tea pot, the spoon, the fork, the bowl then I ask the students to label them

after me. Following this, I ask the students to label the kitchen set on their own one

by one, they may be shy at first but it all depends all the teacher’s approach with

students that changes the atmosphere of the class and while teaching a second

language, the teacher must make his/her students feel at ease. During role play, the

learner gets more involved in the teaching process.

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The third stage of second language acquisition is the speech emergence stage where

the learner must have acquired up to 3000 words by now and is learning to

communicate by putting the words in short phrases, sentences and questions. The

sentences or phrases might not be necessarily grammatically correct but it is an

important stage during which the learners gain greater comprehension and starts to

read and write in their second language. In this stage, the teacher might encourage

the students to do small passages to test their understanding and to know if they are

being able to finds answers on their own. To start with passages, small picture

discussions might be encouraged where the students get the opportunity to talk about

the words they have recently learnt. Picture discussion’s purpose is to enhance and

sharpen the visual perception of learners. One appropriate picture can be a catalyst

giving rise to the production of thousands of words and a multitude of creative and

analytical thoughts. With this being said, the teacher should not succumb to the

natural teacher desire of being the “source of knowledge”. To provide closure in a

picture discussion class is to effectively destroy the value of the picture as future

teaching tool as the student being a learner of a second language which is unfamiliar

to him or her will have great difficulty progressing beyond the teacher’s perception

of the picture.

Teachers need to provide explicit instruction for their students, demonstrating how

sentence are constructed and how the mechanics interact to form strong sentences

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which is the subject verb combination, correct capitalisation and punctuation. For

example, “The dog ran” this sentence can expanded once the students have identified

a simple sentence, the teachers may help the students to understand that details can

be added by turning the sentence into a question like, “Where was the dog?, When

and how it ran?, Why was the dog running?”. Following this step, now the goal of

the teacher might be to help the students develop the skill learnt that is to put in

practice activities done in class and apply it to their own writing so they can develop

into effective writers and fluent speakers of the second language being taught. Paul

and Elder (2000) stated that “Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions.

Had no questions been asked by those who laid foundation for a field...the field

would have never developed in the first place”, Teachers should challenge

established answers through questioning to challenge student’s thinking as questions

will develop more interest in lessons and more critical thinking. As teachers. We

should allow our students reach beyond their current academic level and achieve the

best possible outcomes.

The fourth stage of second language acquisition is the intermediate fluency stage

whereby the learner has acquired a vocabulary of up to 6000 words. It is the stage

where the leaner has the ability to now communicate in writing using more complex

sentences and can speak fluently. It is a crucial stage where the students actually

start to think in their second language which helps them gain more proficiency in

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speaking it. They are now more confident as they have mastered the grammar, the

way sentences are constructed in the second language. We cannot learn a new

language and not practice it. Anything that allows the students to practice, they start

to get used to its patterns which contributes to successful language learning. At this

stage, I usually start to do my class in the language being taught as when we learn,

it’s connected to particular regions of our brains and most importantly its connected

to the students’ state of mind of that moment which connects to images in their head

and when we can refer to moments when we learn something, it stays for a lifetime.

The fifth and last stage of second language acquisition is continued language

development or advanced fluency. It takes learners approximately two years to reach

this stage then up to ten years to achieve full mastery of the second language in all

its complexities and nuances. The learners have now been exposed to the second

language for quite a long time and now they are able to express themselves

effortlessly and readily in the new language they have learnt. They have reached the

refining stage of the language path where they understand everything virtually. With

continued comprehensible input and communication focused interactions, the

students may speak in more complex sentences. Teachers need to continually model

language usage, extend receptive vocabulary and provide frequent opportunities for

students to produce language in comfortable situations. In this stage as per my

experience, activities like: Summarize, examine, analyse, elaborate and evaluate

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may be given to the students to test their current potential of the second language

learnt.

To conclude, we would say that research ought to determine that there are some best

methods to learn a new language but we should not neglect the potential usefulness

of a more holistic approach in second language teaching. Moreover, language is

learnt best through participatory experience of processing input and producing

language during interaction in social context. Learning and teaching a second

language which is not an easy task must first start with a good classroom

management where both the learners and the teacher is respected and listened to.

Also, the use of technology has also proved to be very effective in learning language

as it engages the students with interactive experiences, there are a myriad number of

applications that allows students the opportunity to practice language within the

context of content learning.

The books are available on Amazon.com

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