Introduction: Assignment 1- Learner and learning experience

English Language Learning and Perspectives Assignment 1: by Michelle Greenwood


This assessment task requires you to draw upon an interview with an additional language learner to understand the place of second language learning theories and concepts. The task is intended to help you explore the links between language learning experiences and second language learning theories. You should explore both formal and informal learning experiences and evaluate/reflect on how these relate to or exemplify second language acquisition theories. You need to support your presentation with examples from the interview, your own teaching and learning experience, and the related research literature. Note that the interview can take place in any language and in any format (face-to-face online/offline, in chat rooms, texting, via avatars, or virtual reality gears).

 

In this blog I will firstly investigate and explore a selection of the different theories pertaining to the acquisition of second language learning. I will then apply a selection of these theories to an interview I have conducted with an English as a second language learner, to analyse the links between language learning experiences and second language learning theories, including both formal and informal learning experiences.  

Before discussing second language acquisition, I need to clarify the difference between acquisition and learning. Acquisition usually describes unconscious language learning in an informal context, whereas learning is conscious, and language is explicitly taught by an expert, such as a teacher. It is noted that in much of the literature on language learning, these terms are interchangeable, which will therefore be the case during my discussion of the acquisition of a second language.

The main theories of language learning that I will be exploring are the cognitive and sociocultural theories, but I will also view other language acquisition theories that are pertinent to the discussion.


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