SECOND LANGUAGE AQUISITION HYPOTHESIS

Human beings have the ability of learning a Second Language. Some Authors stablished some theories or hypothesis in order to explain how we can acquire another language.

KRASHEN stablished five Hypothesis:

AQUISITION - LEARNING HYPOTHESIS

This first hypothesis states that adults can acquire second languages. Adults do not lose the ability to pick up languages. A perfect level of perfomance is not necessary achieved by adults. This hypothesis states that children development of ability in their first language, for children this is a subconsciuos process.

NATURAL ORDER

This hypothesis states that:

There is a natural order for the acquisition of english, grammatical structures are acquired in a predictable order. some structures will tend to be acquired early and others will tend to be acquired late.

MONITOR HYPOTHESIS

This hypothesis states that there are 3 requirements that must be satisfied to use the monitor:

having enough time, thinking about correctness or focusing on form and knowledge about the rules. According to the use of these conditions we have:

Monitor over-users: these learners use the monitor all the time.

Monitor under-users: these learners are not sure or prefer not to use their conscious knowledge.

Optimal monitor-users: these learners use tne monitor appropriately.

INPUT HYPOTHESIS

we use mora than our linguistics knowledge to understand the input that we recieve, we also use context, knowledge of the world and extra-linguistics information.

THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

This is an imaginary barrier that does not allow to use the input which is available in the environment. this barrier appears depending on the learners´disposition and if learner feels nervous, angry or anxious, the input may not be recieved. the barrier can be high or low.

LONG´S INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS

This hypothesis stablishes that language acquisition is strongly facilitated by the use of the target language in interaction.

we can find two types of language learners:

High input generators who interact intensively.

Low input generators; these learnes are passives with the interactions.

SWAIN´S OUTPUT HYPOTHESIS

This deals with language production and has three funtions:

Noticing: producing language causes learners to notoce gaps in their linguistics knowledge.

Reflection: metalinguistics use of language.

Testing: learners generate and test alternative ways of saying what they want to say.