What are the benefits of the formal and natural language environments? Can your students become bilingual in these evironments?

ELL, ELT, Language Learning, Reflective Teaching, SLA, Teaching, Teaching Practices 0 comments

What are the benefits of the formal and natural language environments? Can your students become bilingual in these evironments?

When dealing with the pros and cons of formal and natural language environments, and if students can become bilinguals, one needs to think of the learners who are sitting in class, their age group(s), and their learning preferences.

A formal language environment can be quite beneficial and profitable for adult learners, but not for young and very young learners. Adult learners, whose mother tongue have been consolidated, start creating what Selinker called “interlanguage” in 1972 (Cook 1993). The interlanguage is the student’s external attempts to speak the second language. This interlanguage is constantly shaped up and changed by instruction (teacher’s guidance) in order to avoid transfers from the first language as stated in 1957 by Lado (Cook 1993) and interference as pointed out in 1953 by Weinreich (Cook 1993). But some kind of formal instruction with (very) young learners can prove fruitless since their cognitive development is just on its way and not fully developed.

In the case of a natural environment, it looks like it fits the young learners better rather than the adults. Tracy Terrell, along with Stephen Krashen (1983) came up with the methodology they called “The Natural Approach” aimed at helping learners acquire the language in more natural contexts. But, the method has not been that successful with adult learners who need to quench their desire to know more about the rules governing language and social interactions.

Learners can become bilinguals in any of the two learning environments but with very distinctive differences. Adult learners, based on Weinreich’s studies dating 1953 (Cook 1993), will probably become coordinate bilinguals or compound bilinguals. On the other hand, children who are simultaneously learning two languages are bound to become subordintate bilinguals, the closest it can be to having a linguistic mastery in both languages. 

Cook, V. (1993). Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. Hampshire: Palgrave-Macmillan

Krashen, S. & Terrell, T. (1983). The Natural Approach. Oxford: Pergamon Press

? To fully comprehend the scope of this teaching reflections, it is highly advisable that the following topics must be expanded further:

·         Formal language environments in SLA

·         Lado’s transfers in ELL

·         Selinker’s interlanguage in ELL

·         The Natural Approach

Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano ELT Trainer, Instructor & Curriculum Developer based in Costa Rica Active NCTE – Costa Rica Member Resource Teacher & Curricular Developer at CCCN Senior ELT Instructor at Universidad Latina, Costa Rica, since 1998 Contact Information: Twitter @jonacuso Email: jonacuso@gmail.com

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Article published on Sunday, May 4, 2014

How to quote this blog entry:

Acuña, J. (2014, April 27). What are the benefits of the formal and natural language environments? Can your students become bilinguals in these environments? Retrieved from Reflective Online Teaching Website: http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-are-benefits-of-formal-and-natural.html

What are the benefits of the formal and natural language environments from jonacuso

Sunday, April 27, 2014

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