Enhancing Second Language Acquisition

Bulatova D.B.

Student of Eurasian National University after L. N. Gumilyov, Faculty of Philology, department of the theory and practice of foreign languages,

Astana, Kazakhstan

Yekibayeva N.A.

Associate Professor, Eurasian National University after L. N. Gumilyov, Faculty of Philology, department of the theory and practice of foreign languages

Astana, Kazakhstan

Key words: a language acquisition, second language skills

A language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits, because non-humans do not communicate by using language.

Second language skills - is the ability to use language (receptive) and express (expressive) information. is the set of skills that enables a person to convey information so that it is received and understood.

Бұл мақала адамның өзінің ана тілінен бөлек екінші тіл оқу процессін зерттейді. Соның барысында рецептік қабілеттің көмегін айқындайды.

Статья посвящена изучению специфики обучения второго иностранного языка в дополнение родного. В статье рассмотрены рецептивные навыки в обучении второго иностранного языка.

The article is devoted to the process of second language acquisition and mainly focuses on study through receptive skills.

Second language acquisition is the process by which people learn languages in addition to their native language. The term second language is used to describe any language whose acquisition starts after early childhood. The term “language acquisition” became commonly used after Stephen Krashen contrasted it with formal and non-constructive “learning” [1, 41]. Today, most scholars use “language learning” and “language acquisition” interchangeably, unless they are directly addressing Krashen’s work.

A language acquisition takes place when the learners realize how meaning is expressed accurately. Acquisition is possible even without production practice. There is a high correlation between listening and general language development. One of the rarely found non-north American listening-based studies was carried out by Damhuis in Netherlands. The results strengthened the view that a comprehension-based activity along with communicative oriented ones facilitates second language acquisition.

A language can be defined in many ways. Perhaps the best definition of language comes from Bloom. She defines language as a code whereby ideas are represented through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for communication. According to this definition, to communicate through language, a person must first have an idea, and then arrange some symbol system such a way that another person can process those symbols and draw from them intended meaning.

As linguists we should understand that language skills cannot be taught separately, but we must focus on certain skills to obtain more knowledge and to know the language. Developing of receptive skills, namely reading and listening skills is essential, because these two skills are very demanding to master in their language acquisition.

For a second language learner the importance of listening comprehension can never be over emphasized. Receptive language is the comprehension of language – listening and understanding what is communicated. In fact, listening comprehension precedes production in all cases of language learning, and it stands to reason that there can be no production unless linguistic input is provided and becomes comprehensible intake for the learner. It involves being attentive to what is said, the ability to comprehend the message, the speed of processing the message, and concentrating on the message. Receptive language includes understanding figurative language, as well as literal language.

When being at practice in the 5^th school in Astana, we have come up to the conclusion that listening is one of the fundamental skills of language, and as such it merits four skill areas for language students. As Hasan A. pointed out, “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills” [2, 138].

Since listening comprehension can enhance the process of language learning and facilitate language acquisition, students also mustn’t be afraid to speak, because there are several types of advantages can result from giving preeminence to the listening activity, through which students can develop their speaking skills: cognitive, efficiency, utility, and affective. The cognitive advantage of an initial emphasis on listening is its respect for a more natural way to learn a language, for processing and decoding aural input requires recognition knowledge, whereas encoding and generating speech output requires retrieval knowledge [3,331].

The majority of people, especially students believe that teachers shouldn’t be the slaves of their course books and to be more creative in organizing the lesson and the lesson material. Of course, we have come to the conclusion that teachers should choose their material wisely, according to purposes of students and their needs. We do not deny, that certain texts may be omitted, because of the lack of time or because of their irrelevance, but we also know that in many cases teachers focus on the speaking skills of learners. Therefore, in our opinion teachers must to plan the lesson material in way where all four skills could be developed equally, or every lesson should focus learners’ attention on one skill scrupulously.

For efficient results of developing reading skills teacher must define the reading purposes, which will develop subskills in reading skill. McDonough and Show believe that it is important to match reading skill to reading purpose [4, 95]. The activities depend on the type of the text we are dealing with, whether it is a short story, dialogue, a letter or the article, whether it is an individual reading or a group reading. When being at practice in the school #1 in Almaty region I mixed students in groups with different abilities where they take turns reading out loud to each other. There were the tasks with 4-5 paragraphs and each student was responsible for one of the paragraphs. Every student was supposed to read out loud the text to his group and they analyzed new words, discussed. Slower learners feel less intimidated and participate better.

In addition, the increasingly popular communicative approach to language has given a new dimension to the importance of receptive skills in communication. Hence Krashen and Terrell stated that “acquisition can take place only when people understand messages in the target language” [5,180]. After all, communication is not a monologue. It seems logical that one needs to hear sounds before producing them; that in order to speak a language one must have "a 'feel' for the sounds and be able to understand a message".

Several conditions must be met to communicate using language. First, it is crucial to remember that language is not only expressed, but for communication to occur, the language must also be received. When people send a message, they are using expressive language: when they receive a message, they are using receptive language. We are communicating with any person through language; we are using expressive language, putting our ideas into symbols. Person are using receptive language, processing those symbols so that you can understand our ideas. If person, understand our ideas we communicated. The process involved in expressive language is encoding, putting ideas into code, and the process involved in receptive language is decoding, taking ideas out of code.

Learning skills frequently overlap and influence each other throughout the learning process. Learners have individual learning style, and teachers should try to help them the knowledge in this way. In teaching the language skills a greater focus should be put on the needs of the learners and their purposes for learning the languages.

References:

1.Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning . Stephen D. Krashen, University of Southern California 2002. Page 41.

2. Hasan, A. (2000). Learners' perceptions of listening comprehension problems. Journal of Language, Culture and Curriculum, 137-152.

3. Gilman, R. A. & Moody, L. M. (1984). What practitioners say about listening: Research implications for the classroom. Foreign Language Annals, page 331.

4. McDonough J. and C. Shaw (2003). Materials and Methods in ELT. Oxford: Blackwell.

5. Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). The natural approach. In Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press, page 180.