Second Language Acquisition: The Impact of School Experience

Research continues to indicate a period of five to ten years for non-native English speakers to approach or equal the academic abilities of native English speakers, teachers can, and should, have concerns about the successful language turnaround among ELLs (Collier, 1989, 1992; Cummins, 1981a, 1982).

Recommendations (with more detail throughout this course):

Communicative Competence

• Address ELLs appropriate in all settings and situations, and within the correct context. There is a difference between linguistic competence (knowing about language), and communicative competence which means to recognize that social and cultural contexts of language are just as important to succeed in mastering a language (Nunan, 1989).
• Teach language through authentic tasks as possible, using materials that have not been designated specifically for the purposes of teaching a language. Use of a more communicative approach places emphasis on learners staying actively engaged in comprehension, manipulating, producing, and interacting with the target language (Nunan, 1989).
• Avoid constant error correction and do not worry about perfect, native-like pronunciation; focus on meaning and practice within as natural of a context as possible.
• Keep fluency acceptable language, and communication the ultimate and immediate goal, versus perfect pronunciation.
• Make the learners feel comfortable in taking language risks. Allow for mistakes, they're inevitable and expected. The brain is also designed to make mistakes and learn from mistakes, or trial-and-error learning (Jensen, 2008).
• Plan for interaction to take place among new language learners and native learners, and avoid dependence on total independence; let acquisition happen over time. Eventually students will learn appropriate language for both inside and outside of the classroom; social and academic.