Homework 1 8/9/13

Discuss the difference between learning and acquisition discussed in the

reading. Has this been true to your experience? Explain.

 

Difference between learning and acquisition can be explained in many different areas

 

The first area is reading, there are two views of learning reading: Word Recognition

View as the way of learning compare to Sociopsycholinguistic View as the way of

acquisition.  The Word Recognition View believes that the main task during reading

is to identify words.  Once students decode printed words, they can recognize them

as words in their oral language.  On the contrast, the Sociopsycholinguistic View

emphasizes that reading is a process of constructing meanings.  Basically, The Word

Recognition View values meaning of vocabulary and the Sociopsycholinguistic View

values meaning of the context.

 

The second area is writing, there are two kinds of classroom of writing: Traditional

Writing Classroom as the way of learning compare to Process Writing Classroom as

the way of acquisition.  In the Traditional Writing Classroom teachers break writing

down into its component part and teach each one and students often learn how to

produce a five - paragraph essay that follows a clearly defined structure.  On the

other hand, teachers in the Process Writing Classroom provide many opportunities

for students to produce different kind of writing.  Students don’t need to write in

some fixed pattens but with their inventions, once they realize that some ways of

spelling words or punctuating sentences confuse their audience, they would use

more conventional forms to communicate more effectively.  It can be said that the

Traditional Writing Classroom is conventional on writing and the Process Writing

Classroom’s writing moves naturally from invention to convention.

 

The third area is learning second language, Traditional Learning View compare to

Current Acquisition View.  The Traditional Learning View teaches each part of the

language - the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary - directly and systematically. 

However, the Current Acquisition View needs students to be able to understand,

speak, read, and write the language in different settings.  So, the Traditional Learning

View break language into component parts and teach each part and The Current

Acquisition View want to make language comprehensible so students can use

language for different purposes.

 

This article is mainly a compare of Chinese education and American education, there

are many points I agree with: Firstly, I strongly agree with the Sociopsycholinguistic

View with reading, because I think learning vocabulary improves oral ability of a

person more than the reading ability of that person.  The reading should focus more

on understanding the context and understanding the author’s cuing.

 

Secondly, I think Process Writing Classroom is a better choice than Traditional

Writing Classroom indeed.  The depth, the thinking of an article is much more

important than the conventional pattern, which values in Traditional Writing

Classroom.  I also agree with the acquisition view from Process Writing Classroom

that students must read frequently, the reading provides the input needed for written

output.  It is a wise way to improve writing skills by reading more masterworks.

 

Thirdly, The Current Acquisition View is obviously better than Traditional Learning

View.  Many generations of Chinese students used themselves to demonstrate this

point, they study the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary back home at China

but when they come to America they can’t speak a word and find it very hard to 

communicate with native speakers.  In the Current Acquisition View, students

 

use language in communicative situations very frequently.  In my perspective, the

communication is always the best way to enforce the proficiency of a language.

Additionally, The Affective Filter Hypothesis is very reasonable to me, people can

acquire language from things they are interested in, such as singing and watching TV,

even from video gaming.  Students who are not that into studying language may not

acquire the language because the blocking of Affective Filter.

 

Schumann’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition is something I agree too, the

social distance will be greater when there the minority group itself is large enough to

be self-sufficient.  That is happening on campus!  We can use 90% Chinese but not

English after classes.  And this segregates us from native English speakers somehow. 

The Cognitive Factors make sense to me, too: young children don’t have much

studying ability or formal thought processes, so they develop a second language

through a process of acquisition and acquisition is more effective than learning, so

kids are good language learners.  Foreign people retaining an accent because they

want to keep their identity(Affective Factors) and errors comes up automatically in

second language users’ writing though they can figure out each error(Fossilization)

are also true to my experience.