Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Source - Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners Participant's Manual (McRel)

Key Ideas

  • Students acquiring a second language progress through five predictable stages.
  • Teachers who are effective with ELLs provide instruction that
    1. reflects their students' stages of second language acquisition.
    2. supports students moving forward in language acquisition levels.
    3. engages ELLs at all stages of language acquisition in higher level thinking activities.

Background

Anyone who has been around children who are learning to talk knows that the process happens in stages from understanding to one-word utterances, two-word phrases, full sentences, and eventually, complex grammar.

This progression can be categorized for students learning a second language in five predictable levels (Krashen and Terrell, 1983).

Levels of language acquisition

Preproduction - Students can point to a picture in the book as the teacher says or | asks: "Show me the wolf. Where is the house?"

Early Production - Students do well with yes/no questions and one- or two-word | answers: "Did the brick house fall down?" "Who blew down the straw house?"

Speech Emergence - Students can answer questions with phrases or short-sentence answers, Students can respond to "why" and "how" and "explain" prompts: "Explain why the third pig built his house out of bricks." "What does the wolf want?"

Intermediate Fluency - Students can answer "What would happen if and "Why do you think" questions in longer sentences: "Why do you think the pigs were able to outsmart the wolf?" "Why could the wolf blow down the house made of sticks, but not the house made of bricks?

Advanced Fluency - Students can retell the story, including the main plot elements and leaving out the insignificant details.

See also - Stages of Second Language acquisition, characteristics, approximate ages, and tiered question prompts

Progression is influenced by many factors: their amount of formal education, background experiences, level of parent education, length of time they've been in the U.S., affective factors, etc.

An important component of helping ELLs is to provideinstruction for their stage. Therefore, it is important to know each English language learner's language acquisition stage. Knowing and understanding this is critical to provide effective instruction.

A word of caution: even though there are similarities between the process of learning a first and second language, there are also some important differences: Children acquire their first language through exposure to the language and opportunities to use it. Exposure alone is not enough for second language learning, especially for older learners who need assistance in learning the functions, structures, and underlying cultural aspects of the language.

Once the student's level of language acquisition is known a teacher works within the student's "zone of proximal development" - that area between what the student is capable of independently at the moment and what the student can accomplish with the help of a knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978). A teacher start at the student's current language level to help the student move to the next level.

Planning

Sample plan with Tiered Language Acquisition - For more samples see source - Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners Participant's Manual

It is possible to help students simultaneously learn content knowledge and English language proficiency. To ahieve this one must also consider other variables of learning content beyond language proficiency. For example teacher expectation and level of student engagement. Bloom's taxonomy, widely understood by teachers, can be used to show how understanding language proficiency can be used with other variables to create a better learning experience.

Example

Bloom's taxonomy - Marzano's or Original - is used to classify the content knowledge and the levels of second language acquisition is used to classify the communication channel. Each is put onto a matix so that examples of activity outcomes can be described in the intersecting cells for each possible combination. See example for life science.