二语习得的心理社会因素.ppt

When is the best time to start a formal instruction in L2? My accommodation Social and Psychological factors My recommendation At the beginning of learning a new language, the learner’ competence has none or hardly any of the characteristics of the competence or proficiency of the first language user. Competence in the second language is at zero in all respects, or nearly so. The second language learner is, however, not in the absolutely same situation as an infant learning the first language. The truth is that a second language learner surely knows language but not a certain language. As Cook presents: “The learner already knows the potential of language and can go straight into discovering how that potential is realized in the second language.” My recommendation to the New Oriental school on when should a person to start formal instruction in an L2 is that the best age is 9 or 10. Social AND Psychological factors 1.Age In 1964 Burstall made a ten-year experiment, the purposes included (1) whether it is feasible of the children’s foreign language learning at the age of eight (2) whether the learners at eight have more advantages than those at eleven. 17000 learners were divided into three groups; periodic experiment and estimate were made. The final results showed it was feasible to offer foreign language in the elementary school but the earlier learners (at eight) had little superiority to the older learners (at eleven). In 1978 Snow and other researchers studied a group of Dutch learners with different age stages, whose native language is English, in natural language environment and found that the subjects, from 12 to 15 years learners and adult learners, learnt Dutch fastest in the initial months and the subjects, from 8 to 10 and 12 to 15, mastered the Dutch best after one years learning and the subjects , from 3 to 5, were the worse learners. Not the younger the better 2. Mother tongue Mother tongue is the foun