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TESL 0100 Unit 4: Difference between the First Language Acquisition and Second Language Acquisition




It is evident that anyone’s first language is acquired from birth. Some studies show that language is heard from the time a fetus can hear from the womb. Based on the study of US National Library of Medicine National Institute of Health about Development of fetal hearing elaborates, “The development of fetal behavioural responsiveness to pure tone auditory stimuli was examined from 19 to 35 weeks of gestational age. Stimuli were presented by a loudspeaker placed on the maternal abdomen and the fetus’s response, a movement, recorded by ultrasound.  The sensitivity of the fetus to sounds in the low frequency range may promote language acquisition.”

Since the first language is what we call our “mother tongue”, it is not consciously learned compared to second language.  We acquire our first language through hearing, mimicking and collecting vocabulary words as we grow up until we learn how to speak on our own. We know our language by heart because it is part of our daily conversation without thinking of grammar and knowing how to write the words and construct statements. Even the person who can’t read and write knows how to speak the language by heart.  It is naturally learned and acquired growing up from the environment spending years of hearing the language. It is an effortless acquisition because we are comfortable speaking our primary language.

Second language acquisition on the other hand is acquired through conscious effort and study. Learning a second language is a decision based on need and requirement.  Requirement because there are countries that requires English subject as part of their academic curriculum.  Learning language through basic grammar and writing to complete a requirement does not guarantee successful language acquisition. Most of these learners lack the confidence in speaking because effort is done based on requirement and not to orally communicate. That is why there are speakers who are having difficulty expressing themselves even they excel in writing and reading comprehension.  Learning a second language based on decision due to need is because most learners especially those who are migrants need to learn how to communicate the language in order to secure a job. This is where conscious effort comes to life. 

“Successful mastery of the second language will be due to a large extent to a learner’s own personal “investment” of time, effort, and attention to the second language in the form of an individualized battery of strategies for comprehending and producing the language.” This is a strategic investment principle to successfully acquire a second language.  Also, the principle of “Willingness to Communicate” is one factor to success. The principle explains that, “successful language learners generally believe in themselves and in their capacity to accomplish communicative tasks, and are therefore willing risk takers in their attempts to produce and to interpret language that is a bit beyond their absolute certainty. The principle of language ego explains as well that, “as human beings learn to use a second language; they also develop a new mode of thinking, feeling, and acting - a second identity.  The new “language ego”, intertwined with the second language, can easily create within the learner a sense of fragility, a defensiveness, and a rising of inhibitions.” (Teaching by Principles; Chapter 4, pages 64-72) Second language acquisition depends entirely to the learners’ willingness to invest time, effort and risk to confidently communicate without fear of making a mistake and being open to correction as part of the process.

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