This next post gets a bit more technical than the last. Because this paper is about SLA, this segment will be about quantifying how humans learn a foreign language. It outlines what researchers have come to determine are the 5 Stages of SLA. It also provides an argument for adding a middle school program here at Lincoln Lutheran Jr/Sr High School.
When talking about Secondary Language Acquisition, or SLA, it is important to understand how the process works. Now, it should go without saying that everyone’s mind works a little bit differently. That means that some people can acquire more languages, speak more fluently, and do it in much less time than others, while on the other hand some people may just not be able to learn a language at all. Bearing those in mind, language acquisition research has determined that, in general, there are five stages that a person will go through when learning a language. The first of the five is known as the “Preproduction” stage. This stage usually takes place from about zero to six months of studying a language. In the Preproduction stage, the student still has minimal comprehension of the target language. As a result, a student will often shake their head “yes” or “no” in response to questions and will draw and point in an attempt to aid their lack of ability to verbalize (Hill and Björ).
Following immediately after the six month to one-year point, the student is in the “Early Production” stage. The student, while in general lacking, will begin to gain some comprehension during this stage. However, he or she will still not be fluent. There are 3 distinct verbal cues to signify this stage. The first is that the student will make extensive use of key words and phrases that are often the base of class activities. For example, in Lincoln Lutheran, the Spanish phrase “voy a” (I’m going to) is commonly used by students in this stage to express some action that will happen in the future, as opposed to the use of the future tense itself. And that fact lends itself to the next cue- in the Early Production stage; students will generally only use present tense verbs in talking, and this limits one’s ability to converse productively. The last verbal signifier of the Early Production stage is that students will often produce one to two word phrases in response to questions, again building off the idea of keywords (Hill and Björ).
For the next two years of study, the student is then classified as being in the “Speech Emergence” stage. And as the name suggests, students in this stage of language acquisition begin to form simple and perhaps even complex sentences. This is largely due in part to the fact that now the student has started to comprehend the language and the format and formulas the language follows. However, the student is still not very proficient in this stage. They will often make grammar and pronunciation errors when writing or speaking and jokes that are amusing in the target language, will often “go over the head” of the student (Hill and Björ).
The fourth stage is known as “Intermediate Fluency”, and it takes place from the third to fifth year of study of the target language. After years of study, the student should now have a fairly decent comprehension of the language of study. As a result, sentences are often more complex and contain verbs in a variety of tenses such as: subjunctive, past, imperfect, or future, just to name a few (this is not to say that all of these tenses are in the same sentence, as that would be very difficult to do). This is also corroborated in a study done that analyzed learning Spanish in a standard classroom setting versus studying abroad. The results of the study found that “At higher levels of ability, learners are able to use more complex grammatical elements without a corresponding increase in speech output”, which go along perfectly with what Hill and Björ are saying (Segalowitz, Norman, and Barbara F. Freed).
Then from five to seven years and on up, the student has reached the stage of “Advanced Fluency”, that is to say the language is more or less fully learned, and the student should have a level of fluency and comprehension near that of a native speaker (Hill and Björ). This last stage is especially hard to quantitatively measure because language acquisition is an ongoing process, especially in a non-native tongue.
The math on this is simple. According to The Stages of Secondary Language Acquisition it takes at a minimum five years to develop a passable amount of fluency. Currently at Lincoln Lutheran, students are only offered classes up to Spanish 4, or four years of learning. Since the primary goal of learning a language is fluency, the research shows that students at Lincoln Lutheran who learn at an average rate won’ achieve fluency while in High School. The easiest and perhaps most efficient way to solve this would be to create an optional Middle School curriculum, so that students who are so inclined can pursue and advanced pace of study in Spanish.
In a study conducted by Segalowitz, Norman, and Barbara F. Freed also provided some insight as to what else could help a student in the Speech Emergence stage of SLA. Following along with a student being in Speech Emergence, the study recommends the use of “key content” words (Segalowitz, Norman, and Barbara F. Freed). Remember, the Speech Emergence stage is characterized by the use of key phrases and words (Hill and Björ). The study found, though, that the use of these key words helps non-native speakers who started learning after the age of 14- the average high school freshman- retain vocabulary better. But note, the age at which repetitive usage of key phrases becomes beneficial is 14, and by adding a middle school curriculum, this can be circumvented and students’ learning will be more similar to those who learn the language at home.
Hill, Jane D and Björ, Cynthia L. “Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners Facilitator’s Guide”. The Stages of Second Language Acquisition. Web. 06 Mar. 2016
Segalowitz, Norman, and Barbara F. Freed. “CONTEXT, CONTACT, AND COGNITION IN ORAL FLUENCY ACQUISITION: Learning Spanish in At Home and Study Abroad Contexts.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition Stud. Sec. Lang. Acq. 26.02 (2004). Web.
Nolan Schad 