Language Acquisition
First Language Acquisition
Human beings are born with the ability to learn any language innately, instinctively, and at a rate that is nothing short of miraculous. While there are many language acquisition theories, linguists generally agree that babies learn the first language naturally and subconsciously. Babies achieve telegraphic speech by the age of 24 months. This herculean achievement happens only with the first language. Chomsky affirms the first language cannot be taught. Babies have no social or psychological affiliations with language. They don't care if they make errors or sound funny to others.
Second Language Acquisition
Second language acquisition happens differently. The circumstances are totally different. The learner is older, the goals are different, the purpose is intentional, and the effort is focused. Many linguists refer to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theory to contextualize second language acquisition. The second language acquisition journey will pass through the stages listed below and can take some ELs up to ten years to achieve mastery of academic English.
Stage 1: Pre-production (Silent period)
Stage 2: Early production
Stage 3: Speech emergent
Stage 4: Intermediate fluency
Stage 5: Advanced fluency
Vygotsky theorized that social interaction is fundamentally essential to the development of cognition (Vygotsky, 1978).