Memo Questions and Answers
💯
Department Language Education,
Arts and Culture
Module name and code: TMN3701
Assessment number: 2
Due date: 24 May 2023 Total
marks: 100
QUESTION 1
1.1 If you were part of the above conversation, what would have been your
opinion regarding the role of the home language? Provide evidence to support
your answer. (10)
1.1 If I were part of the conversation, I would say that there is a big difference between
language acquisition and language learning. There are two ways in which we acquire
the ability to know and/or be able to speak a language we do not know. One can either
have acquired the skill from being around people who speak that language. This
happens aggressively in instances where the party (who does not have prior knowledge
of the language) does not have a choice.
He/she might be in a situation where people around them all speak the language or the
people who know the language will usually not have a choice because they don’t know
the language of the other person therefore,
, they speak their own language around the party that does not know the language yet.
The person will learn the language without even thinking about it. The language is then
absorbed without the party even thinking explicitly about the languages’ actual structure.
Language acquisition takes place when there are real interactions between people in
the environments of the target language and culture, where the learner, as an active
player develops his communicative ability. Language acquisition is like a chameleon
that changes it’s colour in order for it to be one with its surroundings.
Any person will acquire the language of the social environment they belong. An
example of language acquisition is when an exchange student from another country
comes to South Africa and lives in the rural Limpopo region where Sepedi is spoken full
time.
The exchange student stays there for a year. The student will attain near native fluency
while knowing little about Sepedi. They will have good pronunciation without a notion of
phonology, don’t know what the perfect tense is, modal or phrasal verbs are, but
intuitively, they recognize and know how to use all the structures. Language learning is
when one has formally analyses and studies the language of the system. It is when one
has formal knowledge and explicit formal linguistic knowledge of the language.
The objective would be to understand the structure of the language and produce
knowledge about it. The conscious learning of a language usually takes place in formal
language teaching situations (VanPattn & Benati, 2010). I also think that there is a
critical period for language acquisition. There are factors that influence the success and
rate at which a language can be acquired.
The critical period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time widow of brain of
development to acquire language. The theory proposes that human beings are
genetically programmed to acquire certain skills during certain periods in life. Often
children are faster at acquiring a language than adults or their parents. This might prove
the critical period of hypothesis true.
I think that there are more factor that come into play than brain development. Children
find it easier to acquire a second language because children have more time to devote
to language learning. They do not have the pressure to speak fluently and accurately.
1.2. When teaching an additional language, it is important to incorporate
comprehensible input, interaction, and comprehensible output. Discuss the
communicative approach to additional language teaching, by linking the
communicative approach to the role that input, interaction, and output play in that
context. (20)
1.2 Communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully
comes through having to communicate real meaning. A learner's natural strategy for
language acquisition are used if they are involved in real communication, allowing them
to learn to use the language better.
💯
Department Language Education,
Arts and Culture
Module name and code: TMN3701
Assessment number: 2
Due date: 24 May 2023 Total
marks: 100
QUESTION 1
1.1 If you were part of the above conversation, what would have been your
opinion regarding the role of the home language? Provide evidence to support
your answer. (10)
1.1 If I were part of the conversation, I would say that there is a big difference between
language acquisition and language learning. There are two ways in which we acquire
the ability to know and/or be able to speak a language we do not know. One can either
have acquired the skill from being around people who speak that language. This
happens aggressively in instances where the party (who does not have prior knowledge
of the language) does not have a choice.
He/she might be in a situation where people around them all speak the language or the
people who know the language will usually not have a choice because they don’t know
the language of the other person therefore,
, they speak their own language around the party that does not know the language yet.
The person will learn the language without even thinking about it. The language is then
absorbed without the party even thinking explicitly about the languages’ actual structure.
Language acquisition takes place when there are real interactions between people in
the environments of the target language and culture, where the learner, as an active
player develops his communicative ability. Language acquisition is like a chameleon
that changes it’s colour in order for it to be one with its surroundings.
Any person will acquire the language of the social environment they belong. An
example of language acquisition is when an exchange student from another country
comes to South Africa and lives in the rural Limpopo region where Sepedi is spoken full
time.
The exchange student stays there for a year. The student will attain near native fluency
while knowing little about Sepedi. They will have good pronunciation without a notion of
phonology, don’t know what the perfect tense is, modal or phrasal verbs are, but
intuitively, they recognize and know how to use all the structures. Language learning is
when one has formally analyses and studies the language of the system. It is when one
has formal knowledge and explicit formal linguistic knowledge of the language.
The objective would be to understand the structure of the language and produce
knowledge about it. The conscious learning of a language usually takes place in formal
language teaching situations (VanPattn & Benati, 2010). I also think that there is a
critical period for language acquisition. There are factors that influence the success and
rate at which a language can be acquired.
The critical period hypothesis claims that there is an ideal time widow of brain of
development to acquire language. The theory proposes that human beings are
genetically programmed to acquire certain skills during certain periods in life. Often
children are faster at acquiring a language than adults or their parents. This might prove
the critical period of hypothesis true.
I think that there are more factor that come into play than brain development. Children
find it easier to acquire a second language because children have more time to devote
to language learning. They do not have the pressure to speak fluently and accurately.
1.2. When teaching an additional language, it is important to incorporate
comprehensible input, interaction, and comprehensible output. Discuss the
communicative approach to additional language teaching, by linking the
communicative approach to the role that input, interaction, and output play in that
context. (20)
1.2 Communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully
comes through having to communicate real meaning. A learner's natural strategy for
language acquisition are used if they are involved in real communication, allowing them
to learn to use the language better.
