INTRODUCTION

For over 200 years, language has been an object of fascination and a subject of study. From the earliest periods,
scholars have investigated aspects of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation in an organized way. At the end
of the 17th century, the subject began to emerge as a new field of scientific research, with language analysis
as its focus. This subject is now called linguistics, or linguistic science.
Linguistics is the systematic study of language. Today it is a discipline with several domains of applications:

 Psycholinguistics, the study of language and mind.

 Socio-linguistics, the study of language and society.
 Historical linguistics, the study of the changes in language.
 Comparative linguistics, the study of different language and their respective systems.
 Stylistics, the study of language and literature.
 Computational linguistics, the use of computers to simulate language.
 Applied linguistics, the study of language teaching.
As we can see, the scope of linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are often difficult to
define. One of the branches that have developed most in recent years is psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics
is the study of the mental processes underlying the act of speech, and one of its most important outcomes has
been the study of language acquisition in children.
Both psychology and psycholinguistics have contributed greatly to current foreign language teaching. In fact,
there is a proliferation of approaches and methods that reflects the commitment to finding more efficient and
more effective ways of teaching languages. The main approach on which the current law is based is the
communicative approach. Another influential view is the Natural Approach, which emphasizes the primacy
of meaning in language.
In this chapter we will analyze the contributions of linguistics to foreign language teaching through history.
We will also look at theories of first language learning and second language learning. Finally, we will establish
similarities and differences between L1 and L2 acquisition.
1 CONTRIBUTION OF LINGUISTIC TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
1.1 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR
The discipline of linguistic as we define it today was developed as a subject towards the 19th century. Before
then, language had been studied mainly by philosophers and prescriptive grammarians. It is significant that
the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle made major contributions to the study of language.
The Greeks grouped words into parts of speech and devised names for them. The word grammar comes from
the Greek “grammatike” which meant the art of writing. This was because during this period, the focus was
entirely on written language.
The Romans applied the Greek terminology to Latin, but they introduced a speculative approach to language.
The main result was a model of grammatical description which continued to be used for centuries, and became
the basis of language teaching in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In due course, this model became the
traditional approach to grammar.
During the 16th century the study of Latin took a different function: the study of classical Latin. The study of
its grammar and rhetoric became the model for foreign language study until the 19th century. Children entering
grammar school in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in England were given a rigorous introduction to Latin
grammar, which was taught through the study of rules, declensions, conjugations, translation and practice in
writing sample sentences. School learning must have been a deadening experience, since lapses of knowledge
were often met with brutal punishment.
In the 18th century, modern languages began to enter the curriculum of European schools, but they were taught
using the same procedures that were used for teaching Latin. Textbooks consisted of abstract grammar rules,
lists of vocabulary and sentences for translation. Speaking a foreign language wasn’t the final aim. Oral
practice was limited to students reading out the sentences they had translated.
By the 19th century, this approach had become the standard way of studying foreign languages in school. This
approach became known as the Grammar-Translation Method.
The Grammar-Translation Method was the offspring of German scholarship. It dominated foreign language
teaching from the 1840s to 1940s, and it still continues to be used in a modified form in some parts of the
world, here are the main characteristics of this method:

 The goal was to learn a language in order to read its literature or benefit from the mental discipline of
studying. A language was to be approached through detailed analysis of grammar rules and by
memorizing these rules.
 Reading and writing were the main focus, little attention was paid to speaking or listening.
 Vocabulary was taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study and memorization. Accuracy
was emphasized.
 Translation was the distinctive feature of the method.
 Accuracy was of prime importance.

1.2 STRUCTUTAL GRAMMAR

The two main approaches to language study unite to form the modern subject of linguistics. The first approach
was initiated by Saussure, the second, by Bloomfield.
Ferdinand de Saussure
Saussure’s crucial contribution was his explicit and often repeated statement that all language items are
essentially interlinked. This was an aspect of language that had not been examined before. Saussure suggested
that a language was like a game of chess, a system in which each items is defined by its relationship to all
other. He also regarded words as signs. Signs have no natural relationship to the things they represent. The
relationship is essentially arbitrary.
Many of Saussure’s ideas were expressed with two term oppositions: paradigmatic/syntagmatic,
language/parole, diachronic/synchronic, signifier/signified. Saussure initiated the era of structural linguistics
or structuralism, which remains a powerful influence in contemporary thought.
Saussure’s contribution to the teaching of languages is somewhat indirect but it influenced the renewal of
foreign language teaching in these main aspects:

 The smallest units when teaching a language is a sentence. Saussure defines language as a system of
words that are related to each other as signs, and can be strung together in various combinations to
form sentences.
 Emphasis on speech over written language. The fact that language is a system of communication
between two or more speakers has revolutionize FLT.
 The avoidance of translation as a teaching method. Saussure defined language as a self-enclosed
system. This means that every language has its own system of signs. Learning a language means
learning a new system of signs, this is, new relationships between signifier and signified. To teaching
the new system successfully, we must create new associations in the learner, and this means teaching
the language through the language.
British structuralism and the behaviorist learning theory influenced approaches such as the Oral Approach or
Situational Language Teaching. The objective were to teach the four basic skills through structures. Features
of this method:
  Accuracy in pronunciation and grammar is crucial. Errors are to be avoided.
 Learners are not given grammatical explanations.
 Situations are used to present new sentence patters, these are practiced in the form of drills.
Leonard Bloomfield
Bloomfield’s approach was rigorously descriptive: he outlined a methodology for the description of any
language. In due course, Bloomfield’s approach came to be called structuralist, because it used various
techniques to identify and classify features of sentence structure.
For Bloomfield, the task of a linguist was to collect data from native speakers and then analyze it by studying
the phonological and syntactic patterns. He argued that items in a language are put in order in terms of their
constituency. Any sentence can be analyzed into further constituents, down to those at ground levels, which
are the smallest constituents. A sentence from any language is conceived as belonging to a hierarchy of
interlocking constituents.
During the so-called “Bloomfield era”, linguists concentrated on writing descriptive grammars. They set out
an enormous of analytical techniques to discover the linguistic units of those languages. They were called
“discovery procedures”. In due course, these approaches would lead to the emergence of Audiolingualism.
This approach, based on structural linguistics, advocated the following:

 Language is speech, not writing. Speech had priority in language teaching.

 Language skills are taught in this order: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the early stages,
teaching must focus on oral skills, with gradual links to other skills as learning develops. Teaching
listening comprehension, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary is aimed towards oral fluency.
Written representations are usually withheld from learners in the early stages. When reading and
writing are introduced, students are taught to read and write what they have learned orally.
 Language structures are learned through imitation, repetitions and memorization. The learner should
gain accuracy before striving for fluency. Dialogues and drills form the basis of a structure-based
approach. Dialogues provide the means of contextualizing key structures. They are used for repetitions
and memorization. Correct pronunciation and intonation are emphasized. After a dialogue is
memorized, specific grammatical patterns are selected as the focus of pattern practice exercise. The
use of drills is a distinctive feature, for it is a common-sense application of the idea that practice makes
perfect.
 Teach the language, not about the language. Grammatical explanations and translations are to be
avoided.
 A language is what its native speaker say, not what someone thinks they ought to say.
Audiolingualism and materials based on audiolingual principles continue to be widely used today. This
method reached its peak in the 190s. But it was also criticized: students were often unable to translate the
skills acquired into real communication outside the classroom. Many found the learning procedures boring
and unsatisfying.
The attack on audiolingual beliefs resulted from changes in American linguistic theory in the 1960s. The
changes became a revolution in linguistics and applied linguistics, that is, the teaching of a language. The
turning point in 20th century linguistics came with Noam Chomsky.
1.3 GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
Chomsky is the most influential linguistic of the 20th century. He has transformed linguistics from a discipline
of interest to scholars into a major social science of direct relevance to psychologists, sociolinguists,
anthropologists, philosophers and others.
Chomsky claimed that grammar is more than a description of utterances. It should also be able to account for
sentences which haven’t yet been written or uttered. What struck him about language was its creativity, that
is, the capacity to generate completely novel sentences endlessly. This could only be possible if speakers had
internalized a set of rules which specify the sequences permitted in their language.
Chomsky initiated a new era in grammatical enquiry. He developed the conception of a generative grammar,
which was a radical departure from the structuralism and the behaviourism of previous decades. Chomsky’s
contribution to FLT has been enormous. The most influential idea is the cognitive view of language learning.
This implies that:

 Learners have cognitive abilities for learning languages. Learning a language isn’t a repetition of
structures, for a language isn’t a set of habits. The learner can make utterances in a creative way,
construct rules, try them out and alter them if they prove to be inadequate.
 Errors must be considered as normal in the process of learning. Errors provide positive evidence about
the nature of the learning process, as the learner works out the system of the language he/she is
learning.

1.4 FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

Halliday draws our attention towards the importance of the world and our relationship to it in the formation
of the linguistic system. In many respects, Halliday’s approach is more influenced by Saussure than by
Chomsky. Like Saussure, he sees language as a social and cultural phenomenon, whereas Chomsky sees it as
a biological one.
Functional approaches describe the complex interplay between language and social context, using formal
linguistic procedures. The problem of previous linguistics was that they didn’t incorporate meaning into their
account of language, and language specifies meaning. Partly in recognition of this, recent years have been the
development of pragmatics. Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics concerned with placing linguistics within the
domain of communication theory. This linguistic branch explores the ways in which we interpret utterances
using strategies of inference and presupposition. Language is an interactive event occurring between
participants, language is seen as a discourse.
Today FLT has incorporated the functional and communicative potential of language. Language teaching now
focuses on communicative proficiency rather than on mastery of structures. Scholar who advocated this view
of language drew on the work of British functional (Halliday), American sociolinguists (Hymes), as well as
on works on philosophy. The work of these scholars, together with the writing of the British linguist Wilkins
in the 1970s, had a significant impact on the development of a communicative approach to language teaching.
The Council of Europe incorporated a communicative view into a set of specifications for a First Level
Communicative Language Syllabus, called the Threshold Level. These threshold level specifications have had
a strong influence on the design of communicative language programmes and textbooks in Europe. In Spain,
our educational law has also incorporated the communicative principles into its syllabus design. These are the
main traits of communicative language teaching:

 Language learning is learning to communicate.

 Effective communication is sought.
 Students are expected to interact with one another.
 Motivation will spring from an interest in what is being communicated.
 Errors and mistakes are seen as normal in the teaching learning process.
 Translation may be used where students need or benefit from it.

2 THE LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS

Many different methods have been devised in the search of the best way of teaching a foreign language.
Teaching methods have often been justified in terms of how children learn their first language (L1), without
investigating the learning of the second language (L2).
In some respects, the two forms of learning may well be rather similar; in others, quite different. Second
language learners are different from children learning a first language, since they already have a language in
their minds.
The similarities between learning first and second languages mustn’t be taken for granted. Research is
necessary in order to understand how people learn a L2. We sill first focus on theories on first and second
language learning in order to further establish the similarities and differences between both learnings.
2.1 THEORIES ON FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
For over 200 years, scholars have shown an interest in the way children learn to speak and understand their
first language. But systematic investigation didn’t begin until the middle of the 20th century. Linguists and
psychologists started to use observational and experimental technique to study the process of language
acquisition. There have been several proposals to explain the process of learning:
Imitation and reinforcement (behaviourist view)
Skinner applied the theory of conditioning to L1 learning. He considered language to be a process of imitation
and reinforcement. This is a behaviourist view of learning a language, since language is seen as a form of
behaviour. Skinner applied the procedure: stimulus > response > reinforcement to the way humans acquire a
language.
Children learn to speak by copying the utterances heard around them, and by having their responses reinforced
by repetitions, corrections and encouragement that adults provide.
Nowadays, it has become clear that this principle will not fully explain all facts of language acquisition.
Children do imitate sounds and vocabulary, but grammatical ability cannot be explained in this way. Two
kinds of evidence support this criticism:

 The kind of language that children produce: for instance, irregular grammatical patterns. Children
assume that grammar is regular and try to work out what forms are regular, the say things such as
“wented” instead of went. They couldn’t have learnt these forms by imitation since adults don’t say
“wented”.
 Children seem unable to make exact imitations of adult speech, even when invited to do so. Language
acquisition is more a matter of maturity than of imitation.
Innateness
The limitations of the imitation view led to an alternative theory: innateness. This theory came from
Chomsky’s generative ideas about language. He maintained that language isn’t a form of behaviour. Children
are born with an innate capacity for language development. When children are exposed to speech, certain
general principles for structuring language automatically begin to operate. This is a “language acquisition
device” (LAD), which is universal, common to all children.
Children use their innate linguistic knowledge about grammar to produce sentences that, after a process of
trial an error, correspond to adult speech. But a distinction has to be drawn between knowledge about the
language and how that knowledge is used to construct sentences. Chomsky called these concepts competence
(knowledge) and performance (the realization of this knowledge as sentences).
Cognition
In the lights of the changes in the generative linguistics theory, alternative accounts have evolved because the
detailed properties of the LAD have been extremely difficult to explain.
One of the main alternative accounts stems from the model of cognitive development proposed by Piaget. He
argues that linguistic structures will only emerge if there is an already established cognitive foundation. This
has been proven to some extent in the sensorimotor stage, as children begin to name classes of objects after
they have developed a sense of object permanence. However, it is difficult to show precise correlations
between general cognitive abilities and linguistic development, and the issue becomes more and more complex
as children develop. Therefore, and despite several controlled studies which have investigated the link between
the stages of cognitive development and the emergence of linguistic skills, no conclusive evidence is available
yet.
Input
For many years, the importance of the language used by adults with children was minimized. In the 1970s,
studies of “motherese” language showed that maternal input facilities language acquisition in children.
Mothers seem capable of adapting their language to give the child maximum opportunity to learn. These
adaptations are:

 Simplicity. Maternal utterances are simplified, especially with respect to grammar and meaning.
 Clarity. Mother provide extra information. Sentences are paraphrased and repeated several times.
 Expressive. Use of diminutive or reduplicative words in common.
 Attention-catching. High pitch voice when addressing the baby and high rising intonation utterances.
Although these are important features in the development of language, it is difficult to show correlations
between the features of motherese and the subsequent emerging ones in child speech.
In conclusion, it is very difficult to choose between these approaches, but there is no doubt that all hypotheses
are right in some way:

 Children imitate a lot

 They are born with a language-learning mechanism
 Their cognitive stage is important
 The input they are exposed to is also a significant factor.
All theories play their part in the learning process. The study of the interdependence of these factors constitutes
the main goal of first language research.
2.2 THEORIES ON SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
As with the study of first language acquisition, there are several theories on the nature of second language
acquisition. Comparisons are frequently made with the way children learn their first language.
The behaviourist view
Behaviourism had a great deal of influence on language learning and teaching in the 1950s and 60s. According
to behaviourism, L2 learning is seen as a process of imitation and reinforcement: learners copy what they hear
and, through practice, they establish a set of acceptable habits in the new language. According to this view,
L2 learning is similar to L1 learning.
L1 is thought to influence L2 learning. Similarities between two languages cause a positive transfer.
Differences cause a negative transfer, generally known as interference: L1 habits cause errors in L2.
The main aim of behaviourist teaching is to for new, correct linguistic habits through intensive practice,
eliminating errors to the maximum. These views on second language learning receive several kinds of
criticism:

 Imitation alone doesn’t provide the learning of all utterances in a language. Learners are able to create
and recognize novel utterances that go beyond the limitations of model sentences might have practiced.
 Errors aren’t always interferences between L1 and L2. Some mistakes seem unrelated to L1. The
systematic comparison of L1 and L2 in order to predict areas of greatest learning difficulties explains
only a small part of the process of L2 learning.
The cognitive view
The main alternative to the behaviourist approach is Cognitivism. This approach maintains that language is
not a form of behaviour. Second language learning is a process which involves active mental processes.
Learners use their cognitive abilities in a creative way to work out hypotheses about the structure of the L2.
They construct rules, try them out, and modify them if they find they are inadequate.
According to this, language learning has two features:

 Interlanguage. The process of L2 learning proceeds in a series of transitional stages, as the learner
acquires more knowledge of L2. At each stage, they have a language system that is neither L1 nor L2.
 Errors analysis. Errors are likely to emerge when learners make wrong deductions of L2. Errors are
seen as positive evidence about the nature of the learning process, as the learner gradually works out
what the second language system is.
Since the 1970s, errors analysis has attracted a great deal of attention. However, the analysis of errors has
turned out to be a highly complex matter, involving factors other than cognitive. Some errors come from L1
interference; some come from external influences, and others arise of the need to make oneself understood.
The Monitor Model view
In the 1970s, Stephen Krashen offered an influential view on L2 learning. Krashen made a distinction between
acquisition and learning. Acquisition is a subconscious and natural process, which is behind L1 learning.
Learning is a conscious process that monitors the progress of acquisition and guides the performance of the
speaker.
The emphasis on acquisition lead Krashen to propose several hypotheses about learning a L2:
1. Acquisition/learning hypothesis.it claims that there are two distinct ways of developing competence in
a L2. One is acquiring the language, which is natural and unconscious language development, parallel
to L1 acquisition. Learning, by contrast, refers to a process in which conscious rules about the language
are developed. Learning, according to this theory, cannot lead to acquisition. In other words,
consciously learnt rules never lead to acquire knowledge.
2. The monitor hypothesis. This is a device that learners use to edit their language performance. Learners
may use learnt knowledge to correct themselves when they communicate.
3. The input hypothesis. It states that acquisition takes place as a result of learners having understood
input that is a little beyond their level competence. Input is a term used to mean the language that
students hear or read. This input should contain language that pupils already know as well as language
they have not previously seen.
4. The natural order hypothesis. It claims that the acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a
predictable order. Research has shown the certain grammatical structures or morphemes are acquired
before others in L1 acquisition in English, and a similar natural order is found in L2 acquisition. Errors
are signs of the acquisition of the language and they resemble those made by children when learning
their mother tongue.
5. The affective filter hypothesis. Krashen sees the learner’s emotional state as a filter that passes or
blocks the input which is necessary for acquisition. A low affective filter is desirable, since it will not
block this input. The affective filter has to do with the learners’ motivation, self-confidence and levels
of anxiety.
The implications for language teaching are:

 As much comprehensible input as possible must be presented.

 Anything that helps comprehension is important.
 Focus on listening and reading; speaking should be allowed to emerge. Learners’ silent periods should
be respected.
  A relaxed classroom atmosphere, which will lower the affective filter: students’ work should focus on
meaningful communication rather on form; there should be a variety of group sizes, content and
contexts, and motivating materials.

3 SIMILAITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2 LEARNING

When a child learns a first language, we may say that the child learns a language under natural conditions.
This learning situation differs greatly from artificial ones, with the most common one used in second language
acquisition being the classroom. We have already seen how the school is also an artificial setting which
appears in first language acquisition. Therefore, we can distinguish four possible situations for language
learning:
Language learning First language Second language
2. Foreign language acquisition
1. First language acquisition at
Natural setting immersed in the target
home or in the neighbourhood
language
3. First language development in 4. Foreign language acquisition
Planned setting
school in school

Two of these settings are interesting for us: one and four. Then I will mention the specific differences between
first language acquisition in a natural setting and foreign language acquisition at school.
3.1 SIMILARITIES
Gass (2008) argues that both first and second language have the following aspects in common:

 Both L1 and L2 learning are cognitive processes. Children and L2 learners use their innate ability to
learn a language. They can create novel utterances.
 Many errors in L1 and L2 learning are similar.
 Both children and L2 learners need to be exposed to comprehensible input. The receptive skill of
listening is central to their learning.
 There is a natural order both in L1 and L2 acquisition, that is, a natural and universal sequence of
acquisition. Some grammatical forms are acquired before others.
 In both L1 and L2 learning processes, repetition of the model takes place. Children imitate the parental
model they hear; L2 leaners also repeat the teacher’s model.

3.2 DIFFERENCES
According to Gass (2008), there are three main differences while acquiring the first and the second language.
These can be established as follows:

 L2 learners are different from children, since there is already a langue present in their minds that
influences L2 learning. Therefore, L1 interference errors may come up in the process of learning.
 L2 is taught in an artificial situation which hardly resembles a L1 natural learning environment. L2
learning lacks the diversity of contexts and situations that L1 learning has.
 The motivation is different. L2 learners already know a language, and this inevitably might reduce
their desire and need to learn another one beyond basic levels.
 There is an uncertain parallel between the way in which mothers talk to their children and the way
teachers talk to L2 learners.
 The L2 learner has a set of formed cognitive skills and strategies that makes him/her conscious of the
learning process.
3.3 FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
We have seen the differences between L1 and L2 learning processes. Teaching methods will depend on our
knowledge of how learners acquire a language. Taking into account the theories and hypotheses on L2
language learning, we can list the following teaching implications:

 Motivation.
 Imitation and repetition.
 Comprehensible input.
 Phases on reflection.
 Silent period.
 Pleasant classroom atmosphere.
 Errors.
CONCLUSION
FLT must be based on how pupils learn a language. The teacher must be aware of the principles underlying
the process of learning in order to apply an adequate teaching method.
Linguistics and psychology have contributed a great deal to the knowledge of the learning process, and several
methods have been derived from their ideas. However, research has not yet provided a magic solution that can
be applied to contemporary teaching.