Language learning and teaching

6.2The processes of language learning

6.2.1 Acquisition or learning?

The terms ‘language acquisition’ and ‘language learning’ are currently used in a number of different ways. Many use them interchangeably. Others use one or the other as the general term, using the other in a more restricted sense. Thus ‘language acquisition’ may be used either as the general term or confined:

a)to interpretations of the language of non-native speakers in terms of current theories of universal grammar (e.g. parameter setting). This work is almost always a branch of theoretical psycholinguistics of little or no direct concern to practitioners, especially since grammar is considered to be far removed from accessibility to consciousness.

b)to untutored knowledge and ability to use a non-native language resulting either from direct exposure to text or from direct participation in communicative events.

‘Language learning’ may be used as the general term, or confined to the process whereby language ability is gained as the result of a planned process, especially by formal study in an institutional setting.

At the present time it does not seem possible to impose a standardised terminology, especially since there is no obvious super-ordinate term covering ‘learning’ and ‘acquisition’ in their restricted senses.

Users of the Framework are asked to consider and if possible state in which sense they use the terms and to avoid using them in ways counter to current specific usage.

They may also wish to consider and where appropriate state:

•how opportunities for language acquisition in the sense of (b) above can be provided and exploited.

6.2.2 How do learners learn?

6.2.2.1 There is at present no sufficiently strong research-based consensus on how learners learn for the Framework to base itself on any one learning theory. Some theorists believe that the human information-processing abilities are strong enough for it to be sufficient for a human being to be exposed to sufficient understandable language for him/her to acquire the language and be able to use it both for understanding and for production. They believe the ‘acquisition’ process to be inaccessible to observation or intuition and that it cannot be facilitated by conscious manipulation, whether by teaching or by study methods. For them, the most important thing a teacher can do is provide the richest possible linguistic environment in which learning can take place without formal teaching.

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