Second-Language Acquisition in Schools

At the very end of File 8.5 of the book there is a brief section on Second-Language Acquisition. Second-Language acquisition differs from other processes of becoming bilingual because it happens to people later in life. It is also a topic, which I expect many of us have some familiarity with because most American schools require students to take a foreign language. Because second-language learning is so common in schools, I think it is important to consider how schools and students can improve the second-language learning process.

Before coming to Stanford, I studied French for seven years in school. However, despite doing well in my French class I realized that I do not have and have never had real linguistic competence in the language. Upon reflection, I realized that my French education relied heavily on my pre-existing knowledge of English. I learned French words by memorizing the English definitions of words. When formulating sentences in French I would think of the English word I wanted to use and then mentally translated it to the French I had memorized. The same was true with grammar. While there are certainly differences between French and English grammar, I learned and remembered those differences by mentally referencing English grammar. This was sufficient to get through classroom French with high grades, but clearly I had not truly learned a second language.

In the book, the phenomenon of referring to one’s native language when learning a second language is called “transfer”.  While there are some important advantages to already knowing a language before learning a second one later in life, there are also some pretty clear disadvantages. I think one of the most serious disadvantages is the kind of mental translation that I described between one’s native language and the language that is being learned. In order to be competent in a language, a person should be able to understand and formulate utterances without translating words or phrases back to one’s native language. In other words, language competence requires a student to abandon the crutch of translation.

I think there are several ways that language classes could be structured in order to minimize the reliance of students on translation. First, I think it is important to provide as close to an immersion environment as possible from day one. The students’ native language should not be spoken by the instructor or students and the native language should not be used in course materials. While this is somewhat challenging and frustrating, I think it pushes the student to think only in terms of the language that he/she is learning. It is easier to detect patterns in language when one is listening to and reading the language directly rather than reading and hearing translated words, phrases, and sentences. Additionally, I think pushing students to recognize patterns from the very beginning of the language learning process will help students develop the right mindset for approaching second language learning.

 Another way that classroom second-language acquisition could minimize the reliance of students on translation is if more emphasis is placed on speaking rather than writing. In my experience with French, linguistic competence was tested by our ability to write essays. While this is certainly useful, I think writing is the place where students are most likely to rely on translation. This is because writing is not time pressured. Students have time to sit and think about what they want to say and slowly translate their thoughts in their native language into the language being learned. Speech on the other hand, happens much more naturally. People still think about what they are going to say before they speak, but they have much less time to think about it. Reducing the amount of thought that goes into each utterance in a new language will also reduce the student’s ability to rely on translation (after all translation is pretty slow). I am not suggesting that learning to write in a foreign language should be eliminated; rather I think it should happen much later in the second-language acquisition process.

Do you guys think there are issues with how second languages are taught in high schools? What changes do you think should be made to foreign language classes?