Bolivar Y La Consolidacion De La Independencia Del Peru

Master & Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language
Entrance Exam
Name: Ana Maria Meza Gonzalo
I.

Date: December 2nd, 2010

Read the following text and answer the questions below:„Acquisition‟
In order to study how learner acquire a second language, a clear, operational definition
of what is meant by the term „acquisition‟ is needed. Unfortunately, researchers have
been unable toagree on such a definition. „Acquisition‟ can mean several things.
First, some researchers (for example, Krashen 1981) distinguish between
„acquisition‟ and „learning‟. The former refers to thesubconscious process of „picking
up‟ a language through exposure and the latter to the conscious process of studying it .
According to this view, it is possible for learners to „acquire‟ or to „learn‟rules
independently and at separate times. Although such a distinction can have a strong
face validity –particularly for teachers- it is problematic, not least because of the
difficulty ofdemonstrating whether the knowledge learners possess is of the
„acquired‟ or „learnt‟ kind. That is why many books use the terms „acquisition „ and
„learning‟ interchangeably.
Second, researchers disagreeabout what kind of performance they think provides the
best evidence of acquisition. We have already noted that some researchers work with
production data, some study learners‟ intuitions about theL2, while others access
learners‟ introspection. Also, some researchers (for example, Bickerton 1981) consider
a feature has been acquired when it appears for the first time, while others (forexample, Dully and Burt 1980) require the learner to use it to some predetermined
criterion level of accuracy, usually 90 per cent. Thus, a distinction can be made
between acquisition as „emergence‟ or„onset‟ and acquisition as „accurate use‟.
Clearly „acquisition can mean several very different things. This makes it very
difficult to compare the results of one study with those of another....