Environments For Second Language Acquisition

ABSTRACT

This essay is about the environments that participate in the process of acquisition of a second language. The learner that is interested to learn another language is exposed to these different settings since he/she starts their study. These environments are: Natural, Formal, and mixed. Depending on the enrichment that each one has, the students will be able to obtain a largequantity of experiences and situations that will contribute to its acquisition.

The natural environment will be characterized when the learners interact with native speakers or master speaker in second language. They depend just what they hear, what they can see around, what they have memorized, they don’t follow any grammatical rule, but they can produce communication.

The Formal environment willbe characterized when the learner is in a classroom, that with the help of a teacher and a systematic content he/she can understand the structure of the language so he/she can produce communication.

The mixed environment will be characterized with the combination of formal and natural environment. The learner will learn the structure of the language in a natural environment. It is consideredthe best environment to produce communication.

In our days the approach that is followed is that the learners in the different environment can produce communication, for that reason it is important for the enrichment of these settings.



ENVIRONMENTS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
By Ruth M. Galvez Carias.

Environment is known as context and setting. Environment, context orsetting is defined by the Manual Dictionary of the Spanish Language (2001) like a set of circumstances in which there is a fact. It can include physical, political, cultural or any background on which it is considered a fact. This paper is about the description of the different environments (context or setting) that are involved in the process of acquisition of a second language (SLA) and they are:Natural, Formal and mixed environments.

The Natural Environment
It is understood when the learners interact with native speakers or master speakers in second language (SL) in a native place. It is like when the children in their early stage acquire their mother tongue, because they are exposed to the language of their family and people that are around him, they finally will speak the samelanguage following a process of maturity. To this respect, Cenoz and Perales Muñoz (2000) say as follows: "In the natural context, that it is more seen to the context of acquisition of first tongues, the acquisition occurs as a result of the interaction between native speakers of L1 and the observation of the interaction among speakers of L2 in different social situations"
The learners don’tdepend on a systematic study of a language with the help or direction of somebody, or follow a systematic content and there doesn’t exist a correction of errors, but they depend exclusively of what they hear, what they can see around, what they have memorized; then they use the structure of their first or second language to externalize what they think and their own situation of communication.William Littlewood (1992:70) summarizes this to three conditions:
1. The tongue doesn’t have reason to be presented in a organize way as it is used in the schools. The beginners of a SL are exposed to natural examples of the new tongue.
2. They do not need to practice the application of each element of the tongue. The linguistic competence develops processing internally the tongue towhich they are exposed.
3. It is not necessary to correct the errors of the language which the beginners express.”
The description of this setting is totally comprehensible and acceptable. Adults and children can be found in this setting, but however “it is more successful for children in their early stage than in adult it is not guaranteed” as McLaren stated (2000: pag. 120).
An...