Session5AcquiringKnowledgeforL2Use

Session5AcquiringKnowledgeforL2Use

Session 5 Acquiring Knowledge for L2 Use

1. Competence and use

●Linguistic competence: knowledge about language

●Communicative competence: “everything that a speaker needs to know in order to

communicate appropriately within a particular community.” (Savaille-Troike)

●Pragmatic competence: knowledge that accounts for “the choices they make, the constraints

they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication.” (Crystal 1992)

6.1 Relationship of domains of communicative competence

2. Academic vs. interpersonal competence

●Academic competence: knowledge needed by learners who want to use the L2 primarily to

learn about other subjects, or as a tool in scholarly research, or as a medium in a specific professional or occupational field.

●Interpersonal competence: knowledge required of learners

who plan to use the L2 primarily

in face-to-face contact with other speakers.

6.2 Priorities for L2 activities

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Academic competence Interpersonal competence

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1.Reading 1. Listening

2.Listening 2. Speaking

3.Writing 3. Reading

4.Speaking 4. Writing

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What is the priority for learning English in China?

●Language knowledge:

V ocabulary (lexicon)

Morphology (word structure)

Phonology (sound system)

Syntax (grammar)

Discourse (ways to connect sentences and organize information)

●Language skills:

Reading

Listening

Writing

Speaking

3. Components of language knowledge

It?s unrealistic to have mastery of all the potential resources of a community?s language.

●V ocabulary: a core of high-frequency words in a language. …the? ranks first in the 50 most

frequent words in written and spoken English (Does this

mean that …the?is the easiest to learn?). V ocabulary knowledge is acquired to different degrees, with learners first recognizing words they see or hear, then producing them in limited contexts, and ultimately (perhaps) fully controlling their accurate and appropriate use. L2 speakers may never acquire complete knowledge of some words which nevertheless become part of their productive repertoire.

Three types of knowledge contributing to effective use and learning of vocabulary:

1)Linguistic knowledge; 2) World knowledge; 3) Strategic knowledge.

●Morphology: important for vocabulary development (e.g. knowledge of derivational

morphology, adding of prefixes and suffixes (e.g. spectacle, spectator, suspect, circumspect) ●Phonology: new phonemes are likely to be perceived as having features of the L1 speech sound. CA is reliable for predicting L1 influence on L2 acquisition of phonology.

●Syntax: having to mark plurals on English nouns poses a challenge for Chinese speakers, but

English speakers find it difficult to learn a system of marking Chinese nouns based on the shape of things (e.g a book, a table). Nominalizations by which a whole sentence is transformed into a noun phrase is common in academic writing and speaking (e.g.

I analyzed the report →My analysis of the report. See p.149). Development of considerable fluency for everyday interactive purposes does not guarantee the syntactic knowledge necessary for the advanced literacy that full academic competence requires.

Grammatical forms may not be in use, forms in use may not be grammatical.