Language Aquisition Principles

732 Words3 Pages
Language Acquisition Principles Second language acquisition requires that a student engages in reading, writing, speaking and listening to the language they are learning. The more a student interacts in the language they are learning the better they will be able to develop that skill. There are many methods, principles, and resources a teacher can find to apply in their classroom when it comes to language acquisition. In this essay, I will give a brief summary of an article concerning language acquisition principles. I will then state how teacher may apply the information in the article to their personal situation. Last, I will react to the article through a synthesis of my opinion. The article I chose was Principles of Instructed Second Language Acquisition by Rod Ellis. In this article Mr. Ellis gives 10 principles that are intended for teacher to reflect on and are relevant in nature, (Ellis, 2008). The ten principles are: 1) Ensure learners develop rich formulaic expression and rule based competence. 2) Ensure learners focus on meaning. 3) Ensure learners focus on form. 4) Ensure learners focus on explicit knowledge while not neglecting explicit knowledge. 5) Take into account a learners built in syllabus. 6) Success requires extensive 2nd language input. 7) Allow opportunities for output. 8) Allow opportunities to interact in 2nd language is central to developing proficiency. 9) Take into account individual differences in learners. 10) In assessing learners, do formal as well as informal assessments, (Ellis, 2008). Ellis goes on to explain each principle in detail. For a teacher to implement these principles into their classroom it can be quite simple. For most teachers they will already have implemented and remembered to do most of these things. In a classroom, teachers need to always remember that students have different learning styles, principle 5,
Open Document