learning acquisition hypothesis

The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: Definition and Criticism

January 19, 2018, 8:00 am

Linguist and educator Stephen Krashen proposed the Monitor Model, his theory of second language acquisition, in Principles and practice in second language acquisition published in 1982. Influenced by the theory of first language acquisition proposed by Noam Chomsky, the Monitor Model posits five hypotheses about second language acquisition and learning:

Acquisition-learning hypothesis
Natural order hypothesis
Monitor hypothesis
Input hypothesis
Affective filter hypothesis

The following sections offer a description of the first hypothesis of the Monitor Model, the acquisition-learning hypothesis, as well as the major criticism surrounding the hypothesis.

Definition of the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

The first hypothesis of Krashen’s Monitor Model, the acquisition-learning hypothesis, distinguishes between the processes of language acquisition and language learning. Krashen contrasts acquisition and learning as two distinct and separate language processes. Acquisition occurs passively and unconsciously through implicit, informal, or natural learning, resulting in implicit knowledge and acquired competence of a language; in other words, to acquire a language is to “pick up” a language by relying on “feelings” of correctness rather than conscious knowledge of language rules.

In contrast to acquisition, learning occurs actively and consciously through explicit or formal learning and instruction, resulting in explicit knowledge about a language; learning results in metalinguistic knowledge and awareness. Furthermore, the acquisition-learning hypothesis states that both children and adults acquire language via access to an innate language acquisition device (LAD) regardless of age as well as that learning cannot become acquisition. The most important pedagogical implication of the first hypothesis of the Monitor Model is that explicit teaching and learning is unnecessary, indeed inadequate, for second language acquisition.

Criticism of the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

The first critique of Krashen’s Monitor Model is that the hypothesized distinction between acquisition and learning as posited by the acquisition-learning hypothesis, or, more specifically, determining whether the process involved in language production resulted from implicit acquisition or explicit learning, is impossible to prove. As Barry McLaughlin offers as anecdotal evidence, he feels that the German * Ich habe nicht das Kind gesehen “I have not seen the children” is incorrect based on intuition but also knows that the utterance is incorrect based on his knowledge of the rules of German grammar.

Furthermore, critics consider the argument that learning cannot become acquisition questionable. Kevin R. Gregg offers anecdotal evidence of his personal experience learning a second language as counterevidence to the clear division between acquisition and learning: He initially consciously learned the conjugations of Japanese verbs through rote memorization, which ultimately led to unconscious acquisition. In his case, learning became acquisition. Both examples of personal experience with a second language illustrate the problem with stringently distinguishing the process of language acquisition from the process of language learning. Thus, the claim that acquisition is distinct from learning fails to withstand evidence-based criticism

Although influential within the field of second language acquisition over the past few decades, the Monitor Model is not without criticism as illustrated by the major critiques of the learning-acquisition hypothesis.

Gregg, Kevin R. 1984. Krashen’s monitor and Occam’s razor. Applied Linguistics 5(2). 79-100. Krashen, Stephen D. 1982. Principles and practice in second language acquisition . Oxford: Pergamon. Krashen, Stephen D. 2009. Principles and practice in second language acquisition , 1st internet edn. Oxford: Pergamon. http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/Principles_and_Practice.pdf. Lightbrown, Patsy M. & Nina Spada. 2006. How languages are learned , 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McLaughlin, Barry. 1978. The monitor model: Some methodological considerations. Language Learning 28(2). 309-332. Zafar, Manmay. 2009. Monitoring the ‘monitor’: A critique of Krashen’s five hypotheses. Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics 2(4). 139-146.

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The Natural Order Hypothesis: Definition and Criticism

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Stephen Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Stephen Krashen is a linguist, educational researcher, and activist who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California. In the 1990s, as the state of California became increasingly hostile to bilingual education, Krashen was instrumental in advocating the merits of learning a second language. His Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis is the centerpiece of his academic work.

Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning hypothesis revolves around the concept of “comprehensible input,” a term which essentially means “messages that can be understood.” Comprehensible input is best received when the learner is hearing something that he or she wants or needs to know. Krashen differentiates language learning from language acquisition, emphasizing that while learning is a formalized process, such as that which occurs in a classroom, acquisition happens informally, when a person is relaxed. He identifies a “silent period” during language acquisition, a time during which the student listens but is not comfortable speaking.

The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis acknowledges that students learn faster as they are given more comprehensible input. Inversely, a lack of comprehensible input delays language acquisition. Total Immersion Language Teaching, for example, succeeds so well is because it provides lots of comprehensible input. When people are immersed in a culture in which they do not know the language, they have an intense need and desire to speak that language. Such students are not interested in grammar lessons from a book but, instead, want to hear “comprehensible input” about that culture that teaches them what they need to know to survive.

Krashen’s acquisition-learning theory has much in common with both the communicative approach to language study and Noam Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar. The idea of “comprehensible input” is simply another way of saying that students learn languages best when they are learning about things that interest them. This idea is the essence of the communicative approach. Krashen’s Natural Order Hypothesis says that we acquire the rules of grammar in a logical order. This is similar to generative grammar’s hypothesis that the basic foundations of human grammar are deeply embedded in the human brain.

Stephen Krashen has been criticized for not having sufficient empirical evidence to back up his theories. Gregg accused Krashen of using “ill-defined terms.” McLaughlin critiques Krashen’s theories as being weak and imprecise. However, Krashen has conducted extensive research to determine the validity of his theories, and his dedication to promoting bilingual education has had undeniable worth. His frequent media appearances have pushed bilingualism to the forefront of public awareness.

Krashen is regarded true linguistic theorist, with over 30 years of research and hundreds of published articles and multiple books. Stephen Krashen’s passionate work has left an indelible mark on the future of bilingual education in America.

Some of Dr. Stephen Krashen’s research is available for free at www.sdkrashen.com , benikomason.net , http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~lwen/publications.html , www.IJFLT.com .

Tags: , acquisition-learning hypothesis , generative grammar hypothesis , krashen , Natural Order Hypothesis , noam chomsky , steven , Total Immersion Language Teaching

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Language Acquistion , Language Learning , Linguistics , Second Language Acquistion , Second Language Learning Methods . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

16 Responses to “Stephen Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis”

There are so many great methods for language learning and believe me when I say that there is no magic program for mastering a language in 30 days. Books claiming fluency in 15 minutes a day can give new learners false hope. The reality is that becoming proficient in any language requires a lot of time and work. It requires diligence. However, there are a lot of things that a person can do to help advance their learning and this blog is devoted to sharing those ideas.

We just couldnt leave your website before saying that we really enjoyed the quality information you offer to your visitors… Will be back often to check up on new stuff you post!

How To Speak Spanish…

Since I knew not a word of Spanish, I practiced speaking English the Spanish way– Vanessa’ s way. “ S” sounding words were replaced with a“ th”: “ Sour Patch Kids” became“ Thour Path Kidth.” “ Hey Vanessa, push me on the swing” …

Thank you for this post. I agree with this. I’ve been doing a little bit of research about language learning and this is what I often read, that a person would learn faster if she reads articles or books in her targeted language, and on that topics interests her. Which makes sense if you think about it. Think when you were still in school, you are more alert if you are interested in the topic being discussed, and this makes you want to learn more — just like in language learning.

Great information. The “relaxed” part especially rings true. Thanks!

I really don’t agree with this particular post. Even so, I did looked in Google and I have found out that you are right and I was thinking in the improper way. Keep on producing quality material such as this.

Stephen Krashen is right. Immersion is how you acquire a language; your language and ANY other language.

You didn’t learn English because you studied it for 12 years; you already had it all in your mind by the age of 5 because of immersion. So much exposure made it become part of you.

Although there are certain tools that accelerate the acquiring process (like SRS software), immersion is the key. And all people that say it’s wrong are teachers or language institute owners that want their innefective businesses to stay here!

Krashen’s theories are intuitively appealing but unfalsifiable (meaning there’s no way to show if he’s right or wrong). There’s plenty out there on WHY this is so. (Google Kevin Gregg, for example.)

My main objection, as a long-term (20+ years) language teacher is that his “input only” stance has led a lot of teachers to believe that they don’t have to know jack about how the language works - all they have to do is provide enough “comprehensible input” (whatever that means) and their students will end up with high proficiency in English. If they fail, it’s then because the input wasn’t rich enough? Comprehensible enough? No, if they fail, it could be because of a hundred other reasons, not the least of which is that adults are not children. Not biologically, not socially, not anyhow. So you cannot compare L1 acquisition with L2 acquisition, except in the most banal ways.

Krashen does this bait and switch all the time in his writings; whenever it suits him, he picks the evidence that supports his “theories” (which he arrogantly calls “THE theory of second language acquisition” - and no, “kanji”, he is in NO way “the father of language acquisition”, since HIS theoretical daddies are Chomsky, Seliger, Brown etc etc) and trashes everyone else without ONCE, EVER, in 30 years, actually defining any of his major constructs in ways that can be tested.

Compared to chew-your-own-arm-off grammar translation, maybe his Natural Approach had something going for it; compared to any halfway decent communicative teacher, he’s old hat. Forget him and move on.

Good day! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There’s a lot of people that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Many thanks

@ James H: First, thanks for pointing out that Krashen’s theories derive from the works of Chomsky, Seliger, Brown… and well, others. I didn’t know that. (I’m the ‘kanji’ guy hehe)

Now, you want your students to achieve proficiency in the language you are “teaching” them? Then teach them to become independent learners. Encourage them to read and listen to material on topics they are actually interested in. Suggest them to use dictionaries and other online resources to expand their vocab and find the meaning of words they don’t understand.

In class, have them read and listen to audio in the target language too. Play videos or a movie in class if you can. If they ask about words they don’t understand describe the meaning of them and also provide example sentences. Basically, focus your classes on giving your students lots of native media (comprehensible input is a very relative term, really).

I’m no teacher and you have been working on the field for two decades. However, if I were a student, I would rather have this kind of experience instead of a boring class focused on grammar explanations, drills, boring textbooks and a bunch of tests. An experience where the student is having fun and reading/listening to content by his/her own will is MUCH more effective than the traditional methodologies.

This blog provides great information and well organized format to look for the related topics.

Although Stephen Krashen has been criticized for not having enough evidence for his theories, but I certainly believe that the five hypothesis do have influential effects for the field of second language acquisition.

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Language Acquisition Theory

Henna Lemetyinen

Postdoctoral Researcher

BSc (Hons), Psychology, PhD, Developmental Psychology

Henna Lemetyinen is a postdoctoral research associate at the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH).

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Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Language is a cognition that truly makes us human. Whereas other species do communicate with an innate ability to produce a limited number of meaningful vocalizations (e.g., bonobos) or even with partially learned systems (e.g., bird songs), there is no other species known to date that can express infinite ideas (sentences) with a limited set of symbols (speech sounds and words).

This ability is remarkable in itself. What makes it even more remarkable is that researchers are finding evidence for mastery of this complex skill in increasingly younger children.

Infants as young as 12 months are reported to have sensitivity to the grammar needed to understand causative sentences (who did what to whom; e.g., the bunny pushed the frog (Rowland & Noble, 2010).

After more than 60 years of research into child language development, the mechanism that enables children to segment syllables and words out of the strings of sounds they hear and to acquire grammar to understand and produce language is still quite an enigma.

Behaviorist Theory of Language Acquisition

One of the earliest scientific explanations of language acquisition was provided by Skinner (1957). As one of the pioneers of behaviorism , he accounted for language development using environmental influence, through imitation, reinforcement, and conditioning.

In this view, children learn words and grammar primarily by mimicking the speech they hear and receiving positive feedback for correct usage.

Skinner argued that children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings. Correct utterances are positively reinforced when the child realizes the communicative value of words and phrases.

For example, when the child says ‘milk’ and the mother smiles and gives her some. As a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, enhancing the child’s language development (Ambridge & Lieven, 2011).

Over time, through repetition and reinforcement, they refine their linguistic abilities. Critics argue this theory doesn’t fully explain the rapid pace of language acquisition nor the creation of novel sentences.

Chomsky Theory of Language Development

However, Skinner’s account was soon heavily criticized by Noam Chomsky, the world’s most famous linguist to date.

In the spirit of the cognitive revolution in the 1950s, Chomsky argued that children would never acquire the tools needed for processing an infinite number of sentences if the language acquisition mechanism was dependent on language input alone.

Noam Chomsky introduced the nativist theory of language development, emphasizing the role of innate structures and mechanisms in the human brain. Key points of Chomsky’s theory include:

Language Acquisition Device (LAD): Chomsky proposed that humans have an inborn biological capacity for language, often termed the LAD, which predisposes them to acquire language.

Universal Grammar: He suggested that all human languages share a deep structure rooted in a set of grammatical rules and categories. This “universal grammar” is understood intuitively by all humans.

Poverty of the Stimulus: Chomsky argued that the linguistic input received by young children is often insufficient (or “impoverished”) for them to learn the complexities of their native language solely through imitation or reinforcement. Yet, children rapidly and consistently master their native language, pointing to inherent cognitive structures.

Critical Period: Chomsky, along with other linguists, posited a critical period for language acquisition, during which the brain is particularly receptive to linguistic input, making language learning more efficient.

Critics of Chomsky’s theory argue that it’s too innatist and doesn’t give enough weight to social interaction and other factors in language acquisition.

Universal Grammar

Consequently, he proposed the theory of Universal Grammar: an idea of innate, biological grammatical categories, such as a noun category and a verb category, that facilitate the entire language development in children and overall language processing in adults.

Universal Grammar contains all the grammatical information needed to combine these categories, e.g., nouns and verbs, into phrases. The child’s task is just to learn the words of her language (Ambridge & Lieven).

For example, according to the Universal Grammar account, children instinctively know how to combine a noun (e.g., a boy) and a verb (to eat) into a meaningful, correct phrase (A boy eats).

This Chomskian (1965) approach to language acquisition has inspired hundreds of scholars to investigate the nature of these assumed grammatical categories, and the research is still ongoing.

Contemporary Research

A decade or two later, some psycho-linguists began to question the existence of Universal Grammar. They argued that categories like nouns and verbs are biologically, evolutionarily, and psychologically implausible and that the field called for an account that can explain the acquisition process without innate categories.

Researchers started to suggest that instead of having a language-specific mechanism for language processing, children might utilize general cognitive and learning principles.

Whereas researchers approaching the language acquisition problem from the perspective of Universal Grammar argue for early full productivity, i.e., early adult-like knowledge of the language, the opposing constructivist investigators argue for a more gradual developmental process. It is suggested that children are sensitive to patterns in language which enables the acquisition process.

An example of this gradual pattern learning is morphology acquisition. Morphemes are the smallest grammatical markers, or units, in language that alter words. In English, regular plurals are marked with an –s morpheme (e.g., dog+s).

Similarly, English third singular verb forms (she eat+s, a boy kick+s) are marked with the –s morpheme. Children are considered to acquire their first instances of third singular forms as entire phrasal chunks (Daddy kicks, a girl eats, a dog barks) without the ability to tease the finest grammatical components apart.

When the child hears a sufficient number of instances of a linguistic construction (i.e., the third singular verb form), she will detect patterns across the utterances she has heard. In this case, the repeated pattern is the –s marker in this particular verb form.

As a result of many repetitions and examples of the –s marker in different verbs, the child will acquire sophisticated knowledge that, in English, verbs must be marked with an –s morpheme in the third singular form (Ambridge & Lieven, 2011; Pine, Conti-Ramsden, Joseph, Lieven & Serratrice, 2008; Theakson & Lieven, 2005).

Approaching language acquisition from the perspective of general cognitive processing is an economic account of how children can learn their first language without an excessive biolinguistic mechanism.

However, finding a solid answer to the problem of language acquisition is far from being over. Our current understanding of the developmental process is still immature.

Investigators of Universal Grammar are still trying to convince that language is a task too demanding to acquire without specific innate equipment, whereas constructivist researchers are fiercely arguing for the importance of linguistic input.

The biggest questions, however, are yet unanswered. What is the exact process that transforms the child’s utterances into grammatically correct, adult-like speech? How much does the child need to be exposed to language to achieve the adult-like state?

What account can explain variation between languages and the language acquisition process in children acquiring very different languages to English? The mystery of language acquisition is granted to keep psychologists and linguists alike astonished decade after decade.

What is language acquisition?

Language acquisition refers to the process by which individuals learn and develop their native or second language.

It involves the acquisition of grammar, vocabulary, and communication skills through exposure, interaction, and cognitive development. This process typically occurs in childhood but can continue throughout life.

What is Skinner’s theory of language development?

Skinner’s theory of language development, also known as behaviorist theory, suggests that language is acquired through operant conditioning. According to Skinner, children learn language by imitating and being reinforced for correct responses.

He argued that language is a result of external stimuli and reinforcement, emphasizing the role of the environment in shaping linguistic behavior.

What is Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition?

Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition, known as Universal Grammar, posits that language is an innate capacity of humans.

According to Chomsky, children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), a biological ability that enables them to acquire language rules and structures effortlessly.

He argues that there are universal grammar principles that guide language development across cultures and languages, suggesting that language acquisition is driven by innate linguistic knowledge rather than solely by environmental factors.

Ambridge, B., & Lieven, E.V.M. (2011). Language Acquisition: Contrasting theoretical approaches . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax . MIT Press.

Pine, J.M., Conti-Ramsden, G., Joseph, K.L., Lieven, E.V.M., & Serratrice, L. (2008). Tense over time: testing the Agreement/Tense Omission Model as an account of the pattern of tense-marking provision in early child English. Journal of Child Language , 35(1): 55-75.

Rowland, C. F.; & Noble, C. L. (2010). The role of syntactic structure in children’s sentence comprehension: Evidence from the dative. Language Learning and Development , 7(1): 55-75.

Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal behavior . Acton, MA: Copley Publishing Group.

Theakston, A.L., & Lieven, E.V.M. (2005). The acquisition of auxiliaries BE and HAVE: an elicitation study. Journal of Child Language , 32(2): 587-616.

What Is The Second Language Acquisition Theory?

Table of Contents

1 Who is Stephen Krashen?
2 A summary of Krashen’s five main hypotheses
3 1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
4 2. The Monitor Hypothesis
5 3. The Input Hypothesis
6 4. The Affective Filter Hypothesis
7 5. The Natural Order Hypothesis
8 Krashen’s approach to learning grammar
9 Apply Krashen’s language theories with video learning

Stephen Krashen’s theories of second language acquisition throw many of the old language-learning theories on their head.

Even though his hypotheses are widely used in American schools and have become an “educational standard” for learning second languages there, many approaches to language acquisition (including so-called “modern” approaches using language learning apps ) still apply the older, grammar-translation methods.

Krashen said that language acquisition “does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill.”

So, in a purely Krashen-inspired language learning environment, you won’t find flashcards or many grammar books. There may not even be a teacher. Instead, the focus is on creating an immersive learning environment.

Let’s find out more about Krashen, his theories, and a Krashen-inspired tool that can help you learn a foreign language from YouTube videos…

Who is Stephen Krashen?

Born in 1942, U.S. linguist Stephen Krashen is considered an expert in the fields of bilingual education, neurolinguistics, second language acquisition, and literacy.

He received a Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1972 and worked largely as a linguistics professor at the University of Southern California.

His book, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, published in 1988 was highly influential and won awards.

Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition consists of five main hypotheses and these soon became the focus of his work.

A summary of Krashen’s five main hypotheses

If you summed up Krashen’s approach to second language acquisition, it would go something like this: language acquisition is driven by comprehensible language input that learners can understand, delivered in low-anxiety environments, and containing messages that students are interested in.

However, the insights go far beyond this. The five main pillars of Krashen’s hypothesis are the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the affective filter hypothesis, and the natural order hypothesis .

Let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

This hypothesis underpins Krashen’s second language acquisition theories and is well-established among linguists and language teachers. The theory states that there are two independent systems of second language performance:

The acquired system: the product of a subconscious process, similar to that which children undergo when they acquire their first language.
The learned system: this requires instruction or meaningful interaction in the target language leading to natural communication in which speakers focus on communicating rather than the form of their communications.

Conscious learning and subconscious acquisition cannot exist at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. Krashen considers the acquired system as the most important whereas most traditional approaches treat the learned system as the priority.

2. The Monitor Hypothesis

The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between the acquisition and learning systems.

We already know that Krashen believes the former is far more important than the latter when acquiring a language.

The monitor hypothesis defines the influence of learning on the acquired language. The acquisition system initiates communications and provides fluency while the learning system acts in the “minor” role of monitor or editor of the communications, correcting mistakes and making it more polished and precise.

It’s worth noting that the latter only comes into play when the learner has sufficient time available to think about correctness.

3. The Input Hypothesis

Krashen’s Input hypothesis is central to his theory of language acquisition. It states that second language learners must receive language input that is one step beyond their proficiency level so that it remains both comprehensible and challenging.

He believes that speech emerges once the acquirer has built up enough comprehensible input.

The Input Hypothesis is only concerned with the more passive acquisition method of developing proficiency in a language—not active learning.

4. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

Krashen also notes that several variables play an important role in language acquisition: of these, motivation, self-confidence, self-image, and anxiety are key.

Comprehensible input is best delivered in a low-anxiety environment to motivated and self-confident students. The Affective Filter hypothesis states that a mental block or imaginary “filter” in learners’ minds can prevent input from having the desired learning effect.

Low-anxiety environments are best for learners as these tend to lower the affective filter rather than raise it. Conversely, low motivation, low self-esteem, and anxiety raise the affective filter and impede comprehensible input from achieving its target.

5. The Natural Order Hypothesis

The Natural Order hypothesis states that learners acquire the rules of language in a predictable order. It is probably the least-cited of all Krashen’s theories and is based on research from several studies from the 1970s.

For any given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired before others regardless of the age or background of the learner. Despite the findings from the 1970s studies, Krashen rejects grammatical sequencing for developing a language program syllabus.

Krashen’s approach to learning grammar

Krashen believes that the study of the structure of the language can have general educational benefits and recognizes that most language program syllabuses will include some elements of grammar.

However, he believes the benefits of learning grammar are greatly overplayed—and only come into play when the learner is already somewhat familiar with the language.

Krashen believes that the teaching of grammar can result in language acquisition (and proficiency) only if the students are interested in the topic and instruction is in the target language (native speaking instruction). The environment must also be conducive to language acquisition. Otherwise, highlighting the rules of grammar is unnecessary when teaching a language and learners should consider alternative ways of acquiring language.

For learners struggling to master the language they’re trying to learn , it could be due to the learning method you’ve adopted.

Apply Krashen’s language theories with video learning

Krashen’s theories of language acquisition do not force early production in the second language. Instead, students are encouraged to produce output only when they are “ready”.

The focus is on input rather than output. Improvements in language proficiency come from comprehensible input delivered in low-anxiety environments rather than by forcing and correcting output.

Learning a language with video is one of the most effective ways to achieve this — especially for motivated learners who aspire to a high level of proficiency. With video, you’re in control of the topics that you learn from—and as long as the video holds your interest and is in the target language, you can use it to learn.

Our AI-powered language learning app can assist with this: inspired by the work of Krashen, it helps learners master a foreign language by watching subtitled YouTube videos. Learning is immersive, convenient, at your own pace, and motivational.

Learn from native speakers in context on YouTube using our free Chrome extension. Download it now for free !

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Article contents

Language acquisition.

Erica H. Wojcik , Erica H. Wojcik Department of Psychology, Skidmore College
Irene de la Cruz-Pavía Irene de la Cruz-Pavía Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Universite Paris Descartes
and Janet F. Werker Janet F. Werker Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.56
Published online: 26 April 2017

Language is a structured form of communication that is unique to humans. Within the first few years of life, typically developing children can understand and produce full sentences in their native language or languages. For centuries, philosophers, psychologists, and linguists have debated how we acquire language with such ease and speed. Central to this debate has been whether the learning process is driven by innate capacities or information in the environment. In the field of psychology, researchers have moved beyond this dichotomy to examine how perceptual and cognitive biases may guide input-driven learning and how these biases may change with experience. There is evidence that this integration permeates the learning and development of all aspects of language—from sounds (phonology), to the meanings of words (lexical-semantics), to the forms of words and the structure of sentences (morphosyntax). For example, in the area of phonology, newborns’ bias to attend to speech over other signals facilitates early learning of the prosodic and phonemic properties of their native language(s). In the area of lexical-semantics, infants’ bias to attend to novelty aids in mapping new words to their referents. In morphosyntax, infants’ sensitivity to vowels, repetition, and phrase edges guides statistical learning. In each of these areas, too, new biases come into play throughout development, as infants gain more knowledge about their native language(s).

child development
lexical-semantics

Introduction

By the age of three, typically developing children have learned the sounds, words, and grammar of their language well enough to understand and produce multiword sentences. Unlike other complex systems such as math or music, humans learn language without explicit instruction. This amazing feat has fascinated philosophers, linguists, and psychologists for centuries.

The contemporary study of language within psychology can be traced to the late 1950s, when behaviorism was the most prominent theoretical perspective. Skinner published a behaviorist theory of language acquisition, suggesting that reinforcement and punishment shape “verbal behavior,” thus allowing young children to learn language (Skinner, 1957 ). Linguist Noam Chomsky wrote a scathing review of this work (Chomsky, 1959 ), pointing out aspects of language that could not be explained by a simple behaviorist account. He posed questions such as: How are children capable of generating sentences that they have never heard before? How can adults so easily tell whether a sentence is grammatical? To address these points, Chomsky proposed a theory called universal grammar , according to which there is an innate structure in the brain that allows humans to acquire, comprehend, and produce the complex rules of language. Input, he said, played only a minor role. Although Skinner’s book and Chomsky’s review primarily addressed syntax (or grammar) learning, their dialogue propelled the entire field of language acquisition towards investigating the power of input versus the power of innate capacities. The tension between these two pathways led to an explosion of discoveries about how children learn language.

Since the 1950s, researchers have developed a more integrative approach to language acquisition. Advances in behavioral, neuroimaging, and electrophysiological methods for studying development have led to discoveries of young infants’ powerful learning abilities (e.g., statistical learning; Saffran, 2003 ) and perceptual biases (e.g., a preference for listening to speech over other signals; Vouloumanos & Werker, 2007 ). Consequently, in this article, we suggest that instead of being primarily driven by the input or by innate capacities, infants and young children acquire language by using biases to guide an impressive ability to learn from input. While some biases are present at birth, others emerge or change throughout development as children learn more about their native language or languages and the world around them.

The following text explores this integrative perspective by surveying the mechanisms behind the processing and learning of spoken language in the first few years of life. While language knowledge continues to evolve throughout the lifespan, part of what makes language development an enigma is how early it occurs. Therefore, the current review focuses on infancy and early childhood to highlight the learning mechanisms that underlie this early development. We discuss language learning in three domains: phonology, lexical-semantics, and morphosyntax (sounds and prosody, words, and grammar, respectively). Although as a rough approximation, infants learn sounds before words and words before grammar, evidence is accruing that these processes influence each other throughout development, and thus we highlight this interweaving throughout this article.

Phonology: Speech Perception and Phonemic Development

From the moment they are born, infants show a number of neurobiological and perceptual biases that set them on the road to language acquisition, but that also show an effect of early experience. These biases, combined with an emerging set of input-driven, language-specific constraints, provide the foundation for infants’ developing ability to perceive, discriminate, and categorize the sounds of their native language(s).

Speech Perception and Discrimination

Preparation for acquiring any of the world’s languages is evident in the newborn preference for listening to speech over carefully matched nonspeech (Vouloumanos & Werker, 2007 ), their ability to discriminate similar speech sounds (Eimas, Siqueland, Jusczyk, & Vigorito, 1971 ; see Saffran, Werker, & Werner, 2006 , for a review), their sensitivity to acoustic phonetic cues that distinguish within as opposed to across word boundaries (Christophe et al., 1994 ), and their sensitivity to structural regularities among adjacent syllables (Gervain, Macagno, Cogoi, Peña, & Mehler, 2008 ). Moreover, the language areas of the brain are activated in tasks when young infants are presented with forward but not backward speech (Peña et al., 2003 ; Dehaene-Lambertz, Dehaene, & Hertz-Pannier, 2002 ), indicating neural specialization even at birth for human speech. Indeed, it is not just the acoustic characteristics of speech, but also the communicative intent (e.g., two people communicating, but using nonspeech sounds), that activates specialized areas in the brain (Shultz, Vouloumanos, Bennett, & Pelphrey, 2014 ).

While the neonate brain appears to be biased to process speech differently than other signals, the effect of the listening experience is evident at birth as well. Neonates show a preference for the language (or languages) heard in utero over an unfamiliar language (Moon, Cooper, & Fifer, 1993 ), as well as for their mother’s voice (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980 ), and even for vowel sounds played to them in utero (Moon, Lagercrantz, & Kuhl, 2013 ). Moreover, the pattern of neural activation to forward versus backward speech involves different brain activation in response to the native language than to an unfamiliar one (Minagawa-Kawai et al., 2011 ; May, Byers-Heinlein, Gervain, & Werker, 2011 ). Together, neurobiological and perceptual biases position infants to attend to and learn about the properties of any of the world’s languages, with a slight boost already in play for processing the language experienced in utero.

The languages of the world can be roughly classified into three rhythmical groups: those organized by stress recurrence, like English; those organized by syllable recurrence, like Spanish; and those organized by mora recurrence, like Japanese (Abercrombie, 1967 ). From the moment they are born, infants are sensitive to these differences and discriminate languages on the basis of rhythmical classes (Nazzi, Bertoncini, & Mehler, 1998 ). This capability is of extreme interest, as the rhythmical characteristics of languages are highly correlated with the underlying word order, and hence sensitivity to rhythm has been hypothesized to help bootstrap the acquisition of grammar (Mehler, Sebástian-Gallés, & Nespor, 2004 ; also see the section “Morphosyntax: Learning Grammar” ). Infants even show rhythmical class discrimination between familiar languages, as in the case of a newborn infant exposed to two languages throughout gestation (Byers-Heinlein, Burns, & Werker, 2010 ). Over the first four to five months of life, language discrimination sensitivity becomes refined such that by five months, infants growing up monolingual can discriminate their native language from a different language that belongs to the same rhythmical class (e.g., by this age, Dutch infants can discriminate Dutch from English; Nazzi, Jusczyk, & Johnson, 2000 ). Interestingly, bilingual infants succeed at within-rhythmical class language discrimination at a younger age (Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 1997 ). Overall, infants’ early speech processing and discrimination begin with biases present at birth but are shaped by their early linguistic environment.

Phonemic Development

Perhaps the best-studied example of the interplay between perceptual biases and experience is the development of phonemic discrimination. From as early as they can be tested, infants discriminate the minimal differences between speech sounds that are used to contrast meaning in adult languages of the world (these are called phonemes ). Studies using both behavioral and neuroimaging or electrophysiological measures show that newborn and even premature infants discriminate both minimal consonant differences (as in/ba/ versus /da/) and minimal vowel differences (as in/i/ versus /a/; Mahmoudzadeh et al., 2013 ). Moreover, the discrimination of these distinctions involves similar language areas in the brain as are used for consonant and vowel discrimination in adults, although the lateralization to the left hemisphere is less evident than it is later in development, suggesting a role for experience in such specialization (Dehaene-Lambertz, 2000 ).

The effect of experience in phonemic discrimination can be further seen in the developmental changes across the first year of life. From birth to four to six months, infants discriminate not only the phonetic contrasts used in their native language environment, but also many nonnative speech phonetic differences, including ones that they have never heard before (e.g., Streeter, 1976 ; Werker, Gilbert, Humphrey & Tees, 1981 ). Across the next six months, their sensitivities become attuned to the native language, such that infants show a decline in discrimination of many nonnative speech sound differences (e.g., Werker & Tees, 1984 ) and an improvement in discrimination of native speech sound distinctions (Kuhl et al., 2006 ). This pattern of decline for nonnative sounds and improvement for native is referred to as perceptual narrowing . Although perceptual narrowing is the most typical pattern of phonetic development, there are other patterns as well. For example, in some cases, such as the word initial distinction between /n/ and /ng/ used in Filipino (Narayan, Werker, & Beddor, 2010 ), experience seems required to even induce initial discrimination. Of interest, bilingual infants maintain sensitivity to the phoneme distinctions of both of their native languages (see Sebastián-Gallés, 2010 , for a review). Thus, while early biases lay the bedrock, it is experience that leads to the development of expertise in native language phoneme perception.

While it is clear that the attunement to native phonemic discrimination is driven by the input, there is a growing body of research aimed at explaining the processes by which infants move from language-general to language-specific phonemic perception. Bottom-up approaches using artificial language studies have shown that infants aged six to eight months can track distributional frequency information and use it to both bifurcate and collapse potential phonetic distinctions (Maye, Werker, & Gerken, 2002 ; Maye, Weiss, & Aslin, 2008 ). Top-down approaches have shown that infants can use the lexical context in which speech sounds occur (Swingley, 2009 ) and/or the potentially meaningful distinction between two words (Yeung & Werker, 2009 ) to establish native categories. Social-interaction also plays a role, as evidenced by work showing that infant phonetic categories are most easily attuned in face-to-face contingent interaction with an adult (Kuhl, Tsao, & Liu, 2003 ).

As native language phonemic categories come to dominate perceptual discrimination, they also play a role in driving word learning (Swingley, 2009 ; Curtin & Werker, 2007 ). While 14-month-olds can confuse minimally different words in some word learning tasks (Stager & Werker, 1997 ), when the processing demands are made more minimal or the task more obviously one of learning labels (Yoshida, Fennell, Swingley, & Werker, 2009 ; Fennell & Waxman, 2009 ), they can succeed in using native phonetic distinctions to guide even the learning of new words. By the time they are 18–20 months of age, it is how the native language uses the phonemes, not just their discriminability, that guides word learning (Dietrich, Swingley, & Werker, 2007 ). Thus, any condition or experience that interferes with phonetic discrimination in early infancy or the development of native phonemic categories, could in turn affect later word learning. Indeed, there is a correlation between perceptual narrowing in infancy and later vocabulary size in childhood (Tsao, Liu, & Kuhl, 2004 ).

Multimodal Influences on Phonemic Development

Speech is not only an acoustic signal; in fact, it is also multimodal. The boost that we all get from watching someone speak in a noisy situation has been repeatedly validated experimentally (first shown by Sumby & Pollack, 1954 ). Just as watching a talking face facilitates adult perception of speech under noisy conditions, infants are also better able to discriminate speech when it is accompanied (Teinonen, Aslin, Alku, & Csibra, 2008 ) or preceded by (ter Schure, Junge, & Boersma, 2016 ) visual displays of talking faces. Indeed, infants can discriminate languages just on the basis of watching silent talking faces (Weikum et al., 2007 ).

It has been known for some time that young infants are sensitive to the correspondence between heard and seen speech. When presented with two side-by-side images of the same face (one visually articulating, for example, the vowel /i/ and the other the vowel /a/), infants will look preferentially to the face that matches the vowel sound that is played (Kuhl & Meltzoff; 1982 ; Patterson & Werker, 2003 ; see also Bristow et al., 2009 , for similar evidence from event-related potential, or ERP, studies). Young infants are able to detect the auditory and visual (AV) match not only of the speech segments of the native language, but also of nonnative phones that they have never experienced (Pons, Lewkowicz, Soto-Faraco, & Sebastián-Gallés, 2009 ), suggesting that specific experience with the speech sounds in question is not required to establish the AV mapping between heard and seen speech. Nonetheless, experience has an effect on AV speech perception. After 10+ months of age, infants can no longer detect the match between heard and seen speech from a nonnative language (Pons et al., 2009 ).

Multimodal influences on speech perception extend beyond the information seen in talking faces. There is evidence for a role of the infants’ own oral-motor movements on speech perception as well. This was first shown empirically in a study of AV perception of /u/ versus /i/, wherein having a pacifier or teething toy placed in the mouth (yielding a /u/ versus /i/ mouth shape, respectively) changed AV matching of these same two sounds (Yeung & Werker, 2013 ). Researchers have also examined auditory-motor (AM) speech perception, showing an influence even without visual mediation. In one study, neuroimaging using magnetic encephalography (MEG) revealed that motor circuits in the infant brain are activated when listening to speech at 6 months of age, but less so by 10 months, after perceptual attunement (Kuhl et al., 2014 ). Furthermore, having a teething toy in the mouth that interferes with the ability to make a tongue movement reduces 6-month-old infants’ discrimination of a nonnative front (dental /da/) versus back (retroflex /Da/) distinction (Bruderer, Danielson, Kandhadai, & Werker, 2015 ). This work raises the hypothesis that impairments in oral-motor abilities, such as with cleft palate, could put an infant at risk for difficulties in phonetic discrimination and the later-emerging language capabilities that build on phonetic discrimination, such as word learning.

Lexical-Semantics: Word Learning

As infants learn the sounds of their language(s), they are also learning how to connect sounds to meaning. Typically developing children produce their first word at around 12 months of age (Benedict, 1979 ). However, using innovative methods, language researchers have discovered that infants represent and comprehend many of the complexities of words well before then. For example, eye-tracking experiments that record where infants look when they hear common nouns have provided evidence that infants understand a few words by as early as six months (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012 ). Over the past several decades, there have also been crucial discoveries about how infants are able to build up a lexicon so quickly, from zero to thousands of words by the age of four. One of the main questions driving this research asks which aspects of word learning are input-driven, which aspects are guided by biases or constraints, and how these constraints change across development.

Determining What a Word Is

Because we do not pause between words when we speak, one of the first challenges that infants face is parsing the continuous speech stream into individual lexical units. Researchers have discovered that seven- to eight-month-olds learn word boundaries by tracking the transitional probabilities (TPs) between syllables (i.e., the likelihood that one syllable follows another; Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996 ). This type of learning, called statistical learning , is useful for word segmentation because the TP between syllables within a word is higher than between syllables that cross word boundaries. Indeed, not only do young infants discriminate high-TP syllables from low-TP syllables, they are also more likely to (a) use high-TP syllables to categorize objects at eight months (Erickson, Theissen, & Graf Estes, 2014 ) and (b) map high-TP syllables to novel objects at 17 months (Graf Estes et al., 2007 ). In other words, statistical learning helps infants pick out candidate word labels from the speech stream. There is electrophysiological evidence that even newborns track TPs in speech (Teinonen, Fellman, Näätänen, Alku, & Huotilainen, 2009 ), suggesting that this learning mechanism helps segmentation get off the ground. By 9–10 months, however, infants rely more on language-specific cues, such as which phonemes signal word boundaries in their language, and whether their language tends to stress the first or second syllable in bisyllabic words (e.g., Mattys, Jusczyk, Luce, & Morgan, 1999 ). This trajectory shows how phonology and lexical-semantics overlap and also suggests that word segmentation begins as an unconstrained process that becomes tuned to the specific constraints of the surrounding language over the first year of life.

While infants are learning where words begin and end, they are also learning about the internal phonetic structure of words—specifically, which types and combinations of sounds comprise plausible word labels in their language. Infants begin life accepting many sounds as labels, including nonlinguistic sounds such as beeps (Woodward & Hoyne, 1999 ), but they begin to narrow in on language-specific labels by their first birthday (e.g., MacKenzie, Graham, & Curtin, 2011 ; for a review, see Saffran & Graf Estes, 2006 ). The sounds that infants accept as word labels are thus constrained by around the same time that they narrow in on the phonemes of their language, but these constraints, too, are driven by native language input.

Mapping Words to Meaning

Across the first two years of life, infants learn which sounds make up words in their language. How do they then map these words onto meanings? This process is more difficult that just associating a sound with a referent, as demonstrated by the indeterminacy of reference, or the gavagai problem (Quine, 1960 ; see also Gleitman, Cassidy, Nappa, Papafragou, & Trueswell, 2005 ). If a person points to a scene and says “gavagai,” is she referring to a particular object? An action? A property? Quine ( 1960 ) pointed out that there are an indeterminate number of possible referents when you hear a new word for the first time. And yet, infants are surprisingly good at learning word meanings. Carey and Bartlett ( 1978 ) were the first to show that two-year-olds can map a new word onto a new meaning after only one brief exposure.

Since this seminal study, researchers have found that infants can map a novel word to a new object after only one learning session by as young as 13 months (Woodward, Markman, & Fitzsimmons, 1994 ). Researchers agree that word mapping must be primarily driven by input—each language has its own, essentially arbitrary, set of label-referent mappings that must be learned. The indeterminacy of reference problem, though, has led to proposals that constraints must be built in to get word learning off the ground. Markman ( 1990 ) suggested that children come to word learning with a set of linguistic constraints to guide them. For example, when children as young as 18 months hear a novel label, they assume that it refers to a novel object, rather than one whose name they already know (the mutual exclusivity constraint; Halberda, 2003 ). However, bilinguals and trilinguals do not show a robust use of mutual exclusivity at this age (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009 ), and instead are more willing to accept a second label for the same object than are monolingual infants (Kandhadai, Hall, & Werker, 2017 ). These results show that this word-learning constraint is not input-independent, but instead reflects the properties of the word-to-world mappings the child has experienced in her language-learning environment.

In fact, recent evidence suggests that despite the indeterminacy of reference, infants may not need any language-specific constraints to begin learning words. For example, eye-tracking studies have shown that mutual exclusivity may be driven by a domain-general bias to attend to novel objects over familiar ones (Mather & Plunkett, 2009 ). In addition, some theories posit that infants are born with an innate sensitivity to social cues, such as eye-gaze, that guide early learning (Csibra & Gergely, 2009 ), although the origin of these social biases is under debate (Yurovsky & Frank, 2015 ). Another proposed replacement for linguistic constraints is cross-situational word learning, a mechanism by which young infants track the cooccurrence of labels and referents across multiple learning moments. Smith and Yu ( 2008 ) showed that 12-month-old infants are able to use cross-situational statistics to learn new words, and they suggest that this general associative mechanism may be critical early in life, before infants learn more language-specific strategies to map words to objects.

Indeed, during the second and third years of life, toddlers begin to use many language-specific mechanisms to map labels to referents. For example, two- to three-year-olds use learned linguistic cues, such as grammatical morphemes (e.g., -ing or quantifiers and determiners such as some or the ) to determine if a novel word refers to a concrete object, substance, individual, adjective, or verb (Hall, Lee, & Bélanger, 2001 ; Hall, Waxman, & Hurwitz, 1993 ). By two years of age, toddlers also use the syntactic frame around a novel word (such as “The dog is gorp ing the bunny”) to infer the meaning of novel verbs (syntactic bootstrapping; Naigles, 1990 ; see Fisher, Gertner, Scott, & Yuan, 2010 , for a review). Toddlers’ use of linguistic cues is not only a powerful word-learning mechanism, but it also demonstrates the emergence of morphosyntax knowledge (see the subsection “Early Signs of Grammatical Knowledge” ), highlighting the interplay between lexical and syntax acquisition. Finally, two-year-olds use sociopragmatic cues, such as the events or discourse surrounding a novel word (Tomasello & Akhtar, 1995 ), to map novel words to meaning. This wide array of language-specific cues that toddlers use to map words to meaning demonstrates how word learning evolves as infants learn about the properties of their native language(s).

Mapping a label to a specific object, action, or property is one important step in learning a word, but children also have to accurately generalize words to other exemplars. The word ball does not refer to only the first ball an infant sees, but to a set of objects that make up the ball category. Indeed, word learning and conceptual development are intimately connected. For example, word labels and other communicative signals cue three- to six-month-old infants to form a category over visually and taxonomically similar referents (Ferguson & Waxman, 2016 ; Ferry, Hespos, & Waxman, 2010 ). One debate driving this area of research is whether early lexical categories are based on perceptual or conceptual similarity. For instance, during the second year of life, infants extend novel nouns along taxonomic characteristics, such as animacy (Booth, Waxman, & Huang, 2005 ), suggesting that they map novel nouns to conceptual categories even at this early age. However, Smith and colleagues found that toddlers extend novel nouns to objects of the same shape (Landau, Smith, & Jones, 1988 ) and suggest a perceptual account of early lexical categories and generalization (Colunga & Smith, 2005 ).

This debate points to a broader interest in understanding whether word learning is best described as a top-down or bottom-up process. Do infants and toddlers test cognitive models or hypotheses based on evidence in the input (top down), or do they learn words by tracking perceptual and statistical information (bottom up)? For example, some researchers argue that young children form a hypothesis when they encounter a novel word in an ambiguous situation (Trueswell, Nicol Medina, Hafri, & Gleitman, 2013 , Xu & Tenenbaum, 2007 ), while others argue that they use associative learning, spatial grounding, and attention to novelty to build lexical-semantic representations across time (McMurray, Horst, & Samuelson, 2012 ; Smith & Yu, 2008 ). These contrasting theories emerged in the early 21st century , and further investigations into both will enhance our understanding of the mechanisms behind early word learning. Notably, the investigation into the roles of bottom-up versus top-down processes is echoed in the phonemic discrimination literature (see the subsection “Phonemic Development” ), demonstrating similarities in learning processes across language domains.

The Structure of Early Word Knowledge

The past several decades of research on word learning have focused on the constraints and characteristics of the input that allow infants and toddlers to learn individual words. However, researchers have recently begun to explore how children structure their vocabulary knowledge. By two years, or even as early as 18 months of age, toddlers link words with related meanings, such that when they hear one word, such as dog, they activate related words, such as cat or leash (Rämä, Sirri, & Serres, 2013 ). These links help toddlers process words faster and more accurately (Borovsky, Ellis, Evans, & Elman, 2015 ). There is evidence that two-year-olds are able to encode lexical-semantic links during their first exposure to new words (e.g., Wojcik & Saffran, 2013 ), and researchers are continuing to explore the biases that guide the emergence of vocabulary structure.

Infants and young children are word-learning experts who segment, map, generalize, and structure new words without any explicit instruction. And yet, differences in vocabulary size emerge within the second year of life, and these differences are predictive of later academic success (Hart & Risley, 1995 ). What accounts for individual differences in vocabulary size? Weisleder and Fernald ( 2013 ) found that the number of words that 19-month-olds hear predicts both their language-processing speed and vocabulary growth 5 months later. Input quality, such as the number of turn-taking conversational events, has also been found to predict vocabulary size (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015 ).

While basic research in word learning is leading to interventions for children with language delays, researchers are still investigating the fundamental questions that have driven the field for decades. What biases or cognitive constraints do infants bring to the task of learning words? How do these change with experience? These questions also frame research in another domain of language learning: morphosyntax acquisition.

Morphosyntax: Learning Grammar

The term morphosyntax refers to the structural organization of a language. It consists of the set of rules governing the internal structure of the words (the morphology), and the rules determining how words are combined into bigger units such as phrases and sentences (the syntax). These two systems—morphology and syntax—are interdependent and part of the grammar of a language.

Early Signs of Grammatical Knowledge

At around 20–24 months of age, typically developing children start producing multiword utterances, entering initially a “two-word” stage (Guasti, 2002 ). Children’s earliest utterances have been traditionally described as “telegraphic” because they tend to lack grammatical elements such as determiners (e.g., the, a ), prepositions (e.g., in, of ), and auxiliary verbs (e.g., is, has ). These omitted elements are the functors of a language, and they can be words that stand alone (e.g., the, in ), or affixes that are attached (e.g., - ing: walk -ing ). Functors typically have no lexical meaning but signal grammatical relations, building the scaffolding of phrases and sentences, and are extremely frequent elements. Children’s telegraphic speech typically consists of content words such as nouns (e.g., turtle, tea ), verbs (e.g., dance, walk ), and adjectives (e.g., slow, warm ). Contrary to functors, content words have lexical meaning and are much less frequent. By the second half of their third year, children start producing complex sentence types—which include both content words and functors—(e.g., relative clauses: the turtle that walked very slowly …) and fluently use a variety of complex sentence forms by their fourth year.

The telegraphic nature of the children’s first multiword utterances initially led to the proposal that, at the earliest stages of development, language knowledge lacks functors and is limited to content words. Some views attributed this proposed developmental gap to the fact that functors are more abstract and semantically complex than content words (Brown, 1973 ), whereas others claimed that functors were acquired in a later, biologically determined, developmental stage than content words (Radford, 1990 ). However, studies assessing the perceptual abilities of infants have revealed that they build representations of their language’s functors well before they produce their first multiword utterances. Indeed, even newborn babies have been shown to discriminate functors from content words (Shi, Werker & Morgan, 1999 ) due to the differing acoustic properties of these two types of words: functors are typically phonologically minimal elements (that is, they tend to be shorter than content words, have reduced vowels, and simpler syllabic structure). Thus, by 6 to 8 months of age, infants can segment functors from the speech stream (Höhle & Weissenborn, 2003 ; Shi, Marquis, & Gauthier, 2006 )—initially only the most frequent ones (Shi, Cutler, Werker, & Cruickshank, 2006 )—and, by 8 to 11 months of age, they can already use them to segment adjacent content words (Marquis & Shi, 2012 ; Shi & Lepage, 2008 ). Further, 14- to 16-month-olds are aware of the cooccurrence of specific categories of functors and content words. Determiners, for instance, are typically adjacent to nouns, and 14- to 16-month-olds categorize novel words presented with familiar determiners as nouns. Further, they group similar functors into classes and distinguish them from other types of functors (e.g., determiners: the, your . . . from pronouns: I, you . . .; Shi & Melançon, 2010 ).

There is evidence suggesting that the acquisition of other aspects of grammar, such as word order, might also start earlier than previously thought. One-word-stage infants (16- to 18-month-olds) can correctly interpret simple sentences that vary in their word order (e.g., Big Bird is tickling Cookie Monster as opposed to Cookie Monster is tickling Big Bird ; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996 ) and, indeed, the infants’ first-produced multiword utterances tend to follow the word order of the target language (Brown, 1973 ).

Generativist and Usage-Based Approaches to Grammar

The debate about how children acquire grammar has been dominated by two fundamentally opposed approaches that exemplify the innateness versus input debate. The generativist approach posits that biologically predetermined processes drive acquisition, and usage-based approaches claim that acquisition results from input-driven processes. The generativist approach claims that children are born equipped with a universal grammar (UG) —that is, a biologically programmed set of abstract principles (Chomsky, 1980 ). According to this approach, the limited input to which learners are exposed during acquisition does not provide unambiguous evidence of certain abstract principles of grammar. Further, learners rarely receive feedback on the structures that are not possible in the target language. Thus, the child acquires the language’s grammar by linking her innate knowledge (the UG) to the specific properties of the language(s) to which she is exposed. The overgeneralization of rules by young children (e.g., using gived instead of gave ), which involve errors not present in the adult input, is proposed as evidence of the existence of abstract syntactic representations.

Alternatively, usage-based approaches (Tomasello, 2000 ) claim that learners initially have no abstract linguistic knowledge. Instead, children learn simple and concrete items and gradually create more complex and abstract constructions and categories. Thus, the infant’s grammar grows in a piecemeal fashion, changing greatly during development and ultimately converging on the grammar spoken in their language community. Younger children’s failure to produce familiar constructions (e.g., I Verb- ed it ) with novel verbs (e.g., gorp ; target: I gorped it ) when presented in a different construction (e.g., See? Ernie’s gorping Cookie Monster! ), is proposed by this account as evidence for item-specific rather than abstract knowledge of linguistic structures (Tomasello, 2000 ).

In parallel to this debate, an increasing amount of research has focused on how the acquisition of morphosyntax is bootstrapped—that is, what information is leveraged to break into learning.

Semantic and Prosodic Bootstrapping

Several hypotheses have been put forward that aim to explain how the acquisition of morphosyntax is set in motion. All these hypotheses have limitations and hence have been proposed by some accounts as potentially acting in combination rather than being mutually exclusive. The semantic bootstrapping hypothesis (Pinker, 1984 ) claims that the child innately expects a correspondence between semantics (meaning) and syntax that allows her to build syntactic categories and identify features—specific characteristics—and rules of grammar. This hypothesis, generativist in nature, assumes that the child can readily identify basic semantic notions such as “concrete objects” and connect these to their corresponding syntactic categories (e.g., nouns) due to an innate set of linking or mapping rules.

The prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis (Gleitman & Wanner, 1982 ; Morgan & Demuth, 1996 ) claims that the input contains acoustic information—part of the prosody or intonation of the language—that correlates with properties of the grammatical structure, such as the boundaries to syntactic constituents. If sensitive to this acoustic information, infants could divide speech into smaller units such as phrases (i.e., combinations of words: the turtle, in Paris . . .). Chunking speech into phrases might in turn allow infants to detect syntactic regularities and build rudimentary representations of certain syntactic features, such as word order (Morgan & Demuth, 1996 ; Nespor, Guasti, & Christophe, 1996 ). This approach assumes that infants are sensitive to the correlations between prosodic and syntactic structure and use these to parse speech. Indeed, a wealth of evidence shows that infants are highly sensitive to prosodic information from the earliest stages of acquisition (Christophe, Dupoux, Bertoncini, & Mehler, 1994 ; Christophe, Mehler, & Sebastián-Gallés, 2001 ). Pauses, changes in pitch, and the lengthening of certain segments typically mark the boundaries of prosodic units such as phrases. Crucially, six- to nine-month-olds can use these prosodic cues to phrases to segment speech and discriminate well-formed phrases from identical sequences that differ in their acoustic/prosodic properties; i.e., that consist of the end of a phrase and the beginning of another (Jusczyk et al., 1992 ; Soderstrom, Seidl, Kemler Nelson, & Jusczyk, 2003 ).

Prosodic information is not only useful for segmenting words and phrases. It can also be leveraged for the complex task of discovering word order. Specifically, the location and realization of prosodic prominence within phrases has been proposed to potentially help infants discover the basic word order of verbs and objects (Christophe, Guasti, Nespor, Dupoux, & van Ooyen, 1997 ; Nespor et al., 2008 ). In languages where the V(erb) typically precedes the O(bject) (VO languages: English, Spanish), the prosodically prominent element in the phrase (the stressed syllable of the content word) is longer than the nonprominent element (the functor; e.g., in the phrase: in Pa ris, pa is longer than in ). In languages where the O(bject) typically precedes the V(erb) (OV languages: Basque, Japanese), the prosodically prominent element within phrases has higher pitch and/or intensity instead (e.g., in the Japanese phrase: Pa ris ni “ Paris to ,” pa has higher pitch and/or intensity then ni ). By seven to eight months of age, monolingual and bilingual infants can use these prosodic contrasts to segment unknown artificial languages (Bernard & Gervain, 2012 ; Gervain & Werker, 2013 ). The greatest limitation of the prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis is the fact that some prosodic boundaries do not align with the boundaries of syntactic constituents. Therefore, this mechanism is proposed to work in parallel to other bootstrapping mechanisms, such as distributional learning, discussed next.

Distributional Learning

Distributional or statistical learning is a learning mechanism used by humans to segment the input and extract regularities. It is a domain-general mechanism used to parse speech, as well as nonlinguistic stimuli such as tone streams. It is found across modalities (e.g., with visual stimuli; Fiser & Aslin, 2002 ), and shared with other mammals such as rats. A considerable amount of evidence has shown that infants can compute and use the distribution of the elements in the input to segment speech (see subsection “Determining What a Word Is” ). Prelexical infants can track the transitional probabilities of syllables to segment words (Saffran et al., 1996 ). Crucially, eight-month-olds can also track the differing frequency of occurrence of functors and content words in their linguistic input. The relative order of functors and content words correlates with the basic word order of verbs and objects: in VO languages such as English, functors—frequent elements—typically occur phrase-initially (e.g., in Paris ), whereas in OV languages such as Japanese, functors typically occur phrase-finally (e.g., Paris ni “Paris to” ). Thus, computing the frequency of occurrence and relative order of these elements, in addition to using prosodic information (see subsection “Semantic and Prosodic Bootstrapping” ), might help infants to segment phrases and discover basic word order. Indeed, 8-month-old infants segment unknown artificial languages that contain frequent and infrequent elements according to the relative order of functors and content words characteristic of their native language, and 17-month-olds associate infrequent novel words with content words (Gervain, Nespor, Mazuka, Horie, & Mehler, 2008 , Hochmann, Endress, & Mehler, 2010 ). The role of statistical learning in discovering word order reveals one overlap in the mechanisms for learning words and syntax.

Distributional learning is essential for the acquisition of another crucial aspect of morphosyntax: nonadjacent dependencies. Nonadjacent dependencies are sequentially distant elements that regularly cooccur, such as the relation between an auxiliary verb (e.g., is, as in: is jumping ) and a functor attached to the main verb (e.g., - ing : She is jump ing ). The ability to track such dependencies seems to emerge at around 15–18 months of age; at this age, infants can track nonadjacent dependencies in strings of novel wordlike items (e.g., aXc: pel kicey jic ), where the presence of the first element ( a : pel ) predicts the occurrence of the third ( c: jic ), regardless of the middle element ( X: kicey ; Gómez & Maye, 2005 ). By around 18 months of age, infants have gained knowledge of some of the target language’s nonadjacent dependencies and prefer passages that contain grammatical rather than ungrammatical combinations of functors ( everybody is bak ing bread versus * everybody can bak ing bread ; Santelmann & Jusczyk, 1998 ). Further, by 19 months of age, infants start tracking relationships that straddle phrase boundaries, such as the singular/plural distinction in Subject-Verb agreement ( A team bake s versus * A team bake Ø ; Soderstrom, Wexler, & Jusczyk, 2002 ). The development of infants’ ability to track nonadjacent dependencies across the second year of life suggests that distributional learning might bootstrap the learning of complex grammatical structures.

Perceptual Primitives

Finally, in addition to these bootstrapping mechanisms, the acquisition of grammar appears to be guided by what have been defined as perceptual primitives; that is, perceptually salient configurations that are detected automatically by the perceptual system. Humans are attuned to detecting repetition and edges in the language input. Even newborns detect repetition in speech (Gervain, Macagno, et al., 2008 ), and adults can learn repetition-based structures (e.g., ABA, ABB ), but not other structures with similar complexity (e.g., piano tone triplets such as low-high-middle; Endress, Dehaene-Lambertz, & Mehler, 2007 ). Edges, in turn, have been proposed to be highly salient elements that help listeners encode information. Adults learn nonadjacent dependencies and generalize repetition-based structures when these occur at the beginning or end of a sequence, but fail if the same constructions are sequence-internal (Endress & Mehler, 2009 ; Endress, Scholl, & Mehler, 2005 ). Functors typically occur at the edges of phrases, and affixes at the edges of words (Endress & Mehler 2010 ; Gervain, Nespor et al., 2008 ), and mothers tend to place new information at the final edge of utterances. Besides these proposed perceptual primitives, an early bias has been found in the functional role of vowels and consonants: Vowels are used by adults and infants to learn simple rules, whereas consonants are used to extract words from input and distinguish between lexical items (Bonatti, Peña, Nespor, & Mehler, 2005 ; Pons & Toro, 2010 ; Toro, Shukla, Nespor, & Endress, 2008 ).

In sum, a combination of general learning mechanisms, such as distributional learning of the properties of functors and content words, sensitivity to the prosodic structure of speech at the phrase level, and the gradual acquisition of lexical items, might help prelexical infants bootstrap their knowledge of syntactic categories and certain syntactic features. For instance, the cumulative information about word order provided by the correlated prosodic and statistical information might lead infants to discover this major syntactic feature before their first birthday. Importantly, though ample research has shown the important role of visual information in the perception of auditory speech in infancy (see the subsection “Multimodel Influences on Phonemic Development” ), its potential role in the acquisition of grammar remains largely unexplored.

The acquisition of grammar appears thus to be driven by the interplay of different bootstrapping mechanisms, perceptual primitives, and early biases, along with cumulative knowledge. Crucially, the relative weight of these different factors changes throughout the different phases of development, and the potential role of other mechanisms or sources of information, such as visual information, remains to be determined.

When Skinner and Chomsky laid out their theories of language acquisition in the late 1950s, they pitted the role of the environment against the role of innate knowledge—Skinner arguing that language is learned from input, and Chomsky countering that there is an innate language module in the brain. This debate sparked decades of research on the mechanisms that allow humans, and not any other species, to learn a structured communication system without any explicit instruction. The current research suggests an integrated approach by which biases guide what infants learn from the surrounding environment. For example, in the area of phonology, newborns’ bias to attend to speech over other signals may facilitate early learning of the prosodic and phonemic properties of their native language(s). In the area of lexical-semantics, infants’ bias to attend to novelty may aid in mapping new words to their referents. In morphosyntax, infants’ sensitivity to vowels, repetition, and phrase edges may guide statistical learning. In each of these areas, too, there is evidence of new biases coming into play throughout development, as infants gain more knowledge about their native language(s). The current article also highlights how phonology, lexical-semantics, and morphosyntax interact with one another throughout learning. For example, learning the sounds of the native language(s) may guide the learning of word labels (and vice versa), and segmenting word labels is crucial to learning word order.

The field of language acquisition reached an exciting juncture in the early 21st century . The majority of theories began to point to a dynamic integration of the input and perceptual/cognitive biases across development (e.g., Christiansen & Chater, 2016 ). With this integrative view, new questions emerged:

How does hearing more than one language affect emerging biases? In the phonological domain, bilingual infants show differences in speech discrimination development (Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 1997 ). In lexical-semantics, bilinguals are more willing to accept a second label for an object category (Kandhadai, Hall & Werker, 2017 ). Further work is needed to explore ways in which a multilingual environment may affect other language-learning mechanisms.

How do visual, motor, and other nonauditory modalities of input influence language learning? There are recent discoveries of the effects of visual and sensory-motor proprioceptive information on infant speech perception (e.g., Bruderer et al., 2015 ). It is likely that in other areas of language acquisition, the traditional focus on auditory input has led to an impoverished understanding of the information available in the environment and how this information guides the development of perceptual biases.

Are the same mechanisms recruited for sign-language and spoken-language acquisition? There is some evidence that language learning is similar across both modalities. For example, infant babbling in sign shows the same complexity and development as babbling in speech (Petitto & Marentette, 1991 ). Further research is needed to not only increase our understanding of language learning in the signing population, but to also reveal how the affordances of visual versus auditory language affect the development of learning constraints.

How do domain-general cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, influence language learning, and how do changes in these processes affect the development of language learning biases? The incorporation of memory development into theories of word learning has led to new discoveries (see Wojcik, 2013 , for a review), but more work is needed.

How do caregivers adjust their interactions with infants over development to bootstrap language learning? Parents respond contingently when infants babble, and this contingent responding helps guide phonological learning (Goldstein & Schwade, 2008 ). It is possible that parents adjust their interactions in other ways to influence language learning, and understanding this adjustment could change how we think about the content of input. Relatedly, investigating what infants see and attend to in a noisy environment will also advance our understanding of input (Smith, Yu, Yoshida, & Fausey, 2015 ).

Each of these future directions will provide a more nuanced understanding of how infants and young children use rich input to learn language, as well as how this learning is affected by the changing biases across development.

Acknowledgments

We thank Padmapriya Kandhadai, Laurel Fais, and Viridiana Benitez for their feedback on previous versions of this paper. This work was supported by a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2007–2013) under REA grant agreement no. 624972 awarded to Irene de la Cruz-Pavía, and by a NSERC Discovery Grant (81103), SSHRC Operating Grant (435-2014-0917), and NIH Operating Grant (R21HD079260) to J. Werker.

Second Language Acquisition Theory

The second language acquisition theory is the brainchild of renowned linguist and researcher, Stephen Krashen. The theory is important because as early as the 1980s, it was influencing all research into how a second language is acquired.

According to the theory, one does not need to use grammatical rules of the target language extensively in order to learn it. All that is required are meaningful interactions in the language, which generally focuses more on the message that is conveyed than the grammer and rules of speech. Competence in the language is acquired as a result of receiving comprehensible input without having undergone any formal instruction or training on the grammar or reading of the language.

The Hypotheses

Krashen’s theory consists of the following main hypotheses.

1. Acquisition Learning Hypothesis

According to Krashen, there are two second language performance systems.

– Acquired system , where language is acquired subconsciously. This happens when a child, for example, who has been exposed to a language in a natural environment, like home or school, starts reproducing correct grammatical structures unconsciously. The child focuses more on communicating his message and the language that comes naturally to him. As he has not learnt the language, he does not focus on what he is uttering. Acquisition of a language only happens when a child can understand the message in the second language.

– Learned system , where an individual learns a language through formal instruction in a classroom setup. Here, the focus is on learning the rules of grammar and being conscious of the process through which they understand the form of the language.

When comparing these two systems, Krashen points out that acquisition is more important than learning. He feels that learning can only test a person’s knowledge of grammar, but when a person has to focus on the content he is producing, mistakes in grammar will occur. Learning grammar does not ensure that one knows how to use it correctly. Fluency in a language requires the person to efficiently communicate the message. Therefore, for true mastery of a language, the individual should acquire it.

This hypothesis has been criticized for failing to provide sufficient evidence and for the fact that language has been mastered in formal setups as well, where students do not interact with people and yet speak the second language in a natural setting.

2. Monitor Hypothesis

Krashen believes that every second language learner has a monitor that he uses to refine his language. A learner will use his learned system as a monitor to polish, edit, and correct what has been learned through his acquired system. A monitor can be used more easily in written than in oral form.

This is because while talking, there is more focus on what is being said rather on how it is being said. Also, there is normally very little time to recollect what rules one has learned about the language. Second language learners can either over-use, under-use or optimally use their monitors.

The criticism here is that there is no concrete knowledge of how the monitor works and if it actually works at all. There is also a debate as to why a monitor should only exist in a learned system.

3. Natural Order Hypothesis

This hypothesis states that individuals tend to acquire grammatical structures of a second language following a natural order that is predictable. This means that they are more likely to acquire certain grammatical structures before others. The acquiring patterns are different for the first and the second language. But the acquiring patterns for a second language are the same for both a child and an adult.

The hypothesis is criticised for being based solely on observations of how a second language that is used in a surrounding environment is acquired by people. The second criticism is that it makes the process of cognitive learning seem very simple by drawing a clear distinction between acquiring and learning.

4. Input Hypothesis

This hypothesis explains how a language is actually acquired. When a person, is exposed to comprehensible content/input by reading or listening to language structures that exceeds his current stage of language competence, he acquires the language. Krashen uses the formula i+1 to show that input should consist of language structures from the next stage.

Krashen believes that, learning progresses and takes place in a natural order and not all individuals will have the same level of competence. Hence, the natural communicative input should be used to meet individual needs. The input should not consist of grammar structures that have been used on purpose and should be natural. Finally, the learner should not be forced to speak. Speech will occur when he is ready.

In this hypothesis, comprehensible input cannot be clearly defined. The other criticism is that the language level of a learner or a level higher than their existing level cannot be determined.

5. Affective-filter Hypothesis

According to this hypothesis, the emotions of an individual act as filters that help or obstruct the acquisition of language. A highly motivated and confident person with low anxiety levels will be more successful than someone with low motivation, confidence and high anxiety levels in acquiring a language. Lower levels of motivation and confidence will hinder the process of subconscious language acquisition.

The criticism is that this filter is said to be present only in adults and not in children and there is no concrete explanation of how such filters work.

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A Complete Overview of Steve Krashen's Theory of Language Acquisition

Steve Krashen’s theory of language acquisition is a widely discussed and influential theory in the field of linguistics. Krashen’s theory has been praised for its simplicity and applicability, as it offers a practical approach to language learning that can be utilized by anyone regardless of their age, educational background, or language learning experience.

Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Monitor hypothesis, natural order hypothesis, input hypothesis, affective filter hypothesis, implications for language learning, criticism and limitations.

Krashen’s theory is based on five main hypotheses that describe the different components of language acquisition. These are the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the natural order hypothesis, the input hypothesis, and the affective filter hypothesis. Each of these hypotheses plays a key role in understanding how language acquisition works and how language learners can maximize their learning potential.

The acquisition-learning hypothesis is the foundation of Krashen’s theory. According to this hypothesis, there are two ways to develop language skills: acquisition and learning. Acquisition refers to the subconscious process of acquiring language through immersion and exposure to the language. Learning, on the other hand, is a conscious process that involves studying grammar rules, vocabulary lists, and other formal aspects of language. Krashen argues that acquisition is the most effective way to learn a language, as it allows learners to naturally internalize the language without having to focus on the mechanics of the language.

The monitor hypothesis is a corollary to the acquisition-learning hypothesis. It suggests that the learning system, or the conscious knowledge of the language, acts as a “monitor” that can be used to check for accuracy in language production. The monitor is not responsible for generating language, but rather for correcting errors that are made during language production. Krashen argues that the monitor is not essential for language acquisition and can even hinder the acquisition process if overused.

The natural order hypothesis is based on the observation that language learners tend to acquire language in a predictable sequence. Krashen suggests that language learners acquire language in a natural order that is independent of age, first language, and instructional context. This natural order can be observed in the way that language learners tend to acquire certain aspects of language, such as syntax and morphology, before others, such as phonology and pragmatics.

The input hypothesis is perhaps the most influential hypothesis in Krashen’s theory. According to this hypothesis, language acquisition occurs when the learner is exposed to language that is comprehensible, or just beyond the learner’s current level of competence. This means that language learners need to be exposed to language that is slightly above their current level of understanding in order to progress in their language acquisition. Krashen argues that comprehensible input is the most important factor in language acquisition, as it allows learners to gradually internalize the language without the need for explicit instruction.

The affective filter hypothesis is based on the observation that language learners are more successful when they are in a low-anxiety, relaxed state. Krashen argues that affective factors, such as motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety, play a significant role in language acquisition. A high affective filter, caused by anxiety or stress, can hinder language acquisition by blocking input and preventing the learner from acquiring new language structures.

Krashen’s theory has important implications for language learners and language teachers. For language learners, Krashen’s theory suggests that they should focus on acquiring language through natural exposure and immersion rather than relying solely on formal instruction. Learners should also focus on obtaining comprehensible input that is just beyond their current level of understanding in order to progress in their language acquisition.

For language teachers, Krashen’s theory suggests that they should focus on creating a low-anxiety, relaxed learning environment that promotes natural language acquisition. Teachers should also focus on providingcomprehensible input that is just beyond the learners’ current level of understanding, and should avoid over-reliance on explicit instruction and grammar drills.

Krashen’s theory has also led to the development of new language teaching methods, such as the communicative approach and the natural approach. These approaches focus on providing learners with authentic communication opportunities and exposing them to language in a natural, meaningful context.

Krashen’s theory has been subject to criticism and debate, particularly regarding the role of explicit instruction in language acquisition. Some critics argue that Krashen’s theory places too much emphasis on input and not enough on the role of explicit instruction and grammar instruction in language acquisition.

Additionally, some language researchers have suggested that Krashen’s theory may not be applicable to all language learners and that there may be individual differences in the way that language learners acquire language. For example, some learners may benefit more from explicit instruction, while others may benefit more from natural immersion.

In conclusion, Steve Krashen’s theory of language acquisition is a widely influential and practical theory that has had a significant impact on language learning and teaching. The theory emphasizes the importance of natural language acquisition through immersion and comprehensible input, while also acknowledging the role of affective factors in language learning.

While there may be some limitations and criticisms of the theory, it remains an important framework for understanding how language acquisition works and how language learners can maximize their learning potential. By incorporating the principles of Krashen’s theory into their language learning or teaching approach, learners and teachers can improve their language skills and achieve greater success in their language learning goals.

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Unraveling the Power of Krashen’s Theory: Exploring Second Language Acquisition

Introduction, background of krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, five hypotheses of krashen’s theory, 1. input hypothesis, 2. acquisition-learning hypothesis, 3. monitor hypothesis.

The Monitor Hypothesis states that language learners utilize their acquired knowledge to self-monitor their production . When learners have time to reflect and consciously apply their knowledge, they can correct errors and improve their language proficiency. However, Krashen suggests that overreliance on the monitor can hinder spontaneous and fluent communication.

4. Natural Order Hypothesis

5. affective filter hypothesis, application of krashen’s theory.

Hypothesis	Description
Comprehensible Input	Language acquisition occurs when learners are exposed to language input that is comprehensible, slightly beyond their current level, and can be understood through context and other linguistic cues. This input provides the necessary linguistic input for learners to internalize and acquire language naturally, without the need for explicit instruction or grammar-focused activities.
Acquisition-learning Hypothesis	Krashen distinguishes between language acquisition, which is the natural, subconscious process of absorbing language through exposure, and language learning, which refers to the conscious, explicit knowledge of language rules and formal instruction. According to this hypothesis, language acquisition is more effective than language learning in developing fluency and communicative competence.
Monitor Hypothesis	The monitor hypothesis proposes that the learned system (explicit knowledge of grammar rules) acts as a monitor during language production. Learners can use this monitor to make corrections and edit their speech or writing. However, the monitor should not be overused or relied upon too heavily, as it can hinder fluency and natural language use.
Natural Order Hypothesis	The natural order hypothesis suggests that there is a predictable, inherent sequence in which learners acquire grammatical structures in a language. This order is independent of the learners’ age, native language, or explicit instruction. Learners will naturally progress through these structures in a specific order, similar to how native speakers acquire language.
Affective Filter Hypothesis	The affective filter hypothesis proposes that emotional and affective factors, such as motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, and stress, can impact language acquisition. A low affective filter, characterized by a relaxed and positive emotional state, allows for optimal language learning and acquisition. Conversely, a high affective filter can hinder language acquisition and impede learning progress.

Criticisms of Krashen’s Theory

While Krashen’s Theory of second language acquisition has been widely influential, it has also faced some criticisms.

Implications of Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition

What are the five hypotheses of krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, what is an example of krashen’s theory, how does stephen krashen describe language acquisition vs. language learning, what does krashen’s theory of second language acquisition say about explicit vs. implicit language teaching, what criticism is addressed to krashen’s ideas about implicit language learning.

Theory of Second Language Acquisition

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First Online: 23 August 2023

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The scientific field of second language acquisition (SLA), as it emerged in the 1970s, is concerned with the conditions and circumstances in which second and foreign language learning occurs. Although sometimes used synonymously, the terms second language and foreign language describe two different aspects: a second language refers to the official language within the country of residence, which is not a person’s mother tongue. This is, for example, the case for immigrant children who learn the language of their parents’ homeland before or while learning the language of their country of residence as a second language in school or kindergarten. By contrast, the term foreign language describes a language that is not an official language in the country of residence nor a persons’ mother tongue. A foreign language is usually learned through formal classroom instruction within the educational system (Hasebrink et al., 1997; Olsson, 2016; Sundqvist, 2009a). English is a foreign language in both Germany and Switzerland. Therefore, the focus of this study is English as a foreign language (EFL).

Over the years, SLA has produced a great variety of theoretical frameworks and methodology to cover the broad aspects of the field (Olsson, 2016). It is beyond the scope of this study to provide the reader with a comprehensible overview. In short, the different strands of theory can be subsumed under three main groups: formal properties of language learning, cognitive processes while learning a language, and social aspects of language learning. These three groups are not distinct, as there are various overlaps and interactions. Researchers might draw from one or more theory strands, depending on their research questions (Olsson, 2016). The present study will draw on the cognitive theoretical framework, i.e., the process of learning a foreign language, and the social framework, to investigate unplanned and unprompted language learning through media-related extramural English contacts and the influence of two important social factors on the learning process.

4.1 Incidental Language Learning Through Media-related Extramural English Contacts

As defined above, extramural English contacts are defined as any form of out-of-school contact with English as a foreign language arising from voluntary contact with and the use of authentic English media content. The term does not deny the possibility that learners might be aware of the beneficial effect of these contacts, yet the focus of these contacts lies in the appreciation for the media content or a desire to communicate with others (Sundqvist, 2009a, 2011).

While in contact with authentic media content in such a natural setting, learners will be less concerned with studying underlying rules and principles of a foreign language but will instead be focused on the social nature of the situation, on participation, observation, communication, and understanding (R. Ellis, 2008). As a result, any learning processes that might arise from these situations is most likely characterized by incidental, implicit, or explicit learning processes and will often be an unconscious process, without intent or active learning strategies by the learner (Elley, 1997; R. Ellis, 2008). Such incidental language learning processes are defined as the “[…] by-product of any activity not explicitly geared to […] learning” (Hulstijn, 2001, p. 271). Kekra (2000) also defines it as “unintentional or unplanned learning that results from other activities” (p. 3). Incidental language learning is thus a process “without the conscious intention to commit the element to memory” (Hulstijn, 2013, p. 1). In contrast, intentional learning is defined as “any activity aiming at committing lexical information to memory” (Hulstijn, 2001, p. 271).

These definitions of incidental learning are closely related to the definition of informal learning as provided by Stevens (2010):

“Learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and typically does not lead to certification. Informal learning may be intentional but in most cases it is non-intentional (or ‘incidental’/random).” (Stevens, 2010, p. 12) .

Both definitions emphasize the subconscious nature of the process, which occurs while a person is engaging in everyday activities. Thus, incidental learning could also be referred to as a language acquisition process , as the term acquisition is commonly used to refer to the subconscious process in which children acquire their mother tongue. Usually, children are not consciously aware of the language acquisition nor the resulting language competences. Instead, they are focused on meaning as they interact with the people around them. As a result, children cannot ‘name the rules’ they have acquired, only that something ‘feels correct’. By contrast, learning usually describes a much more conscious process of committing information to memory (R. Ellis, 2008; Krashen, 1985; Sok, 2014).

Given these definitions, incidental learning could be seen as more closely related to the concept of acquisition, while intentional learning could be seen as being closer related to the definition of learning (R. Ellis, 2008). However, the fact that incidental language learning occurs as a by-product of another activity does not require the complete absence of consciousness (Rieder, 2003). Indeed, even though sometimes used synonymously, the distinction between implicit and explicit learning is not congruent with the distinction between incidental and intentional learning (N. C. Ellis, 1994).

The terms implicit and explicit learning refer to the level of awareness and attention a learner pays towards learning. Implicit learning is defined as “acquisition of knowledge about the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply and without conscious operation” (N. C. Ellis, 1994, p. 1). On the other hand, explicit learning is a “more conscious operation where the individual makes and test hypotheses in a search for structure” (N. C. Ellis, 1994, p. 1).

However, unconscious in this sense does not, as is often thought, refer to unintentional behavior, but rather to the fact that something is done without awareness and attention. Explicit learning is thus a conscious process in that learners are aware and pay attention to concept formation and linking. This can occur under instruction (e.g., in a classroom) or by understanding concepts and rules without instruction. On the other hand, implicit learning has a person paying attention to the stimulus but being unaware of the acquisition processes (N. C. Ellis, 1994; R. Ellis, 2008).

The result of explicit and implicit learning is explicit and implicit knowledge, which differ in their degree of awareness of rules and the possibility to verbalize them. Implicit knowledge is procedural and intuitive, while explicit knowledge is declarative and conscious. The former comes with the ability to use the language automatically, while the latter comes with the knowledge of underlying rules and regularities (Olsson, 2016). This is why formal instructions are often seen as crucial for grammar learning in a foreign language, as they explicitly teach grammatical rules and regulations (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999). However, things learned implicitly at some point may be reflected upon explicitly at a later point in one’s language learning journey (Olsson, 2016).

In contrast to this distinction, the term consciousness within the framework of incidental and intentional learning usually refers to intentionality. Indeed, the definitions of incidental learning provided above do not exclude awareness of the learning process. The important distinction is that in intentional learning, learners are focused on the linguistic form. In incidental learning, the focus is on the meaning, yet a peripheral focus on form is not denied (R. Ellis, 1999). Incidental learning can therefore include implicit, i.e., unaware, learning processes, as well as explicit learning processes, i.e., processes that take place unintentionally but not without a learners’ awareness or (peripheral) attention, and hypothesis forming (Rieder, 2003; Sok, 2014) Footnote 1 .

For example, learners might engage in reading for pleasure, during which implicit learning processes will occur automatically, but they might also decide to engage in explicit learning processes (i.e., paying attention to form) by looking up an unknown word. In addition, they might actively test new words and phrases in a sentence, thus testing their hypothesis about the meaning (Letchumanan et al., 2015).

While the exact definition of these terms remains a matter of ongoing debate within the research community, and the terms are often used interchangeably (see for an overview for example Hulstijn, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2015; Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001), the present study will stay within the original terminology of the theoretical framework of incidental learning and define it as an unintentional or unplanned process, resulting as a by-product of another activity. This by-product can result from implicit processes but might also be accompanied by explicit processes, during which a person pays at least peripheral attention to certain language forms and engages in hypothesis forming and testing.

While often used within the framework of first language acquisition, the concept of incidental learning can also be related to the field of second and foreign language learning and is generally acknowledged in the research field of psychology and language learning (R. Ellis, 2008; Krashen, 1982). For Chomsky (1968, cited in Elley, 1997) learning a native language is in fact so deeply biologically programmed into the brain that children learn their native tongue simply by being exposed to it. In addition, there is little dispute that, except for the first few thousand most common words, which are usually learned intentionally, the vast majority of the vocabulary is acquired incidentally as a by-product of other activities (Hulstijn, 2001, 2003, 2013). Nagy and Anderson (1984) conclude that it would indeed be impossible to explain high school students’ knowledge of 25,000—50,000 words in their mother tongue otherwise. Most words, phrases, and grammar rules have to be ‘picked up’ from the context while engaging in other activities.

While acquiring a first language is not the same as learning a second or foreign language, some research suggests that the two processes are not that different. Moreover, while explicit instructions within the classroom have been proven to be an effective route to foreign language learning, teachers could simply not include enough vocabulary learning in the classroom to explain some learners’ language proficiency (Rieder, 2003). In his work, Krashen claims that the process of language acquisition is indeed not limited to children learning their first language, as adults do not lose the mental capacity for acquisition. According to him, language acquisition is an autonomous process outside of one’s conscious control, as humans cannot choose not to encode and store the information they encounter (Krashen, 1982). Therefore, his input hypothesis claims that as long as learners are presented with a high amount of comprehensible language input , incidental language learning will take place, even in the absence of explicit instructions and intentional learning activities (Krashen, 1985, 1989). Comprehensible input (i + 1) can derive from spoken words or through media channels (e.g., books, movies) and is input that is just slightly more complex (+1) than a person’s current level of competences (i). Under such conditions, a person can derive unknown words and grammatical structures from the surrounding context and thus acquire higher language competences (Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989).

The learning process is mediated by a person’s resistance to process the input, i.e., the level of their affective filter , which is any kind of internal resistance to process the input. It functions as a mediator between the language input and the acquisition process. Even if sufficient comprehensible input is available, a high filter might lead to a reduced or total lack of acquisition. Under such circumstances, the information might be understood in the moment, but will not be processed for acquisition. Reasons for a high affective filter are often anxiousness, a lack of motivation or self-confidence. A person’s affective filter is low if one is not afraid of failure and feels self-confident in their role as a language speaker and member of the language community. Krashen suspects the filter to be lowest if a person does indeed forget that they are speaking another language and are instead entirely focused on the message at hand (Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989).

Given a low enough filter, language acquisition will take place in the language acquisition device of the brain (LAD). According to this theory, learners will naturally progress to continuously higher levels of language competences, as long as they come into contact with enough comprehensible input (Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989). Consequently, a lack of comprehensible input will slow down or stop this trajectory. This might then lead to fossilization , i.e., the learner will stop short of achieving a native speaker level (Krashen, 1985, p. 43). This can happen in two ways: First, learners might encounter input that is too easy and will not provide learners with new syntax or will only subject them to a limited range of vocabulary. Second, learners might encounter input that is too complex and the input will consequently prove to be too difficult for them to decipher. As a result, students will be unable to understand enough of the content to derive unknown words from the surrounding context. Both situations would result in diminished learning outcomes (Krashen, 1985).

Krashen finds empirical support for his hypothesis not only in children’s first language acquisition but also in several studies that show empirical evidence for incidental learning in second and foreign language learners through input from leisure time reading and free reading programs within the classroom, as well as from listening to stories being read out loud (for a summary see, for example, Krashen, 1989). Further empirical evidence for incidental learning processes from language input in natural settings will be discussed in Section 4.2 .

Despite his influence in the field, Krashen has been criticized for his strong focus on language input, and for ignoring the social nature of language and the importance of output production and interaction for language learning in general and for incidental language learning processes in particular. Other researchers have stressed the importance of social interaction for (incidental) language learning. These theories and studies have often drawn on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. According to Vygotksy , humans need social interaction and communication in order to levitate their natural biological mental capacities into higher-order mental functions. Only through interaction are these capacities modified and interwoven with cultural values and meaning. Through this process, individuals gain understanding and control over psychological tools, which helps them to moderate interaction with objects in their surroundings. Written and spoken utterances made in a foreign or second language are such objects of interaction (R. Ellis, 2008; Vygotsky, 1978). According to this theory, learners will not be able to interact directly with a language as the object of their attention at the beginning. Instead, they will rely on external assistance in the form of other-regulation via more advanced speakers or object-regulation via tools (e.g., dictionaries), which act as moderators for the interaction with the object ‘language’. Other-regulation through personal assistance in a verbal interaction can, for example, be provided in the form of waiting (giving the speaker time to think), prompting (repeating words in order to help the speaking person to continue), co - constructing (providing missing words or phrases), and explaining (addressing errors; often in the first language) (R. Ellis, 2008; Vygotsky, 1978). Through this assistance, learners will be able to perform tasks which lie within their zone of proximal development . Vygotsky defines this zone as

“[…] the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).

Hence, the zone of proximal development lies between tasks a person can already carry out by themselves ( level of actual development ) and tasks that a person could not perform, even if assistance is available (Vygotsky, 1978).

The interaction with another person or an object frees the novice of some of the cognitive load of the task at hand and allows them to reach their goal. At the same time, the interaction will provide them with behavior to imitate and internalize for future use. In time, learners will become able to perform these tasks or activities on their own and will rely less on outside regulation (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Lantolf, 2000, 2005, 2011; Swain, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978).

Eventually, language learners will reach a level of proficiency where they no longer need outside assistance and instead become self-regulating in their use of the language. In this state, a person can facilitate their own language resources through private (inner) speech to achieve and execute control over their mental processes and their interaction with the language. The process from other-regulation or object-regulation towards self-regulation is called internalization, and (verbal) communication is the crucial means by which such a process is achieved (R. Ellis, 2008). According to the theory, the highest level of proficiency in any language can thus only be achieved if learners interact with others and produce output as well as take in input (R. Ellis, 2008; Swain, 2000, 2005).

It might be tempting to equate Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development with Krashen’s i + 1. However, as Dunn and Lantolf (1998) have pointed out, the two theories are incommensurable at their core. For Krashen, language learning takes place automatically within a person’s language acquisition device (LAD), given a sufficient amount of input within a person’s i + 1. If the affective filter is low enough and enough comprehensible input is available, language acquisition will be inevitable. As long as enough input is provided, the acquisition curve will be a steady, continuous, and linear process, moving from one stage to the next (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989; Lantolf, 2005). Krashen does support a weak interaction hypothesis by acknowledging that dialogue and interaction can help to negotiate meaning and clarification, making input more comprehensible. However, he rejects the idea that output production and interaction are necessary factors for (incidental) language learning. For him, a true interaction hypothesis cannot explain cases in which learners have reached a high level of proficiency without interaction. In fact, he sees the value of interaction not in the amount of language spoken by the learner but in the amount of input provided by the interaction partner (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989).

On the other hand, Vygotsky rejects the idea of an autonomous individual acquiring a language through an automatic cognitive process. Instead, he states that language development results from humans constantly developing to a higher state of control over their own mental activities by using the assistance of others or objects. Language development is thus not a linear but rather a historical process, rooted in a social context and acquired through interaction and imitation. As a result, interactional and material circumstances shape the form and outcome of each individual process (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Lantolf, 2005).

Dunn and Lantolf (1998) concluded that trying to converge the two theories means reading into Krashen something that is not there and taking the interactive core out of Vygotsky. Instead, they call for an acceptance of this incommensurability and peaceful coexistence, dialogue, and appreciation for their individual contributions to the field (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998). Following this call for dialogue, this study will draw on both theories in order to explain incidental language learning in the context of media-related extramural English contacts. As Section 4.2 . will show, there is empirical evidence for incidental learning processes through input only contact, as well as evidence for the (additional) benefit of interaction and output production.

Similar to Vygotsky, Swain also sees language as an inherently social and interactive artifact that humans use to interact with each other and their environment. In her output hypothesis , she emphasizes not only the interactive nature but also the need for active output production in order for learners to reach higher language competences.

While evaluating Canadian immersion programs in 1985, she found higher French test scores for the immersion students than for the non-immersive students. However, while the reading and listening scores of the immersion students were almost similar to native speakers, their performance for writing and speaking stayed behind those of their native counterparts. Since students in immersive classes are presented with a high amount of comprehensible input on a daily basis, her findings raised doubts about Krashen’s input hypothesis (Swain, 2000, 2005). Swain and her team argued that the important difference between native French speakers and immersion students was that students in the immersion classes were not pushed to produce a high amount of output. For Swain, the production of comprehensible output, i.e., output that is “grammatically accurate and socio-linguistically appropriate” (Swain, 2005, p. 472) for a given situation, and which allows the interaction partner to understand the speaker, goes far beyond simply providing an opportunity for enhancing fluency through practice (Swain, 2005). Instead, the output serves three functions:

First, producing language output can trigger noticing on different levels. Learners may notice a word or form because it is frequent or salient. However, they may also notice gaps and language problems in their own interlanguage, which hinders their ability to express themselves accurately. They might then seek to fill the gap by interacting with an interaction partner or an inanimate tool (e.g., dictionary, grammar book) or make a mental note to pay further attention to the relevant input in the future. In this way, through the recognition of problems, a mental conflict is triggered, and a cognitive process is initiated, leading to generating new or consolidating existing knowledge (Swain, 2000, 2005). Empirical research has shown evidence for such a process in learners after producing written or spoken language output in interaction with another student (for an overview see, for example, Swain, 2005).

Second, empirical findings suggest that output serves as an opportunity for testing one’s language hypothesis and provides the learner with an opportunity to alter and modify the output if the hypothesis proves to be incorrect (Swain, 2000, 2005). This becomes possible through feedback from the interaction partner. The feedback can be implicit or explicit. With implicit feedback, learners must infer the inaccuracy of their utterance, while explicit feedback clearly states where the learners’ utterance was correct and where it was incorrect (Carroll & Swain, 1993). Both implicit and explicit feedback can be positive or negative. Implicit or explicit positive feedback verbally or nonverbally confirms that an utterance was indeed correct (Carroll & Swain, 1992). Explicit negative feedback verbally or nonverbally states that a form does not belong to the target language. Implicit negative feedback occurs verbally in the form of error correction, corrective recast, and rephrasing of erroneous sentences or phrases, or through nonverbal communication (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Carroll & Swain, 1992, 1993; R. Ellis, 2008; Long et al., 1998). Both forms of feedback are effective and can provide learners with information that input alone cannot provide. Empirical studies have, for example, shown that negative feedback, both implicit and explicit, can induce noticing of forms and phrases which are not as salient through comprehensible input alone or are rare or unlearnable through positive feedback (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Carroll & Swain, 1992, 1993; R. Ellis, 2008; Long et al., 1998).

Therefore, feedback helps learners to test their hypothesis about the target language.

Strategies to solve language problems might include testing alternative hypotheses, applying existing knowledge to the context at hand, and internalizing newfound knowledge into one’s system. In fact, some errors or turns observed in learners’ written or spoken interactions may be seen as evidence for testing different hypotheses about the target language. By doing so, learners are engaged in deeper processing of the target language, ultimately resulting in increased control and automaticity in using the target language. This, in turn, releases cognitive resources for higher-level processes. Therefore, it can be argued that the process of modifying one’s own output represents language acquisition (Swain, 2000, 2005).

Third, the production of language output provides an opportunity for metalinguistic reflective functions (Swain, 2005). By putting thoughts into words, they become sharpened and transformed into an artificial form that is accessible to further reflection and response by oneself and others. Thus, speaking or writing represents both cognitive activity and the product of the activity itself.

In addition, output production triggers a deeper understanding and elaboration because it requires the speaker/writer to pay more attention to the elements of a message and their relationships to each other to connect and organize them into a coherent whole. Through this process, a more durable memory trace is established in learners’ minds, and language learning is facilitated (Swain, 2000, 2005).

All of these functions and benefits of output production are present in collaborative dialogue, in which speakers work together in order to solve linguistic problems and build linguistic knowledge (Swain, 2000, 2005). It is in output and interaction that learners have the opportunity to actually use the target language and stretch beyond their present stage of language competence. Swain, therefore, concludes that the production of comprehensible output is necessary for learners to reach the highest levels of proficiency (Swain, 2000, 2005). Language is thus interlinked with and fostered through social interaction, emerging as a result of “meaning-making processes” (Black, 2005, p. 120) within a specific social context (Black, 2005). In interaction with others, learners have the chance to test their hypotheses and to gain more control over their own language production.

Despite the somewhat incommensurability of the way the discussed theories model language learning and the importance language input, output, and interaction play in its process, the discussed theories suggest that regular contact with a foreign language and the chance to use it to interact with others can result in incidental language learning.

In terms of input and media-related extramural English contact, Chapter 2 has shown that technological developments in the last few decades have made regular access to English-language media content highly accessible for learners in Germany and Switzerland. By regularly engaging in English media content, learners are presented with a high amount of input for the most frequent English words and chunks, both written and auditory. In addition, learners can benefit from contact to less frequent and topic-specific vocabulary. Since learners choose the content themselves, it should be highly motivating and engaging, thus lowering the affective filter.

In addition, newer interactive media channels can further increase and deepen the learning process by allowing learners to interact and engage in dialogue. Here, Vygotksy’s theory and Swain’s output hypothesis provide a framework that might explain why a high level of interactive extramural contact with a foreign language might help students to navigate their interaction with the target language. The interaction will provide them with the necessary assistance to make complex input comprehensible, work through their zone of proximal development, and engage in mean-making processes within a given social context. Such interactions can be with a more advanced speaker of the target language (other-regulated), but also with other inanimate objects (object-regulated), such as additional information material, a dictionary, or other forms of technological tools. This might be especially important for less proficient learners. As learners progress in their control over the language, they might be more and more able to self-regulate and process even complex authentic input on their own. In addition, the chance to produce output and engage in dialogue will help learners to notice gaps in their own knowledge, reflect on their language use, and test hypothesis.

However, it should be mentioned that in the very beginning, learners might not be able to navigate authentic English-language media content even with the help of other-regulation and object-regulation. Instead, most learners will rely on in-classroom instructions at this stage. Even Krashen admits that for most learners, the first contact with a target language will most likely be through the educational system. This in-classroom instruction will provide learners with comprehensible learning material geared explicitly towards their competence level (Krashen, 1985). As such, formal instruction within the classroom will have a significant impact on students’ language development and will lay the base for any future language learning. Indeed, as Hulstijn (2001) points out, most teachers and scientist are well aware of the fact that even though incidental learning is a useful and powerful tool for language learning, it is important to teach learners the linguistic principles and lexical system of the target language, as well as making them aware of (vocabulary) learning tasks and teach them explicit strategies for doing so. Most teaching materials recognize this by including a vast number of techniques and activities to teach beginners and intermediate learners the necessary core vocabulary. This ensures that learners start their language journey with the study of a base vocabulary, learned to automaticity, while contextual learning does only play a role in later stages (Hulstijn, 2001).

In addition, formal instruction will also help learners to develop what Krashen calls the monitor . While a person’s ability to produce language derives from their unconscious knowledge and acquired competence, conscious learned knowledge about the target language serves as a monitor. This monitor helps to regulate and check output before it is uttered. For the monitor to work, learners need to be aware of the rules and be concerned with correctness (Krashen, 1985).

With time, learners will become more proficient and, as a result, will find it easier to find comprehensible media content outside of the classroom and engage in more complex interaction and dialogue with advanced learners and native speakers. Chapter 2 could show that newer interactive media channels do provide learners with said opportunity to produce and actively use English in natural settings. In this way, the media has created new assisted and interactive language learning opportunities outside of the educational setting, which provide more than just language input. New forms of interactive online communication tools, such as chatrooms, messaging apps, and message boards, can provide opportunities for extramural English contacts and activities through synchronous or asynchronous interaction with native and non-native speakers. By using these media channels, learners not only receive a high amount of input but can also actively produce output and engage with others in collaborative dialogue and interaction. In these interactive contexts, they will get immediate feedback on their language production. Here, advanced learners and native speakers can act as sources for other-regulated interaction, similar to a teacher in the classroom. They provide positive and negative feedback and help learners in the form of, for example, co-construction, explanations. Through these contacts, learners may even be provided with the opportunity for a high level of immersion within a language community. In this way, new words and phrases can be used and repeated regularly, which in turn fosters a higher conversion rate into long-term memory (Hulstijn, 2001).

The next chapter will summarize empirical evidence for incidental language learning occurring both from input-only as well as from more interactive media channels.

4.2 Empirical Evidence

Early research into incidental learning processes was often conducted within the field of psychology and concentrated on learning through input by reading or being read to by others. The studies were usually experimental in design and did not focus on language contact through extramural English contacts. In recent years, interest in incidental learning processes through media-related extramural English contacts in natural settings has grown significantly outside of the field of psychology. Extramural language contact in these natural settings might be provided through books or other written online and offline material or through music, podcasts, audiobooks, radio, movies, TV series, TV shows, online communities, and computer games. While the first of these media channels only provide language input, online communities (e.g., social media platforms) and computer games can also provide learners with opportunities for output production and synchronous and asynchronous social interaction. The following chapter will summarize important recent empirical findings for incidental language learning in natural settings among young learners (i.e., children and adolescents) through these channels.

As the media landscape changes rapidly, the summary will focus on newer findings to increase comparability with the present study. In addition, the summary will focus on studies about extramural English contacts in natural settings as this aligns with the focus of the present study. Key findings from experimental studies will be discussed only where they provide important insight otherwise missing (for a more detailed discussion on experimental studies in this area see, for example, Huckin & Coady, 1999; Ramos, 2015).

Studies investigating media exposure within the classroom and homework assignments were excluded as they do not focus on extramural English contacts. This also excludes the use of educational computer games, computer-assisted language learning, online learning platforms, and other forms of material specially developed for language learners.

4.2.1 Incidental Language Learning Through Reading

Books have been one of the traditional ways for extramural contact with English as a foreign language. One advantage of reading is that it provides learners with the possibility of repeatedly encountering unknown words and phrases, thus increasing the knowledge of those words and the chance of committing them to memory (Vidal, 2011). However, research has suggested that reading a book is a demanding activity as learners already need to have advanced language competences (Peters, 2018). According to Huckin and Coady (1999), readers need knowledge of at least 2,000 of the most common words in English to understand and use 84% of the words in most texts (and spoken language). For general text comprehension, readers must even be able to understand 95% of the words used in a given text. In order to be able to do so, people need to know the 3,000 most common words. Complete comprehension will not be reached until one understands 98% of the words in a text, which already requires a vocabulary of the 5,000 most common words. According to Sylvén and Sundqvist (2015), this might be the reason why learners in their study only reported low frequencies of leisure time reading in English. Nevertheless, even though 5,000 sounds like a relatively large number, Huckin and Coady argue that it is well within reach of the average language learner (Huckin & Coady, 1999).

Despite these challenges, empirical research suggests the effectiveness of extensive reading, especially for incidental vocabulary gain. To this author's knowledge, at the time of this study, there seem to be no studies looking exclusively into unprompted extramural reading and language competences in natural settings. Empirical evidence must therefore be drawn from studies investigating incidental language learning in experimental settings. However, it should be kept in mind that these settings do not strictly provide extramural contact as defined in this study.

Elley and Mangubhai (1983) conducted a study to examine the effect of extensive reading programs for children from Fujian primary schools learning English as a foreign language. In the experimental groups, teachers encouraged students to read as much as possible and provided age-appropriate books within the classroom. In one of the experimental conditions, teachers also discussed and followed up on the material. Compared to the control group, students in both experimental conditions showed increased language competences in the post-tests. Even though the study suffers from a lack of control over what happened in the classrooms (e.g., some teachers in the control groups read aloud to their students on a regular basis, even though they were instructed not to), the results all point towards the existence of incidental learning processes through extensive reading.

Pitts et al. (1989) conducted a study with 74 learners of English as a foreign language, who were asked to read an excerpt from Anthony Burgess’ book A Clockwork Orange . The book contains the artificial language nasdat and is thus ideal for testing, as students most likely did not know these words beforehand and could therefore not derive their meaning from any similar words in their native language. They were told they would be tested on the story's content afterward but were not told about any vocabulary testing. Two experimental groups were tested in addition to one control group. Experimental group 1 was given 60 minutes to read the text. Group 2 was additionally shown a short clip from the film before reading for 60 minutes. This was due to the high complexity of the text and the younger sample in group 2. The control group neither read the text nor watched the movie. Results from the subsequent vocabulary test showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups, with group 2 scoring significantly higher than group 1.

Similar to these findings, Dupuy and Krashen (1993) found in their experimental study that even exposure to 40 minutes of reading showed significant gains in students’ vocabulary knowledge. They showed students of French as a foreign language a short clip of the film Trois hommes et un couffin, followed up by a 40-minute reading of an excerpt from the book. Results showed a significant language gain in the experimental group. The group of 3 rd year students of French as a foreign language even outperformed the advanced 4 th year language students in the second control group.

Both teams concluded that in the light of the significant, yet sometimes minor, gains in vocabulary, incidental language learning from reading can occur with foreign language learners, even in a short timeframe. In addition, subjects were only tested on a fraction of words, meaning that they could have learned other words incidentally as well, without it being represented in their test scores. Furthermore, subjects did not read the entire book, which would have provided them with the opportunity to encounter unknown words multiple times, thus increasing the chance of storing them to memory. Last, the chosen texts were quite difficult for readers in both experiments. Hence, it would be possible that more incidental learning would have taken place if learners had been able to understand more of the texts and thus infer more meaning of unknown words from the surrounding context (Dupuy & Krashen, 1993; Pitts et al., 1989).

In order to overcome the limitations of these earlier studies, Horst et al. (1998) conducted a pre-post-test experimental study in which subjects were asked to read a whole novel over a period of 14 weeks. Students read along while the text was read aloud in class. After each session, the texts were re-collected and stored in the school to prevent students from reading ahead or looking up unknown words at home. The results showed a significant gain in vocabulary by the subjects. The gain was higher than in Dupuy and Krashen (1993) or in Pitts et al. (1989), which the authors attributed to the longer exposure and the longer text. Prior knowledge seemed to have played a moderating role in students’ ability to pick up words, as higher knowledge allows students to infer the meaning of unknown words more easily from the surrounding context. Word frequency in the text also played a moderating role in the chance of words being picked up. In addition, nouns were picked up more often than other word types. In a follow-up interview, students reported being surprised that the words they were tested on in the post-test were actually in the novel. This is a strong indicator of the implicit knowledge built through incidental learning.

Despite the findings, the authors conclude that while reading might be a source for incidental learning, it seems to be a slow process. Learners, on average, picked up one word for every fifth word read. However, this result is much higher than for the previous studies, which found retention rates of around one in twelve (Horst et al., 1998).

Pigada and Schmitt (2006) investigated the influence of incidental vocabulary learning in a qualitative study design. They observed one intermediate learner of French as a foreign language. Even though the study used simplified reading material, not authentic texts, their results are still interesting, especially since they not only tested for increased knowledge about word meaning but also spelling and grammatical characteristics. This aids the understanding of the incidental learning process. As the authors and others have noted, the disadvantage of texts with a rich context is that the meaning of a single unknown word might not be necessary to understand the text as a whole. As a result, learners might not subconsciously try to infer the meaning of each unknown word and thus might not learn the meaning of these words. However, the exposure might still increase their knowledge about other aspects of a word, with spelling being the most affected characteristic. Their results revealed that their test subject was able to recall at least one of the word aspects in two-thirds of the target words. Moreover, while not all words were fully mastered by the subject, he was nevertheless capable of using them in productive writing. The highest number of exposures within the text was necessary for learning the meaning of nouns, and some words were still unclear after they appeared more than twenty times in the text. However, one exposure was enough for spelling in some instances. Results also suggest that the inference of meaning for some words was hindered by the interference of the subject’s native language and similar words in French (Pigada & Schmitt, 2006).

In a more recent study, Vidal (2011) showed significant gains in vocabulary knowledge for language learners through written academic texts. In comparison to auditory input, readers recalled more information overall, especially low proficiency learners. The author concluded that reading provided learners with ideal opportunities to dwell on unknown words and sentences. Repetition of words was an important factor for recollection, with readers needing significantly less repetition than listeners to store words to memory. However, the author also concluded that readers and listeners made more gains in words that were explicitly elaborated beforehand. This shows that explicit elaboration can foster robust connections between form and meaning.

Overall, the empirical findings show that incidental language learning from extensive reading does occur, albeit the process being slow and challenging for readers. In addition, some words (e.g., nouns) seem easier to pick up than others and repetition seems to be an important factor for recollection but does not guarantee a successful learning process.

All of the discussed studies used books or book excerpts for their research. However, the internet has also made new forms of written content available. While social media sites often only provide shorter texts, blogs might provide readers with longer English content from various areas of interest. It can thus be hypothesized that online reading activities will also lead to incidental learning processes. However, to this author's knowledge, there is no empirical data available for reading online in terms of incidental language learning, yet. Studies concerning online communities, including social media platforms, will be discussed separately in Section 4.2.4 , as they provide not only input but also enable output production and interaction.

4.2.2 Incidental Language Learning through listening

Music can be a valuable source for language learning, as the lyrics are highly repetitive, conversation-like, and slower-paced than spoken, non-musical discourse. In addition, people tend to listen to the same song multiple times (Toffoli & Sockett, 2014). It is therefore surprising that there seems to be little empirical evidence for incidental language learning from exposure to music, either in an experimental or in a natural setting. One of the few studies investigating the effect of extramural listening to pop music on students’ vocabulary competences is Schwarz (2013). In the study, 74 secondary students were tested on their word recognition for 14 common words from 10 popular songs. In addition to self-reported word recognition, students also had to use some words productively or provide a translation or synonym, thus making the results more reliable. Results showed a significant increase in vocabulary knowledge between the pre- and post-test. In addition, the qualitative analysis of the translation and synonyms also showed that some students already referred to the song lyrics in the pre-test, demonstrating that they already knew the lyrics and the words were processed in the context of the song. However, four students had inferred the wrong meaning of the target word from the song. The author did not investigate the differences between students with a high number of extramural contacts and students with lower extramural contacts. This is probably due to the small variance in the sample, as all students listened to English music every day (Schwarz, 2013).

Even though the sample size was small, and the data relies on students’ self-reported knowledge, the results showed a promising trend towards incidental language learning from exposure to English pop songs. However, similar to the findings for reading, the vocabulary gains were small (Schwarz, 2013). This once again supports the notion that incidental learning takes place in small increments and through repeated exposure.

In their experimental study,Pavia et al. (2019) investigated vocabulary gains from listening to music for 300 Taiwanese children ages 11 to 14. Their results showed significant gains in knowledge of spoken-form recognition for both single word items and collocations for the experimental groups between pretest and immediate post-test, but not for the control group. Repeated exposure significantly increased learning gains, starting around seven encounters. Overall, students’ learning gains were again small. Results for the delayed post-test could not solely be attributed to the treatment, as the control group also showed a significant increase in vocabulary. The authors attributed this to learning effects from the immediate post-tests or conscious discussions about words and collocations among the students after the test. Experimental and control groups did not differ in regard to their gains in form-meaning connections. This is in line with other empirical findings that showed learners retain spoken-form recognition before form-meaning connection, the latter needing more exposure than the former. As the authors note, this might be even more dominant in exposure to music since songs do not provide as much context as other forms of media content. Nevertheless, even though participants only listened to two songs and results only show learning gains for spoken-form recognition, the results are promising and show that incidental learning through music can occur even after a short exposure and even in learners at a beginner level.

Additional evidence for incidental language learning through music in older learners comes Toffoli and Sockett (2014). Results from their study with 207 Arts and Humanities students in France showed that French university students listen to a high amount of English music on a daily basis; some even listen exclusively to English music. Furthermore, the music was not just background noise, but students engaged in active listening strategies such as looking up song lyrics online or pausing and rewinding songs to understand the lyrics better. Learners were also asked to translate four excerpts from popular song lyrics in order to measure possible learning effects. Results showed that frequent listeners (at least once a week) outperformed non-frequent listeners for all four excerpts. Unfortunately, the language comprehension test only included four items in the form of four excerpts from song lyrics. What is more, it is not clear if learners had come across any of the words presented in the test before. As the authors noted, preferences for genre, artists, and songs varied considerably in the sample, making it difficult to choose lyrics for the test. In addition, the sample size was relatively small. Still, the results yield important insights in terms of the variety of music styles learners listen to, as well as the listening strategies employed by learners.

Apart from music, another form of auditory input is spoken auditory input, e.g., from reading aloud to learners. R. Ellis (1999) summarized findings for language learning by reading out loud to younger children in multiple experimental studies. The results show an increase in language competences for young learners in classes where students were being read to on a regular basis. Again, repetition was an important factor for learning gains. The author also stressed the significance of the opportunity for learners to ask questions and show their non-comprehension in face-to-face settings. These interactions will probably lead to additional input from the reader, specifically tailored to the individual learners’ language skills.

In addition to the reported learning gains from reading, Vidal (2011) also showed significant vocabulary gains for university students listening to academic texts (see also Section 4.2.1 ). However, listeners recalled less information in direct comparison to readers in the sample. Vidal concluded that listening to a speaker seems to be a rather challenging activity, especially for lower proficiency learners, as real-time language processing makes it harder to segment the spoken text into separate words and recognize unknown words or phrases from running speech. As a result of these challenges, listeners most likely needed more repetition in order to commit a word to memory than readers do. However, it is likely that, as learners’ proficiency increases, so will the ability to identify and process unknown words from listening to audio input (Vidal, 2011).

Furthermore, the results showed that listeners most likely cannot suppress the activation of knowledge from their native language. As a result, they often do not recognize the differences in cognates or false friends. They are also less likely to add new, formerly unknown meanings of polysemous words to memory. Instead, they were shown to stick with the meaning they already knew, even if it made no sense in the given context. Readers in the study suffered less from this problem (Vidal, 2011).

However, despite the challenging nature, Vidal concludes that listening to English audio content can aid learners in their language learning process since words heard auditorily are stored directly into the phonological memory. Words encountered in the written form still need to be recorded, a process that might be partially or entirely unsuccessful in some cases. Listening can thus help to foster more stable and long-lasting memory traces (Vidal, 2011).

Similar to Vidal, van Zeeland and Schmitt (2013) conducted a study with postgraduate students from an English university who learned English as a second language. While it has to be kept in mind that the study tested learners much older than in the context of this study, who also lived in a country where the target language (English) was the native language, the results still yield interesting insight into the complex nature of incidental vocabulary learning.

As opposed to earlier studies, this study did not only assess recognition and recall of meaning, but also form and grammar recognition. Thirty high-intermediate to advanced learners of English were asked to listen to a text passage read to them that contained several made-up words. They were told to concentrate on the meaning of the text as a whole. While 20 learners were tested immediately afterward, ten learners were tested with a delay of two weeks to identify long-term retention without confounding learning effects from the first post-test. Results showed a significant but again small learning gain for all knowledge dimensions. Overall, meaning recall showed the smallest gains. Learners scored highest in form recognition, followed by grammar recognition, for immediate and delayed post-test. The authors conclude that these results show that some vocabulary dimensions are picked-up later than others. Interestingly, what little meaning learners were able to gain incidentally was better recalled after two weeks than gains for form and grammar recognition.

Overall, the empirical evidence suggests the benefit of extramural audio contact to a foreign language. As music is a popular leisure-time activity and people tend to listen to their favorite songs repeatedly, extramural contacts through songs offer a beneficial way to learn a language.

English-language music has traditionally been easy to access, even before the advent of the internet in both Germany and Switzerland (see Chapter 2 ). Therefore, music has most likely already been an opportunity for incidental language learning for adolescents in past generations. However, the possibility of modern music streaming on online-based music platforms might provide learners with a greater locus of control over their listening experience. Being able to pause, rewind, and use the lyrics-on-screen function at their own discretion is likely to make input more comprehensible for learners (Toffoli & Sockett, 2014).

In addition, the empirical evidence for spoken language summarized in this chapter also highlights the learning opportunities provided by English audiobooks, radio programs, and podcasts. However, research about learning gains from extramural contacts in a natural setting is still scarce.

Similar to reading, learning gains from this kind of input seem to be small (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013; Vidal, 2011). This is likely also due to the fact that listening to authentic input is equally if not more challenging for learners. Learners need to know as many as 6,000 to 7,000 of the most common words to follow a spoken discourse (Nation, 2006). In addition, empirical evidence shows that especially low proficiency learners might have problems with the recognition and segmentation of words from running speech (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013; Vidal, 2011).

4.2.3 Incidental Language Learning Through Watching

English-language movies, TV series, and TV shows provide viewers with both auditory and visual input. New words are presented within a narrative context and supported by visual aids. If subtitles are added, written content is provided as well. Watching movies, TV series, TV shows with subtitles thus provide auditory, written, and visual information, with the latter providing rich contextual clues for the former two (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999; Lindgren & Muñoz, 2013). In addition, Webb and Rodgers (2009) point out the beneficial characteristic of repetition for vocabulary learning, especially in TV series.

Earlier studies about incidental learning through watching audio-visual content usually investigated subtitled movies and TV series, as these were the options most accessible to viewers at the time. In their study, Neuman and Koskinen (1992) investigated the influence of subtitled TV programs on both language and topic knowledge for Asian minority students in the US. They found significantly higher results for the subtitled TV and the normal TV group in comparison to the two control groups (listen to audio and reading along; reading only). These results strongly support the claim that reading (subtitles) is not the only route for incidental learning processes and that visual content does, indeed, foster learning. In addition, the study also showed evidence that students’ prior vocabulary knowledge and a supportive context, in the form of video print, play an important moderating role in the incidental learning process. However, the authors pointed out that since the content is not produced with the language learner in mind, the content might be too complicated for beginners to follow. In addition, the pace of the spoken information in most TV series and movies might be too quick for some learners and subtitles are designed to keep pace with the scene on screen (Neuman & Koskinen, 1992).

d’Ydewalle and his team conducted several experimental studies investigating the effect of watching subtitled television on learners' language competences (an overview can be found in d'Ydewalle, 2002). Results showed evidence for the fact that reading and processing the input provided by subtitles is an automatic process beyond conscious control and that it triggers incidental learning processes (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999).

Incidental learning proved to be even more effective when subtitling was reversed, i.e., when the foreign language was presented in subtitles and the native language in the audio track. The authors attributed this to the fact that processing the subtitles was the main activity for participants and thus, providing the foreign language in written form led to higher learning gains (d'Ydewalle & Pavakanun, 1997).

Furthermore, results from studies with different age groups showed that, in general, younger children pay less attention to subtitles and prefer dubbed movies and TV series. This is most likely due to their lower reading skills. However, a small part might also be influenced by the fact that younger children in the Netherlands (where the studies were carried out) are not as accustomed to watching subtitled television as older children and adults are. As a result, they benefit less from extramural English contact if subtitling is reversed and therefore show lower vocabulary gains (d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999).

Results from the research group also showed that the similarity between a person’s native language and the foreign language in question plays a moderating role in the effectiveness of the incidental learning process (d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999).

In addition to vocabulary, d’Ydewalle and colleagues are also one of the few teams to investigate the acquisition of grammar and syntax through incidental learning. While the initial studies failed to detect any effect, they were eventually able to show slight increases in grammatical competences. However, it should be mentioned that the increases were most significant when explicit rules were presented in advance. Therefore, the authors concluded that grammar might be too complicated to acquire solely from exposure to the target language (d'Ydewalle, 2002). Increases in grammar and syntax competence should thus only be expected after some form of formal instruction has taken place. They confirmed this in a study comparing children before and after they were first introduced to French as a second language within the school context (d'Ydewalle, 2002). In contrast, words, especially nouns, seem to be much easier to acquire incidentally (d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999).

Apart from subtitled content d'Ydewalle and Pavakanun (1997) also found learning gains for experimental groups with only the foreign language in the audio track (without any subtitles) and concluded that watching the rich visual information provided by the movie enabled participants to derive the meaning of the story from the visual context. This was not the case when the foreign language was provided in the subtitles, and no audio track was played, which is probably due to the fact that participants missed important visual clues while concentrating on the subtitles.

In support of these findings, Araújo and da Costa (2013) could also show that advanced learners from the European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC) did not significantly benefit from movies with subtitles compared to movies without them. The reverse was true for students at the beginner level. The authors attributed these findings to the fact that learners need to reach a certain level of proficiency before being able to process non-subtitled audio-visual content efficiently. Once they reach that threshold, subtitling no longer contributes significantly to the learning process.

Kusyk and Sockett (2012) tested 43 French university students on their word recognition from audio-visual input. High-frequency watchers demonstrated a significantly higher rate of recognizing and ability to define the most frequent 4-word chunks tested in the vocabulary test than low-frequency watchers. In addition, the results showed a tendency for more frequent and more salient chunks to be recognized more easily. The results underscore the importance of previous knowledge for extramural contacts in natural settings. Most students situated themselves at a B1 level at the beginning of the study. As the authors point out, at this level, learners should be able to understand most of the spoken content in standard dialect on TV or radio. However, the results should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample and the fact that word comprehension was not measured by a comprehension test but by students’ self-evaluation.

Last, results from Lindgren and Muñoz (2013) also show that watching television is the second-best predictor for learners’ listening and reading comprehension.

Overall, the empirical evidence presented in this section shows the beneficial effect of audio-visual contact in the form of movies and TV series for foreign language learning. In contrast to audio-only input, watching a movie or TV series provides a rich visual context to help learners follow a story, even if they do not understand every word. Similar to music, the technical opportunities of streaming services provide learners with a greater locus of control over their viewing experience. Being able to pause and rewind, switch between native and foreign language audio tracks and use subtitling is likely to make input more comprehensible and help with listening comprehension overall (Toffoli & Sockett, 2014).

As with other forms of language input, learning gains from this kind of input seem to be small, most likely due to the challenge of decoding words and meaning while listening to authentic language input. Similar to audio-only material, learners need an extensive vocabulary in order to follow spoken discourse (Nation, 2006; Webb & Rodgers, 2009), and low proficiency learners will most likely struggle to recognize and segment running speech (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013; Vidal, 2011). However, even though the requirements for incidental learning through watching television might be quite high and the medium might therefore not automatically be suited for beginners, Sylvén and Sundqvist (2015) could show that even children as young as 11 or 12 might reach the appropriate level of prior knowledge. Motivation is probably a key factor since the children want to understand their favorite TV series, movies, and TV shows and thus tend to pay close attention to what is shown on screen (Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2015).

Apart from movies, TV shows, and TV series, online videos might be another source for audio-visual input. These videos are usually shared via video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube, and cover various topics, from makeup to gaming to lifestyle and mental health. These platforms have also given rise to a new form of celebrity: social influencers (see Section 2.1 for reference). Social influencers produce and upload videos of varying lengths to video-sharing platforms or social media platforms (e.g., Instagram). They often have millions of followers worldwide and post multiple videos per week or even per day. Most of the most popular influencers come from the US or the UK. In addition, influencers from other countries might also choose to produce their content in English to reach a broader audience. Video platforms, therefore, provide an increasingly rich amount of authentic audio-visual input in English, including different accents and dialects. These videos also give insight into different cultures. To this author's knowledge, there are no empirical studies for this form of extramural English contact and language learning, yet. This is surprising, given the large amount of input available and the popularity of these platforms among young people (MPFS, 2017; Waller et al., 2016). It is thus very likely that German and Swiss adolescents follow international English-speaking influencers who meet their interests on social media and video-sharing platforms. This will, in turn, provide them with yet another source of extramural English contact.

4.2.4 Incidental Language Learning Through Online Communication

With the rise of interactive online platforms, such as chatrooms, messenger boards, and social media sites, learners not only have the opportunity to take in a rich amount of language input but also to socialize and interact with other native and non-native speakers online (Thorne et al., 2009). The internet thus provides the opportunity for new, participatory forms of learning and interaction (Black, 2005; Thorne & Black, 2007; Thorne et al., 2009). However, empirical evidence in this area is still sparse. Among the various online communities, fan fiction communities have received the most attention for their potential for incidental learning. The following section will thus summarize findings for this form of participatory writing space and its learning potential, but the findings can most likely be generalized beyond the scope of this specific form of online community.

Fan fictions are “original works of fiction based on forms of popular media such as television, movies, books, music, and video games” (Black, 2005, p. 118). Within these communities, “native and non-native English speakers [have the opportunity] to use literacy skills to forge relationships with individuals who share their interests” (Black, 2005, p. 120).

Empirical evidence for incidental language learning from this kind of extramural contact can mostly be drawn from the work of Black (2005, 2009). The author used ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to estimate and understand how English learners interact and communicate on these platforms. Additional theoretical considerations and literature reviews can be found in Thorne (2008), Thorne and Black (2007), and Thorne et al. (2009). The results show that online (fan) communities offer learners the opportunity to use language in a social environment and in a way that is meaningful to a particular purpose. In order to participate in the community, users do more than type grammatically correct utterances; they use language to create communities and interact with each other (Thorne et al., 2009).

Through engaging in the community, learners get in contact with a rich amount of input of meaningful content, but also actively use language to produce various forms of output and engage in interaction with more experienced members of the community, thus increasing their language competences (Black, 2005; Thorne et al., 2009).

Within fan fiction communities, members can choose multiple levels of participation. First, members can be readers only, i.e., only read stories written by others and benefit from the vast amount of language input through extensive reading and familiarization with techniques and conventions of different genres of writing, without having to produce content themselves (Black, 2005; Thorne et al., 2009). Second, members can choose to contribute by writing reviews for other people’s stories, even though a reader might not be proficient enough in English to write their own stories, yet. By giving others (constructive) feedback, users are able to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise within a specific fandom (Black, 2005). Last, members might decide to write and publish their own stories. Writers can decide to publish in their native language or choose another language. For example, non-native writers might choose to publish their stories in English to reach a larger audience. Announcing one’s status as a non-native speaker might help those authors, as it tells readers to focus on the content rather than grammatical correctness. At the same time, more advanced readers and native speakers often offer extensive feedback on grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and style issues (Black, 2005). In doing so, they aid novices on their journey to use language as an internal resource to control their own mental processes (R. Ellis, 2008). As Black shows, this form of support and feedback helps non-native writers increase their awareness for audience-specific composition issues and drastically improve their writing skills (Black, 2005; Thorne et al., 2009). Authors might also choose to find a beta reader , i.e., an official proofreader, for their story (Black, 2005; Thorne & Black, 2007).

The actual writing process is further aided by the fact that authors can draw on a rich body of characters and plotlines from the original material. It is also common (as long as it is acknowledged) to incorporate elements and plots from other works of fiction or create crossovers (Black, 2005; Thorne & Black, 2007). By doing so, fan fiction communities not only offer other-regulation in forms of support and help from the community but also object-regulation by artifacts such as existing plotlines, characters, and genre conventions provided by the source material (Thorne et al., 2009). Ultimately, this fosters learners to “move beyond the mechanical aspects of decoding and encoding in the target language.” (Black, 2005, p. 127).

Overall, the analyses have shown that different levels of involvement offer even novice learners an opportunity to be part of an online community and make fan fictions sites a perfect place for collaborative and participatory writing processes. Within the community, learners get constructive feedback from native or more advanced speakers in a supportive environment and have the opportunity to solve linguistic problems together as proposed by the sociocultural theory (Black, 2005; Thorne et al., 2009). Students can revise, edit, and redesign their texts by drawing on and incorporating input from a broad audience of reviewers, engaging in dialog-based interaction, and drawing on the meta resources available in the community. Fan fiction communities are thus ideal places for English learners to become accepted members of an English-speaking community, practice their language skills with native speakers (both receptive and productive), get constructive feedback, and eventually take on their own identity as an English speaker (Black, 2005).

While fan-fiction communities have drawn particular attention by researchers in the last few years, the findings can be expected to be expandable to other forms of online communications, such as forums or message boards and social media. Unfortunately, however, to this author’s knowledge, there is no empirical research on incidental language learning in that area. Nevertheless, it seems that online communities present users with an environment rich in authentic content as well as the opportunity to try out and develop one’s own identity as an English user within an international community. With these characteristics, online communities have long surpassed the simple input mode offered by traditional printed media.

4.2.5 Incidental Language Learning Through Gaming

Computer games have often been frowned upon as leisure time activities and have been suspected of causing violent and addictive behavior in adolescents and children (Graham, n.d.). However, research has shown that computer and video games can also have a positive effect on language learning, especially if they provide gamers with a complex narrative and offer the opportunity to interact with other gamers during the game.

Computer and video games differ in the degree to which they provide such a rich and interactive gaming environment. Following Graham (n.d.), games can be categorized into three levels of narrative complexity. Low narrative games – e.g., puzzles, rhythm, or simulation games – do not follow a narrative and often have no endpoint or final goal. By comparison, narrative games − e.g., sport and racing games − provide a narrative and require some background knowledge from the real world. High narrative games provide an even richer and more complex narrative story, in which the gamer has to perform a set of tasks and quests to win the game (Graham, n.d.). It can be expected that more complex narratives might provide a higher level of authentic and comprehensible input to gamers.

Narrative and high narrative games are designed to engulf the player within the inherent logic of the gaming world. While playing, gamers are presented with situations and decisions to choose from. As a result, the course of the story depends on the player’s preceding decisions. Players can thus be seen as co-creators of the game, not just mere users. By playing the game, they shape the game’s environment as much as it shapes them (Gee, 2005). However, similar to the real world, not all actions are available in all situations and to all players alike. Instead, players have to follow a specific set of rules and regulations, which they have to learn and master to succeed in the game (Gee, 2005).

Players get to know the world by wandering through it and solving tasks (i.e., quests) (Gee, 2005; Zheng et al., 2015). Depending on the game, quests can be solved alone or in collaboration with other players. By completing these quests, players build up their character’s abilities, skills, and equipment (Gee, 2005; Zheng et al., 2015). In order to solve quests, players will have to take risks and try out new ways or creative solutions. After successfully finishing a quest, a player moves on to new, slightly more challenging adventures. This forces the player to develop new solutions and communication strategies since the ones used in the level before might not be sufficient anymore. By continuously presenting the player with new and slightly more complicated, yet still solvable, tasks, game designers make sure that the games stay interesting yet rewarding enough for people to keep playing (Gee, 2005).

In such an environment, new information, words, and phrases are introduced at the exact time necessary and are embedded within a situated and communicative context. They are easy to process and do not overwhelm players at the beginning of the game. New words and phrases are also strongly linked to a gamer’s immediate purpose and goals, as the new information is needed immediately to solve the subsequent quest in the game (Gee, 2005). This makes computer and video games ideal for contextualized and situated language learning. By contrast, schools often introduce topics detached from people's goals and purposes, causing them to be more difficult to remember (Gee, 2003).

“People are quite poor at understanding and remembering information they have received out of context or too long before they can make use if it […]. Good games never do this to players, but find ways to put information inside the worlds the players move through, and make clear the meaning of such information and how it applies to that world.” (Gee, 2003, p. 2)

Due to these characteristics, Gee identifies 25 out of 36 learning principles related to language learning in modern gaming (Gee, 2005, 2007). These advantages of gaming for incidental language learning led some researchers to predict the rise of digital games as a game-changer in modern language teaching methodology. However, in recent years, the discussion has shifted somewhat away from how to convert digital games for educational purposes to the notion that digital games already come equipped with the ability to teach cognitive skills and promote problem-solving (Thomas, 2012).

In addition to these general advantages, some games also provide the opportunity to interact not only with the gaming engine but also with other players via written or audio chats. According to the Scale of Social Interaction (SSI) model, games can be categorized according to the level of interaction they allow for, i.e., how many players can play simultaneously. These differ in the way they allow language input and output from the gamers. The model distinguishes between single-player, multiplayer, and massive multiplayer online role-playing games. Single-player games are played alone and do not allow interaction with other gamers. As a result, they only offer language input and few to no opportunities for output production. Multiplayer games allow for the interaction of multiple players simultaneously. These players might be in the same room or might be connected online. These games provide the opportunity for authentic interaction with other players. As a result, they can provide more opportunities for incidental learning within the natural game setting. Massive multiplayer online role-playing games ( MMORPG) can be seen as the most advanced form of interactive gaming. Here a large number of gamers can be logged in to the games’ online servers and can play and interact with each other simultaneously (Sundqvist, 2013).

Within MMORPGs, players are usually encouraged to work together to solve quests. In doing so, players fall back on their social competences from the real world, building social connections, cooperating with each other, and even building communities (Gee, 2005; Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Zheng et al., 2015). Depending on the abilities and experiences of the player’s characters, these communities often form rather complex hierarchies and rules of interacting with each other, making sure that each player’s abilities and skills are utilized the best way possible. Novices are integrated into the group and can learn from other, more experienced players (Gee, 2005; Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2012b).

Gaming communities in these MMORPGs can consist of people from the same geographical region, who might know each other in real life, but there are many communities in which members do not live close to each other. In these communities, English is often the language of communication among group members (Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2015). Just as with the skills necessary for successfully participating in the quests, more experienced language users within these communities serve as role models and catalysts for the language socialization of novice English speakers (Thorne et al., 2009). As suggested by the sociocultural theory, social interaction and other-regulated activities help novice learners move towards a self-regulating state in their language and gaming trajectory. In this way, multiplayer games and MMORPGs offer an immersive environment with repeated exposure to the target language in an authentic communicative context and meaningful interaction. Gamers have to communicate, negotiate meaning, and get real-time feedback from their gaming partners. In addition, MMORPGs usually involve a high level of engagement, motivation, and commitment to the task and the people involved. According to Gee, these characteristics make MMORPGs a silver bullet for language learning in natural settings (Gee, 2003, 2005, 2007; M. Peterson, 2010; Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2015).

Sylvén and Sundqvist even argue that MMORPGs might be similar to content and language integrated learning (CLIL) Footnote 2 in school, as it forces learners to use their language skills to solve tasks, meet the given requirements in order to be successful gamers, as well as communicate and get immediate feedback from other gamers. Similar to learners in a CLIL classroom, gamers thus have a high motivation to understand new vocabulary and grammar in order to solve quests successfully and communicate with other players. Moreover, since the game is a voluntary, leisure time activity rather than a school requirement, gamers will probably be more motivated to put in endless hours to perfect their gaming and language skills than learners within a classroom (Sundqvist, 2011; Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2012b).

The two authors also investigated Gee’s statements about learning principles in relation to the MMORPG World of Warcraft . They conclude that the game does, in fact, provide eight of Gee’s 36 criteria, i.e., active and critical learning, psychosocial moratorium, identity, practice, regime of competence, subset, transfer, and affinity group (Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2012b). They also confirm Gee’s proposed similarities between MMORPGs and the CLIL classroom in terms of the authenticity of the materials, the integration within a language community, and learners’ motivation. They conclude that the advantages of playing MMORPGs might be responsible for the repeated empirical finding that boys outperform girls in vocabulary tests, even though girls tend to hold more positive attitudes towards languages and attend CLIL classes more often (Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2012b).

In a similar vein, Zheng et al. (2015) could show that MMORPGs provide learners with a rich input of social, historical, and cultural material to use as tools for their interactions with each other. Similar to Gee, the authors see these characteristics of games as highly beneficial, as they provide players a sense of embodiment by giving them a specific role, a goal, and the opportunity to experience the consequences of their actions. In addition, they found that gaming encourages learner agency and allows learners to transcend from the here and now of the situation to more general knowledge and use of the language (Zheng et al., 2015).

Further empirical support comes from Thorne (2008). In her qualitative study, she could show the fruitful way gamers communicate with each other and how language learning may occur. In her study, an American and a Ukrainian gamer began to communicate and chat within the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Their interaction showed forms of collaboration, negotiation of meaning, feedback, as well as other- and self-correction. In addition, the American gamer reported that the communication reduced inhibitions and insecurities and increased their motivation to further engage in language learning activities.

Similar to these findings, Rankin et al. (2006) showed increased vocabulary knowledge and enhanced output production for four participants in a pilot study. Students were asked to play the interactive game Ever Quest II for at least four hours per week. However, while more advanced learners seemed to benefit from the game-based interaction and communication, beginners seemed to struggle with cognitive overload from the game’s requirements.

In another study, Rankin et al. (2009) employed a pre-post-test experimental design to investigate gamers’ actual increase in vocabulary knowledge and conduct an in-depth analysis of their social interactions. Two experimental groups were established: in the first experimental group, six native Mandarin speakers were asked to play a video game among themselves. In the second experimental group, another group of six native Mandarin speakers played the game in interaction with a group of native English speakers. The six students in the control group did not play but instead received three hours of language instruction. Results showed that the two experimental groups outperformed the control group in the post-test regarding vocabulary knowledge in the context of the game. However, classroom instruction was more beneficial for participants’ scores on sentence usage. The authors attribute this finding to the fact that the employed test was very close to the classroom exercises students were exposed to before. It should be noted that the statistical results should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size.

In-depth analysis of chat protocols revealed that the native speakers helped and guided the novice players through the all-English interface and the unfamiliar game. Results also showed that language use increased for Mandarin speakers over time. The protocols showed that these gamers started to produce more output as they grew more confident with the game (Rankin et al., 2009).

Results from M. Peterson (2012) also support the fact that gaming can help introduce language learners to specific language practices of a target group. The data showed that the six foreign language students in his sample adapted their interaction strategies in an online-based gaming environment and used time-saving techniques, such as abbreviations and emoticons. The data also shows how students engaged in continuous collaborative dialogue and interaction in the target language English.

Last, Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio (2009) conducted a qualitative study about the interaction of two teenage boys (10–14 years) regularly engaging in playing Final Fantasy X together. Although not an MMORPG, the study shows that even games with extensive (subtitled) dialogues offer a rich amount of linguistic input for the players, as well as a chance for playful and casual practice of language skills. The constant repetition throughout the game can lead to considerable learning effects.

While most studies reported here have focused on interactive gaming, Purushotma (2005) also found evidence for learning effects from non-interactive single-player games. In his article, the author analyzed the benefits of playing The Sims (a life simulation game played in single-player mode). While the game characters speak an artificial language, the game offers a wide range of text within the menu and in-game notifications. The vocabulary resembles an English beginner course, with a high number of everyday words and phrases. As with other games, players will get immediate feedback for their hypothesis of unknown words in the form of character's behavior in the game and the game environment. In addition, the newest version of the game offers the possibility to change the program code to show in-game messages in two languages (e.g., the native and a foreign language) and can offer translations for unknown words within a pop-up window. The analysis shows that even non-interactive games can offer opportunities for incidental language learning. With its high level of frequent vocabulary, games like The Sims might be especially suitable for beginners. The non-violent and fighting-free setting might also make it especially suitable for younger learners. Research has also shown empirical evidence that these non-violent games might be a more attractive gaming option for female students than many of the often violent or sports-centered interactive game options (MPFS, 2017).

Although the sample sizes in the reported studies were often small, the empirical findings in this chapter suggest that incidental language learning can occur from interactive and non-interactive gaming. Furthermore, interactive games can help learners move from other-regulated learning to a state of internalized self-regulation and control of language as a mediative tool, as proposed by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. However, as with other extramural contacts, interactive gaming in English can be challenging for beginners. However, collaborative dialogue and corrective feedback from other more advanced speakers can help bridge the gap, reduce inhibition, enhance motivation, and facilitate language learning. Overall, the immersive environment offered by modern interactive computer and video games is thought to offer an ideal platform for situated and incidental learning, thus bridging learning in and outside of the classroom (Reinders, 2012).

4.3 Incidental Language Learning Through Multi-channel Media Exposure

This last section will summarize empirical findings from studies that did not focus on a specific media channel but rather looked at learners’ overall frequency of extramural contacts across multiple media channels.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Hasebrink (2001) showed that the German participants in his studies claimed to have learned around 20% of their English competences outside of school through informal contact (Hasebrink et al., 1997, p. 163ff). However, as this is only a self-reported estimate and the study did not include a test on language competences, these results should only be seen as a rough estimate. However, the result points towards the occurrence of informal learning processes even before the advent of the internet.

The only other empirical evidence for Germany comes from the study Assessment of Student Achievements in German and English as a Foreign Language ( DESI). The study investigated 9 th graders in Germany and included some questions about media-related extramural English contacts via email, video, television, books, comics, manuals, and songs in the questionnaire. While these categories are by no means exhaustive in terms of modern online and offline media content, the results can still yield some interesting insights. Media-related extramural English contact activities showed a medium-sized correlation with students’ English test results and English grades. Students in the highest educational track (Gymnasium) reported higher frequencies of media-related extramural English contacts and a higher interest in reading (Helmke et al., 2008). Apart from these results, no further empirical evidence seems to exist for Germany or Switzerland.

For Sweden, Sundqvist (2009a) Footnote 3 showed significant and positive correlations for the overall frequency of media-related extramural English contacts, vocabulary competences, and oral proficiency (for details about the test procedure see Sundqvist, 2009a). While the effect of reading was especially strong for oral performance, gaming and surfing showed the highest correlation for the vocabulary tests in her study. Dividing students into user groups showed that high-frequency users received significantly better test results than low-frequency users (Sundqvist, 2009a). Interestingly, however, the author also found indications for the effects of extramural English contacts to be stronger for low-frequency than for high-frequency users. She interpreted the findings as an indication that the increase from no contact (0 hours) to some contact (e.g., 8 hours) might be more beneficial than the increase from 45 hours to 53 hours (Sundqvist, 2009a).

In addition, the positive correlation between extramural contacts and oral test results found in the data only holds for two of the four classes, while it is negative for the other two. Sundqvist assumes this could be due to the socio-economic composition of the classes or due to the teacher influence but did not elaborate further (Sundqvist, 2009a). While her sample is relatively small (n = 80), her study does give an interesting and compelling inside view into the field of media-related extramural English contact through the media and the relationship with learners’ competences. In addition, her use of language diaries provides a detailed, in-depth measurement of students’ actual frequency of extramural contacts that might be more reliable than some of the ex-post-facto questionnaires employed in other studies, including the present.

Forsman (2004, cited in Sundqvist, 2009a) also found a significant and positive relationship between the overall frequency of media-related extramural English contact and students’ tendency to use American words and phrases (in comparison to British ones) in his study with 330 Swedish-Finish students. The author attributes these findings to the dominance of American media content.

Lindgren and Muñoz (2013) could also show the positive effect of extramural exposure to a foreign language on children’s listening and reading comprehension in multiple European countries (aged 10 to 11). The results also showed a significant effect for the cognate distance between the native language and the foreign language: students with a native language closer related to the target language showed a significant higher learning effect.

Peters (2018) found a significant positive correlation between media-related extramural English contacts and language competences. Significant effects could be shown for reading books and magazines, surfing on English-language websites, and watching movies and TV series without subtitles, but the correlations were small in effect (except for browsing). Surprisingly the results showed a small negative correlation between vocabulary knowledge and listening to English-language songs, as well as no significant correlation for watching subtitled movies and TV series or for gaming. The study was conducted in the Flemish region in Belgium, which has a high level of non-Flemish and non-dubbed TV productions. The author attributes the lack of correlation between subtitled TV series and movies with test scores, therefore, to the fact that there is virtually no variance in her dataset since almost all students watch subtitled movies and TV series regularly (Peters, 2018).

In addition to the correlations, results from an analysis of variance with covariates also revealed the overall frequency of media-related extramural contact to be a positive predictor for students’ vocabulary knowledge. The effect explained with 13% more variance than the length of in-class English instruction (Peters, 2018, p. 159).

Olsson (2011) focused specifically on the effect of extramural English contacts on students’ writing skills. The author found a strong and positive significant correlation between overall media-related extramural English contacts and test results for a national mandatory writing test. Examining the individual media categories separately, she found a significant and positive correlation between extramural reading, writing, and watching television and the writing test scores. An in-depth analysis showed that students with a higher level of extramural contact on average wrote longer sentences and used longer and more complex words for some text types. In addition, she found that all students with at least moderate extramural contacts reached a pass with distinction or a pass with special distinction in their 9 th grade finals. The extramural contacts also showed a moderate, significant correlation with learners’ grades (Olsson, 2011).

In addition to the overall scores for writing, the study also looked at certain text features in more detail and found significant correlation effects for sentence length in the written mails and the use of infrequent vocabulary for the newspaper articles, but not the other way around. Moreover, even though all students showed a higher variation in vocabulary for the newspaper article than the mails, students with high frequent extramural contacts did show significantly more variation than non-users or low-frequency users. This points towards the fact that students with frequent extramural contacts might gain a more extensive and more diverse language register, which allows them to adapt their language to different text types (Olsson, 2011).

Despite these interesting findings, the results should be read with caution as Olsson’s sample is very small (n = 37). Still, the study gives an important insight into the relationship between extramural contacts and writing in English as a foreign language in general and different text features in particular.

In a longitudinal study, Olsson and Sylvén (2015) also investigated the effect of media-related extramural English contacts on the academic vocabulary of CLIL and non-CLIL students. As in Sundqvist’s study, students were asked to fill out a survey and keep a language diary. Students were then asked to write four argumentative and explanatory essays. The results reveal that CLIL students had slightly more extramural contacts and wrote and read English texts significantly more often outside of the classroom, which in turn seems to lead to a more positive attitude towards English. However, the frequency of extramural contacts did not significantly affect students’ test results and learning progress. The two authors even raise the question of whether or not extramural contacts might level the advantages in language learning for students attending CLIL classes. However, as the authors also note, the study does not answer how much vocabulary students are subjected to through extramural contacts (Olsson & Sylvén, 2015).

Sylvén (2019) further investigated the differences reported by Olsson and Sylvén (2015) with the same dataset. The language diaries from both measurement points again showed that CLIL students were exposed to a greater amount of media-related extramural English than non-CLIL students over time. In addition, the frequency of extramural contacts showed a positive correlation with sentence length and sentence types.

Results from Sylvén (2004, as cited in Sylvén & Sundqvist, 2015) support these findings. The data showed that Swedish CLIL students seem to not benefit as much from English within the classroom as from the use of English outside of school. In addition, although CLIL students on average scored higher than non-CLIL students, non-CLIL students who had a high level of media-related extramural English contacts scored higher than CLIL students who did not have frequent out-of-school exposure to English.

Two quasi-experimental studies further investigated the causal link between extramural English contacts and language competences. In his study, Kuppens (2010) recruited 374 primary students in the Netherlands, who did not have had any English instructions in school and did not have many extramural contacts with English before the study. The questionnaire included watching subtitled television, playing computer games, and listening to music as extramural categories. Non-subtitled movies, TV series, TV shows, websites, and radio were excluded since it could be assumed that a certain level of preexisting proficiency in English would have been necessary to utilize these media forms in a meaningful way. On the other hand, watching subtitled television does not require such a high level of proficiency, nor does listening to music or playing computer games. The results showed that students did use the mentioned media categories regularly. Watching subtitled television showed a significant influence on students’ language test results. Playing computer games also showed a significant effect but only for the English-to-Dutch test, not the other way around. Since the survey did not distinguish between different computer games, it is difficult to determine if variance regarding the preferred games might have influenced the results. The author also speculates that watching subtitled television might be functioning as a form of ‘gateway’ for eventually switching to monolingual television in English as well as the use of other media channels (e.g., fan sites, blogs) (Kuppens, 2010).

In their longitudinal study, Verspoor et al. (2011) compared a group of students who, for religious reasons, had minimal media-related extramural English contact (control group) with students who attended public schools and had the opportunity for regular extramural contact (experimental group). The data showed that lack of extramural contact had a long-term effect on students’ proficiency development. While the control group did not differ significantly in their language competences from the rest of the students at the beginning of the study, a significant difference was found after three years (Verspoor et al., 2011).

Overall, the results presented in this section strengthen the findings from studies focusing on specific media channels. A higher frequency of overall media-related extramural English contacts seems to be positively correlated with higher language competences. While some of these studies only reported correlative results, findings from Kuppens (2010) and Verspoor et al. (2011) lend support to the notion of a causal effect of these contacts on language competences. The results from these two studies also support the claim that extramural English contacts have a positive effect on language competence, even without additional in-class instruction.

4.4 Conclusion

This chapter began by arguing that regular media-related extramural English contact with English as a foreign language can lead to unprompted and unconscious language learning processes. When reading in English, listening to music, watching a movie, or playing a video game, learners usually do not have a dictionary at hand. Instead, they are concentrated on the content and need to derive the meaning of unknown words from the surrounding context. According to the input hypothesis, this will result in incidental language learning, as long as the input is comprehensible, i.e., slightly more complex than a person’s current level of competences. Under such conditions, learners can form plausible and practical hypotheses about the meaning of unknown words. This process is automatic, given that no significant cognitive obstacles or resistance are active (Krashen, 1982, 1985, 1989).

In addition, the chapter drew on the sociocultural theory and the output hypothesis and discussed the possibility of incidental language learning through output production, feedback, collaborative dialogue, interaction, and communication through interactive media platforms and games. According to the theory, learners will only reach the highest levels of language proficiency and self-regulated language use by interacting with other, more advanced learners or native speakers (Dunn & Lantolf, 1998; Lantolf, 2000, 2005, 2011; Swain, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978). Thus, frequent interactive extramural English contact can allow learners to increase their language competences as a by-product of other activities.

The empirical research presented in this chapter has supported the positive relationship between media-related extramural English contacts and learners’ language competences. In addition, newer studies on interactive online media activities, such as gaming or message boards, social media, or online communities, have also shown the advantages of interaction and output production for incidental language learning. While some studies can only report correlative findings, (quasi-) experimental studies have also provided evidence for the causal effect of extramural English contacts on language competences.

Together these findings suggest that learners should not only receive input but also produce, use and repeat new words and phrases on a regular basis in order to foster a higher conversion rate into long-term memory through repetition and forming links with other words within the mental lexicon (Hulstijn, 2001, 2013).

Despite these positive findings, the process of incidental language learning seems to be limited in terms of the scope and speed by which learning can take place. Most of the studies summarized above have focused on vocabulary gains. Studies that have tried to show increases in learners’ knowledge of grammar, morphology, or syntax have generally only reported a marginal effect or no effect at all. Indeed, studies have shown that presenting students with formal instruction before presenting them with an incidental learning opportunity produced larger learning effects for grammar tests (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999; Elley, 1997; Vidal, 2011). These results indicate that not all aspects of a foreign language can be easily acquired incidentally. While vocabulary, especially nouns, seems to be easy to pick up as a by-product of other activities, grammar seems to be too complex of a topic for such an incidental process. Instead, formal instruction and feedback seem to be needed for learners to grasp important grammatical concepts in a foreign language (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999). However, this does not diminish the importance of learning opportunities through incidental language learning. A rich and vast vocabulary is essential for language learners to master. In order to understand a message, learners must know the meaning and functions of words, as well as the conventional way in which they are used in the target language (Elley, 1997).

Empirical findings also indicate that incidental learning is a relatively slow process, with an unpredictable outcome, and prone to errors. Texts with 200,000 words or more are most likely needed for a person to learn 108 new words (Letchumanan et al., 2015; Sok, 2014; Webb & Rodgers, 2009), and learning gains from listening seem to be even smaller than gains from reading exposure (van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013; Vidal, 2011). It is thus not surprising that some studies have shown that intentional learning is more effective and faster, even for vocabulary learning in direct comparison (R. Ellis, 1999).

In addition, several factors have been shown to influence the speed and success of incidental language learning. This includes word characteristics (e.g., distinctiveness, polymeny, length, imageability, and correlation between form and meaning), frequency of exposure, repetition, text type, input complexity, contextual clues, learners’ language proficiency, and ability to guess words, mother tongue and motivation. In addition, the proportion of words already known and the students’ background knowledge has also been shown to influence the incidental learning process (N. C. Ellis, 1994; R. Ellis, 1999; Huckin & Coady, 1999; Hulstijn, 2003; Letchumanan et al., 2015; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Ramos, 2015; Sok, 2014).

These last two factors also underline the fact that extramural contacts might not be suitable for all language learners alike. As empirical research has shown, this might be especially true for auditory and audio-visual input (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999; Vidal, 2011). As movies and TV series were not made with the language learner in mind, the high pace, use of less frequent vocabulary, idioms, different dialects, and advanced syntax might simply be too difficult for beginners to follow. Listening to and watching authentic media content in English is, therefore, most likely not suited for low proficiency learners, as they lack the competence to distinguish words in running speech and cannot identify certain word characteristics correctly (d'Ydewalle, 2002; d'Ydewalle & van de Poel, 1999; Vidal, 2011). As a result, learners who have not yet reached the necessary threshold will probably not engage in watching movies and TV series on a regular basis, at least not without subtitles (Webb & Rodgers, 2009).

This problem might be less prominent in books or other forms of written material, in which the reader has more time to engage with the text. However, overall, learners seem to need to have reached a certain level of language proficiency (usually within an educational context) before they can enjoy more complex forms of media content. Otherwise, even the most compelling authentic input will just be incomprehensible noise (Krashen, 1982). This is also emphasized by Neuman and Koskinen (1992), who pointed out the importance of prior knowledge of vocabulary as a moderating variable for incidental learning outcomes. Similarly, Vidal (2011) also found both readers and listeners to benefit from explicit elaboration before the extramural contact. He concluded that explicit (classroom) instruction helps to foster robust connections between form and meaning. Olsson (2016) also suggests that form-focused instruction will enhance the quality and depth of learners’ vocabulary acquisition through incidental learning processes and might help with transforming receptive vocabulary knowledge into productive knowledge. Overall, the findings underline the importance of formal language instruction, especially in the beginning, in order to teach learners the most frequent vocabulary and linguistic principles of the target language (Hulstijn, 2001) as well as providing them comprehensible learning material for their competence level (Krashen, 1985).

In addition to these limitations of the incidental learning process, research has also yet to conclusively prove how incidental learning works within the brain. This is primarily due to the challenges in designing reliable, valid, and objective measurements, as it is difficult to measure what people do and how they deal with an unknown input while making sure that what is measured is, in fact, incidental learning.

Most research in the field of psychology has been experimental in nature, testing participants in a laboratory and sometimes using artificial language to avoid the problem of subjects’ prior knowledge of the language. As a result, findings from these studies cannot easily be generalized to naturalistic contexts (Hulstijn, 2003; Kuppens, 2010).

Most experiments were also only able to provide evidence for short-term effects since they tested participants shortly after exposure to the stimuli (Hulstijn, 2003; Kuppens, 2010). As Vidal points out, the findings might thus only represent the strength of memory traces due to exposure rather than real incidental learning in terms of new lexical entries (Vidal, 2011). Investigating long-term language acquisition would require frequent and intensive contact with a target language. Such intensive exposure is difficult to implement within the confinements of an experimental setting. Still, if people pick up vocabulary or grammar after only a short period of exposure, it is almost certain to assume that more prolonged exposure would result in similar, if not even greater language acquisition (Kuppens, 2010).

Furthermore, most experimental studies tend to have a problem with priming. In order to investigate incidental learning processes, participants cannot be told to read texts and try not to learn something, as that means ‘putting the elephant in the room’ (Bruton et al., 2011). Studies usually ask participants in the experimental group to read a text without telling them that they would be tested afterward, while they instructed the control groups to read a text and announced the post-test beforehand (Hulstijn, 2001, 2003). However, participation alone might be enough to prime participants to expect some kind of test (Sok, 2014). Newer studies usually instruct the experimental group that they will be tested about a certain stimulus and then test a different, second stimulus, for which no test was announced. However, even such experimental designs cannot ensure validity since it cannot be conclusively proven that participants did not have any outside motive to learn. Thus, it is rather difficult to implement a study that can indisputably claim to measure the effect of incidental learning (Hulstijn, 2001; Sok, 2014). Footnote 4

Studies outside of the field of psychology suffer to a lesser degree when it comes to these problems. Instead, they usually struggle to conclusively prove causality. While some studies have implemented quasi-experimental designs (e.g., Kuppens, 2010), most studies were carried out with learners who had already received years of classroom instruction in the target language. In addition, these studies often employed ex-post-facto study designs. It is thus difficult to determine how much of the increase in language competences over a certain period of time is due to extramural contacts and how much must be attributed to students’ prior knowledge and parallel classroom instructions.

Furthermore, while regular extramural English contact can be assumed to increase students’ language competence through incidental language learning processes, it is also very likely that students with high language competences are more likely to engage more frequently in media-related extramural English contact. This is further supported by findings suggesting that authentic media input might be especially challenging for beginners. Consequently, a learner’s language competence and their frequency of media-related extramural English contact will most likely influence each other. As a result of this unclear direction of causality, some of the studies presented above have only reported correlative effects. Thus, while high on ecological validity, most of these studies are relatively low on reliability.

In addition, frequency and form of students’ media-related extramural English contact were often measured via a self-report questionnaire in which students were asked to average their frequency of media contact. A detailed day-to-day analysis of media habits and the specific media content students encounter was therefore often not possible. Thus, some studies cannot assess the true nature and scope of language input students might have had, making definite conclusions about causality impossible. These last two limitations also apply to the present study.

Despite these shortcomings and open (research) questions, the empirical research summarized in this chapter has shown that media-related extramural English contact can have a positive relationship with learners’ language competences. Incidental language learning can most likely be a helpful and interesting route for language learning, especially for more advanced learners. Once students reach a certain level of language proficiency, they will be able to choose from various language sources outside of the educational system, enjoying them for their entertaining characteristics while increasing their language competences, without actively trying to store new information to memory. Learning effects are likely to be strongest for vocabulary, but other areas might also benefit. In addition, newer and more interactive forms of media content might allow learners to produce language output, form hypotheses, and test them in real-life interaction. Through this interaction, learners will also get feedback and assistance from advanced learners and native speakers.

The body of empirical studies summarized above was able to show positive effects for listening, reading, speaking, and even writing skills. Given the highly complex nature of writing in a foreign language, the latter is especially impressive. The present study will analyze the effect of extramural English contact simultaneously on students’ reading, writing, and listening skills (for details on language assessment, see the next chapter). Given the empirical results above, a positive effect of extramural English contacts on all three language skills can be expected. The final research hypothesis is, therefore:

H4: : The frequency of media-related extramural English contact will have a positive effect on students’ reading, listening, and writing skills.

In terms of how much of this process is implicit and how much is acquired through explicit processes, N. C. Ellis (1994) concludes that acquiring vocabulary (i.e., words, collocations, and grammatical class information) might mostly be an implicit process, while for the acquisition of sematic properties and mapping words from context explicit processes are more relevant, see also Rieder (2003). However there is still some doubt if learning without awareness is even possible (R. Ellis, 2008). Since the focus on this study is on incidental learning and not implicit/explicit learning, the distinction will not be discussed in detail here.

Content and language integrated learning can be defined as any form of classroom based instruction in which a foreign/minority or another state language is used as the language of instruction in a non-language related school subject, e.g., biology (Olsson (2016)).

Results reported here are from Sundqvist’s 2009 dissertation. The author has conducted several follow-up studies (Sundqvist, 2008, 2009b, 2011, 2012, 2013). Findings from these other publications will only be reported if they differ from the findings in the main thesis or if they add additional insight.

The same uncertainty seems to arise when it comes to the question of whether operationalizing implicit learning is, in fact, possible. On the other hand, there is consensus that it is possible to operationalize explicit knowledge (Hulstijn, 2002).

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Krüger, M. (2023). Theory of Second Language Acquisition. In: Media-Related Out-of-School Contact with English in Germany and Switzerland. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42408-4_4

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Acquisition–learning hypothesis

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The acquisition–learning hypothesis is a hypothesis that forms part of Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition . [1] It states that there are two independent ways in which we develop our linguistic skills: acquisition and learning . According to Krashen acquisition is more important than learning.

1 Acquisition
3 Implications for teachers
4 References

Acquisition [ edit | edit source ]

Acquisition of language is a subconscious process and the learner is unaware of the process taking place. Once the new knowledge has been acquired, the learner is actually unaware of possessing such knowledge.

This is analogous to the way in which children learn their native language .

Learning [ edit | edit source ]

Learning a language involves formal instruction and is therefore a conscious process. New language forms are represented and possibly contrasted consciously by the learner as "rules" and “ grammar .” These "rules" - while known by the student - may well have no actual impact on the language produced by the student.

A good example would be the third person “s" - a structure "learnt" in the first few weeks of any English course but frequently not “acquired" until very much later.

Implications for teachers [ edit | edit source ]

It is clear that as teachers we want to maximise our student’s opportunities to acquire language. Consequently, if we accept the hypothesis then we need to spend more time using authentic language with our students as opposed to teaching them explicit grammar rules.

On the other hand, many students equate learning grammar rules with learning the language and attempting to re-focus teaching away from this method may meet with resistance.

References [ edit | edit source ]

↑ Schütz, Ricardo. “Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition.” English Made in Brazil
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Acquisition / learning (krashen’s hypotheses series, #3 of 9).

All of the posts about Stephen Krashen’s Hypotheses are available here .

(Previous post: The Monitor Hypothesis)

The next post in this series (#4/9), The Natural Order of Acquisition , is found here .

A: The A cquisition/Learning Hypothesis

Very important for teachers to get

“Language acquisition and language learning are two different things.”

Language acquisition is an unconscious process. Acquisition happens when the student is hearing the language or reading in the language but is focused on something other than on the language itself as subject matter. Acquisition happens when the student is focused on the message.

Language learning is conscious, focused and purposeful. It can feel difficult. Ironically, what passes for learning is often nothing more than short term memorization that is quickly forgotten.

Acquisition is a by-product of hearing or reading comprehended messages in the target language. Acquisition tends to be long term. Only language that has been acquired can be used instantly and readily. Anyone of normal cognitive ability can acquire language, but consciously learning a language by methodically memorizing vocabulary and drilling grammar rules can be done by only a limited percentage of students–and many researchers would say that even those few have actually acquired the language by meaningful comprehensible input along the way.

Here are some charts comparing Acquisition and Learning in theory, in teaching and in learning:

The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis highlights two very different ideas about language teaching and learning that can be summarized as follows:

Input leads to output. Acquisition-based teaching with meaningful comprehensible input.

Output leads to output. Traditional learning-based teaching with grammar rules and output-based “practice”.

Read more about the acquisition / learning distinction in Understanding TPRS .

APPLYING THE ACQUISITION/LEARNING HYPOTHESIS IN THE CLASSROOM :

Minimize explicit grammar. Keep the acquisition/learning distinction in mind and go light on explicit teaching and learning of grammar—especially with younger students.
Emphasize acquisition over learning. Focus on acquisition-based activities: input above output.
Focus on the message. Remember that practice looks different under the acquisition model. In a traditional classroom with a learning-based model, students are shown a grammar rule and then they practice it. This rarely results in fluent language use and the rules are quickly forgotten after the unit and test. Students acquire the grammar and vocabulary of the language without being consciously aware as they focus on messages. With enough input, students begin to develop an ear for the language. They are able to apply grammar rules because “it just sounds right” to them.

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The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: Definition and Criticism
Criticism of the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis. The first critique of Krashen's Monitor Model is that the hypothesized distinction between acquisition and learning as posited by the acquisition-learning hypothesis, or, more specifically, determining whether the process involved in language production resulted from implicit acquisition or explicit learning, is impossible to prove.
A review of theoretical perspectives on language learning and acquisition
Second, in The Acquisition/Learning Theory, learners have two distinctive ways of developing competence in L2—acquisition is where the learners use language for real communication, while learning is where the learners know about the language. Third, in The Monitor Hypothesis, L2 learners are conscious of their learning process and this ...
Stephen Krashen's Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
His Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis is the centerpiece of his academic work. Krashen's Acquisition-Learning hypothesis revolves around the concept of "comprehensible input," a term which essentially means "messages that can be understood." Comprehensible input is best received when the learner is hearing something that he or she wants ...
PDF On teaching strategies in second language acquisition
The natural order hypothesis The natural order hypothesis is based on research findings (Stephen Krashen, 1988; et al.) which suggested that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a "natural order" which is predictable. The input hypothesis The input hypothesis is Stephen Krashen's attempt to explain how the learner acquires a ...
Language Acquisition Theory In Psychology
The acquisition of auxiliaries BE and HAVE: an elicitation study. Journal of Child Language, 32(2): 587-616. Further Reading. An excellent article by Steven Pinker on Language Acquisition. Pinker, S. (1995). The New Science of Language and Mind. Penguin. Tomasello, M. (2005). Constructing A Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition ...
Krashen and Terrell's "Natural Approach"
The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis. First is the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, which makes a distinction between "acquisition," which he defines as developing competence by using language for "real communication" and "learning." which he defines as "knowing about" or "formal knowledge" of a language (p.26). This ...
Was Krashen right? Forty years later
In this essay, we focus on three of Krashen's five fundamental hypotheses: The Acquisition-Learning Distinction, The Natural Order Hypothesis, and The Input Hypothesis. We argue that these ideas persist today as the following constructs: implicit versus explicit learning, ordered development, and a central role for communicatively embedded ...
PDF Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning
discusses the acquisition-learning distinction and the possibility that acquisition is available to the adult second language performer. The Monitor Theory differs somewhat from these points of view, in that it makes some very specific hypotheses about the inter-relation between acquisition and learning in the adult.
PDF Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition
These variables include: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Krashen claims that learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to 'raise' the affective filter ...
What Is The Second Language Acquisition Theory?
The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between the acquisition and learning systems. We already know that Krashen believes the former is far more important than the latter when acquiring a language. The monitor hypothesis defines the influence of learning on the acquired language.
Language Acquisition
Skinner published a behaviorist theory of language acquisition, suggesting that reinforcement and punishment shape "verbal behavior," thus allowing young children to learn language (Skinner, 1957). ... These questions also frame research in another domain of language learning: morphosyntax acquisition. Morphosyntax: Learning Grammar.
(PDF) How we can learn from acquisition: the acquisition-learning
Whong, M, Marsden, H and Gil, K-H (2013) How we can learn from acquisition: the acquisition-learning debate revisited. In: Proceedings of the 12th Generative. Approaches to Second Language ...
Second Language Acquisition Theory
1. Acquisition Learning Hypothesis. According to Krashen, there are two second language performance systems. - Acquired system, where language is acquired subconsciously. This happens when a child, for example, who has been exposed to a language in a natural environment, like home or school, starts reproducing correct grammatical structures ...
A Complete Overview of Steve Krashen's Theory of Language Acquisition
The acquisition-learning hypothesis is the foundation of Krashen's theory. According to this hypothesis, there are two ways to develop language skills: acquisition and learning. Acquisition refers to the subconscious process of acquiring language through immersion and exposure to the language. Learning, on the other hand, is a conscious ...
The Inspiring Impact Of Krashen's Theory Of Second Language Acquisition
Acquisition-learning Hypothesis: Krashen distinguishes between language acquisition, which is the natural, subconscious process of absorbing language through exposure, and language learning, which refers to the conscious, explicit knowledge of language rules and formal instruction. According to this hypothesis, language acquisition is more ...
PDF INSIGHTS INTO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY AND DIFFERENT ...
The acquisition-learning hypothesis (Krashen, 2003) claims that there are two independent ways of developing second language competence: The first one is language 'acquisition' which states that acquisition is a subconscious process; the process which children and adult undergo while they acquire L1. The second is language 'learning'.
KRASHEN'S HYPOTHESES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: Introduction (#1 of 9)
A = The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis ; N = The Natural Order of Acquisition Hypothesis I = The Input Hypothesis; A = The Affective Filter Hypothesis; C = The Compelling Input Hypothesis (2011) If this mnemonic does not seem respectful or serious enough to you, think about rearranging the letters like this when you present them to your students:
PDF Krashen's Five Proposals on Language Learning: Are They Valid in ...
Keywords: language acquisition, language learning, Monitor theory, Stephen Krashen, EFL classes, EFL methodology 1. Introduction Unlike some earlier theories about language learning, Krashen's theory on second language acquisition (SLA) has been stated in simple language- in words the majority of teachers can understand, and uses examples from
Input hypothesis
The acquisition-learning hypothesis claims that there is a strict separation between acquisition and learning; Krashen saw acquisition as a purely subconscious process and learning as a conscious process, and claimed that improvement in language ability was only dependent upon acquisition and never on learning.
Theory of Second Language Acquisition
The scientific field of second language acquisition (SLA), as it emerged in the 1970s, is concerned with the conditions and circumstances in which second and foreign language learning occurs. Although sometimes used synonymously, the terms second language and foreign language describe two different aspects: a second language refers to the official language within the country of residence ...
Acquisition-learning hypothesis
The acquisition-learning hypothesis is a hypothesis that forms part of Krashen's theory of second language acquisition. [1] It states that there are two independent ways in which we develop our linguistic skills: acquisition and learning. According to Krashen acquisition is more important than learning.
ACQUISITION / LEARNING (Krashen's Hypotheses Series, #3 of 9)
All of the posts about Stephen Krashen's Hypotheses are available here. (Previous post: The Monitor Hypothesis) The next post in this series (#4/9), The Natural Order of Acquisition, is found here. MANIAC A: The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis Very important for teachers to get "Language acquisition and language learning are two different things." […]