Unlocking the Secrets of Language Acquisition
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Second Language Learning: Overcoming the Intermediate Plateau
In this episode I discuss the difference between learning a language in a traditional classroom versus acquiring it naturally through immersion and practice. I reflect on my own experiences learning Spanish in school compared to acquiring French through podcasts and real-life interactions.
I will talk about hitting the Intermediate Plateau in language learning and how I overcame it by seeking out more challenging materials. I introduce you to Professor Stephen Krashen's theory of Second Language Acquisition, which includes hypotheses about language acquisition, the natural order of language learning, the role of grammar instruction, the importance of comprehensible input, and the influence of affective factors like motivation and confidence.
Ultimately, I encourage you to embrace the journey and challenges of language acquisition.
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If you speak English at an intermediate or advanced level, there is a good possibility that you’ve spent years in class, listening to teachers. You’ve been taught the rules of English, but you probably didn’t speak a lot of English in class.
What are the disadvantages of learning a foreign language in school?
[00:10]
The reason that you didn’t speak much English in class is because you were taught English. You could be thinking to yourself, “Yes, of course I was taught English. That’s why I can speak English.” But in reality, there are different ways to learn to speak a foreign language.
When I talk about learning a foreign language, I speak from experience. When I was in school, I was taught Spanish. I was taught the same way most people are taught a new language in school. I went to class with other students. We had teachers and textbooks. The teachers spent their time teaching us the rules of the Spanish language, in English. We spent most of our time learning the rules of the Spanish language, in English. We spent a little bit of time memorizing vocabulary lists and short dialogues in Spanish. But we didn’t really speak Spanish. Does that process sound familiar to you?
After being taught Spanish in school for 6 years, I was not prepared to have a conversation. Most of the people that I have met since leaving school that were taught a second language at a school in the United States have had the same experience as I’ve had. After years of learning a language in school, they can’t really speak that language.
How do we acquire our first language?
[02:00]
The reason for this is that there are differences between how we all learned our first language and how we were taught a second language. We didn’t really learn our first language, we acquired it. When we were all very young, we listened to those around us and started mimicking the sounds that they made. Because we were not very good at repeating the sounds that we heard others making, our attempts to mimic those around us were referred to as “baby talk” or babble.
As time went by, we started to understand that the sounds that the people around us were making actually had some meaning. The sounds that we were making sounded more and more like the sounds that we were hearing. We started to understand those around us, and they started to understand us. That’s when we started speaking and understanding our native languages.
We were not taught to memorize rules about the languages we were speaking. We listened to the people around us, we started to understand, and started speaking. This is called Language Acquisition or natural learning.
After I finished school, I worked with many people who had come to the United States from Central America and South America. They had come to find a better life, but unfortunately, most of these people spoke little English or none at all. Because I had been taught Spanish, I was able to speak on the most basic level, but still could not really communicate well.
So, we taught each other. I would say what I could in Spanish. They would say what they could in English. A lot of time was spent pointing at objects and asking what they were called in the other language. We would answer each other in the language that each of us spoke. The person that had asked what something was called, would repeat the sounds that they had just heard. We corrected each other’s mistakes the same way adults had helped us when we were younger. As time went by, we all improved. We started understanding each other. We learned each other’s languages much like we had learned our own languages as children. And that, once again my friends is Language Acquisition.
What is language acquisition?
[04:05]
Decades later, while working on a ranch, I encountered a couple who owned and operated a tour company. Because they were having difficulty finding dependable employees they asked if I would like to work for them.
The tours were two weeks long and the guests went from one camp to the next on horses. I was told that I would ride horses on some days but on most other days I would move camp using trucks and trailers. It all sounded exciting and fun, so I went to work for them.
When I got to the first camp, I discovered that all of the guests were from Europe, specifically Germany, and Austria. They all spoke German and a few of them spoke English. On the next tour, the group was a mixture of people from Germany and France. Almost everyone that I met for the next two years were from Europe. And while I was extremely comfortable speaking Spanish, most of the guests that I met spoke German, French or Dutch. Unfortunately for me none of them spoke Spanish. So, I did what I had done decades earlier. I pointed at things around camp to learn how to say them in other languages. As time passed, I learned how to ask simple questions and understand simple answers. Once again, I was learning using Language Acquisition.
How to learn another language?
[05:30]
Because of this experience, I decided that I wanted to learn another language. For a variety of reasons, I chose French. I didn’t want to go to classes and be taught about French like I had been taught about Spanish in school. I wanted to learn how to speak and understand. So, I looked on the internet for online French lessons. Most of what I found on the internet did not feel like what I was looking for. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on language lessons. Okay, I’m cheap, I didn’t want to spend any money.
So, I looked on iTunes, and found free language learning podcasts. I listened to the first couple of episodes from several different producers. The podcast that I liked the most was called Coffee Break French . It had a teacher talking to a student who was really learning French during the episodes. After each time the teacher said something there was a short pause to give the listener (me) a chance to repeat what the teacher and student had said. The episodes were short and entertaining, and I was learning French. I wasn’t learning about French. I was learning to speak French.
After listening and re-listening to the first two seasons, I went to Paris and was able to speak to Parisians. I spoke fairly basic French. Sure, I made mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes while they are learning. But I was speaking French, and I was happy. Then something happened.
Intermediate Plateau meaning
[07:10]
Every language learner gets to the point where they are not learning or progressing as fast as they were when they first started learning. This is referred to as the Intermediate Plateau. And I was no exception.
I had reached that point speaking Spanish decades earlier. I could hold conversations as long as they were not too complicated. I used Spanish when I travelled and sometimes at work. Occasionally I thought that I should try to find a way to improve my Spanish, but it seemed that it would be a lot of work and I wasn’t sure if I had the time. I guess it didn’t seem important enough to make time for. So, I did what a lot of people do when they reach the Intermediate Plateau. I got discouraged and gave up. I still spoke Spanish, I just stopped improving.
Just a little side note here. You may feel like you have reached the Intermediate plateau in something else in life besides language learning. You have. It happens to people who are learning all sorts of things. I’ve heard the term Intermediate Plateau used by people talking about playing musical instruments, dancing, working out, and rock climbing. You’ll reach an Intermediate Plateau in almost anything you can learn to do.
How to overcome the Intermediate Plateau
[08:34]
Unfortunately, after three or four years learning and speaking French, I had once again reached the Intermediate Plateau. I had been here before, so I was familiar with what was happening. I wasn’t learning as fast. I started to get discouraged, only this time, I was determined not to give up. I decided to spend more time and put out more effort than I did the first time I hit the Intermediate Plateau speaking Spanish. So, I paid for the next two seasons of Coffee Break French. Yeah, that’s right, I could tell I was serious about improving because I paid for lessons to help me improve. I could have used the free podcasts that they offer, but I had been thinking for a while that it would be easier to learn if I could read along with what I was listening to. I had also heard several podcasts in different languages saying how helpful this would be.
I went back to the internet looking for more, and different sources of material in French and Spanish. I found another set of podcasts, called Inner French that I found interesting. They were aimed at people like me intermediate learners. The podcasts were about interesting subjects. They were written at a level that I could understand but that I found challenging. And you could also get free transcripts for each podcast. They were created by a man named Hugo Cotton. His first podcast is where I first heard the term Language Acquisition.
Decades earlier my co-workers and I had pointed at things and tried to ask each other how to say them in each other’s languages. It was all extremely basic, but we were trying to learn how to communicate with each other. We were learning how to speak each other’s languages the way you and I, and the rest of the world had learned our first languages. Now I know that there is a name for how we all learned how to communicate. Language acquisition.
The Theory of Second Language Acquisition
[10:45]
All of the podcasts and videos that we will be making here are based on the theory of Second Language Acquisition made popular by Professor Stephen Krashen, an expert in linguistics at the University of Southern California.
Professor Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition has five parts or hypotheses. We have just been talking about the first hypothesis, the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, which is about the differences between language learning and language acquisition. Language acquisition happens naturally. It’s how we all learned to communicate with the world around us when we were children. Language learning is a conscious process. Language learning is formal instruction. It is when we are taught about a language. An example of language learning is when we are taught the rules of grammar.
The second part of doctor Krashen’s theory, the Natural Order hypothesis suggests that every language has a natural order in which it is acquired. That means that the order in which you acquire a language does not depend on you, the individual person, it depends on the language that is being acquired.
The third part of Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition is the Monitor hypothesis. The monitor hypothesis explains the differences between acquisition and learning and defines the influences of learning on acquisition. The monitor function is a result of being taught the rules of the language. It’s when your mind wants to correct what you are saying to make sure you don’t make any mistakes.
According to Krashen, the monitor corrects deviations from normal speech to make the speaker sound more polished, and correct. There are also differences in how each of our monitors work depending on our personalities. Outgoing people known as extroverts generally do not use their monitors as much as introverts. Introverts tend to hesitate before speaking, because they need to analyze what they are going to say. They want to be sure that what they are saying is correct. Apparently, extroverts prefer to get their messages across at the cost of correctness more than introverts do.
The fourth part of Krashen’s theory, the Input hypothesis, is an attempt to explain how second language acquisition happens. According to the hypothesis, learners improve and progress when they are given comprehensible input that is just above the level that the learner is at. Basically, in order to progress, you have to be challenged to move on to the next level. And finally, the input hypothesis states that fluency can’t be taught, it emerges. The only way to teach someone to speak is to provide comprehensible input.
All of the videos that we produce are meant to give you Comprehensible Input. To let you hear English spoken the way that real English speakers use the language. You will probably find words and phrases that you don’t understand. That’s good. That’s how you learn. We will explain them, or you can do your own research.
Hopefully, you will find the videos to be interesting enough that you will keep watching. Regularly immersing yourself in the language you are learning is an excellent way to improve your skills in that language.
How emotions affect language learning?
[14:20]
The final hypothesis, the Affective Filter hypothesis tells us that there are variables that play a role in second language acquisition. These variables include motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, and environment. Being highly motivated, with self-confidence, and low anxiety is a great recipe for learning success.
Negative feelings such as lack of motivation, lack of self-confidence, or anxiety can act as filters that hinder language acquisition. Trying to learn a new skill while in the wrong environment or in the wrong frame of mind can make learning anything more difficult or even impossible. And trying to do anything while telling yourself that it is too difficult for you, or that you can’t do it, is called a Self-Defeating Prophesy. You’ll never be able to do anything if you tell yourself that you can’t.
So, remember Learning a Language is an Adventure and a Journey. It is a process that isn’t always easy, but it is something that you can do. And if it is something that you want to do, it’s worth it.
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External links
These links take you to the websites about the organizations and people I mentioned in my podcast.
Coffee Break French: is a production of the Radio Lingua Network and produces all Coffee Break Languages courses.
Inner French and Hugo Cotton: Hugo created innerFrench to offer a different way to learn French.
Theory of Second Language Acquisition made popular by Professor Stephen Krashen