Lexicon and Second Language Acquisition

Dear Students,

In your opinion, how is the development of lexicon, “the vocabulary of a particular language, field, social class, person, etc.’ in L2 impacted or related to learner’s first language and culture? What role do form and meaning play in acquiring new lexicon?

What strategies do you and your students employ to acquire second language lexicon and what factors, in your opinion affect word learnability?

We look forward to your comments.

Beyond the Domain of Language

We discussed last week factors beyond the language domain in second language acquisition including personal and cultural factors. It was apparent from the discussion that we all experienced these factors to a certain degree while learning or teaching second language.

In your opinion, how did "affect", "aptitude", "motivations", "social distance", "personality and learning styles", and "learning strategies" impact second language acquisition.

We look forward to reading your comments.

How L2 Acquisition Informs Classroom Practices

Many different factors impact the acquisition of second language. I thought it might be useful for us to discuss in depth, how (based on the material you read, class discussion, and your personal experience) does input and interactions impact output? and how does output reflect second language acquisition and to what degree?

By clarifying this, we might be able, as teachers, to better design and deliver input that maximizes learning, and seek such input as learners. It might also help us better interpret the students' output to ensure that both instruction and material used meet the specific needs of the students.

Please feel free to incorporate in your answers whatever concepts, theories, methods or approaches you think are relevant to the discussion. The purpose is to understand how second language acquisition might inform classroom practices.

We look forward to reading your comments.

~Nesreen

Introduction

Dear Students and Colleagues,

Welcome to our Second Language Acquisition blog. I decided to create this forum and invite you to post and comment after reading the class reflections written by the students of DePaul Second Language Acquisition course offered by Modern Languages, which I teach.

The true nature of the experiences that the participants in the course expressed in their weekly reflections which highlighted understanding and interaction with the material presented in the course, communication with others in class, and the ability to reflect and tie these experiences to personal learning and teaching was, in my opinion, exceptional and worth sharing.

I believe through establishing this forum and asking students and others to participate, we can create a public platform to discuss, share, learn, enjoy, network, and make learning relevant to our daily activities and experiences. I hope that this will continue to be a place where we can meet and keep track of each others' progress and learning.

Let us start with the basic and share our perceptions of what language teachers should know about SLA.

Hope to see you all here soon.

~Nesreen


Nesreen Akhtarkhavari, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor & Arabic Studies Director
DePaul University
Chicago, Illinois