“Does the first language cause interference?” The biggest question in my mind at this time and the first one VanPatten answers in his FAQ chapter. As is the case with most academic answers, he explains that “yes and no,” the first language can be a crutch, but that we all go through the same process to learn our second language, no matter what. The big question, though, is also hard to completely answer through research as it is “slippery” to test how much of the L1 transfers to aid in learning the L2.

We spoke about the second question, “What about the use of the first language in the classroom?” in class. It’s a balance and, of course, social implications must be examined.

This is one concept behind language acquisition that is most fascinating to me: “It is possible, then, that the differences we see between L1 and L2 acquisition are also attributable to external factors and not to internal processes.” How much of our perspective (cultural and linguistic) plays a role in our ability to become proficient in an L2?

I’ve often operated under the assumption that non-romance languages would be harder for me to learn, considering English has some romance language influence. It was humbling to realize and accept that, “Every language has some things that kids get right away and other things that even school-aged kids mess up, but as a whole no language can be considered easier or harder.”

Obviously, I have not been succinct, but these were my favorite parts of the chapter.

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I’m so happy to read that, as a member of a confused generation of students taught through inconsistent philosophies about the need for phonics over meaning-based over reading-intensive, there seems to be more consensus for the next generation. This text agrees with the other research-based texts I’ve read that scream from the rooftops that we must be teaching meaning-based lessons, not just decoding. We must also strike a balance between our methods.

This book also makes me want to start a program for story book reading at local fast food restaurants (because they are hubs) in highly ELL-populated areas, so that these students and their parents get as much interaction as possible in the desired L2 of English. These in-class model examples are useful!

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It’s helpful to note that “output,” like “input,” only refers to communicative, meaning-bearing output in the field of SLA. Output processing refers to “access” and “production strategies.” Good grief, the brain does some amazing things. Somehow it stores the idea of an object, the word (or lemma) for the object, the grammar surrounding all that involves the object that the user wishes to communicate, and then it tells the motor cortex what and how to communicate it.

The brain “fills in the gaps” whenever necessary (especially when learning an L2), or, uses a “communication strategy” if they cannot access the proper steps in the hierarchy. The trickiest and most profound (yet simple) part of all of this is that I’m learning about language through language and then communicating (producing output) through language. My declarative knowledge about English led me to develop procedural knowledge enough to read and communicate somewhat intelligently. Phew.

This chapter was quite full, a good bridge from the two chapters preceding. This one went much deeper into the network and connection-making that our brains have mastered as speakers of language. There are so many rules about syntax within the English language native speakers don’t know that they know. I can recall a teacher instructing us about a certain grammatical rule saying, “You’ll just know it’s wrong when you hear it.” Obviously, that’s not going to fly in a room with non-native speakers.

This chapter also goes into the differences and implications of accommodation and restructuring with regard to the development in the linguistic system. Accommodation and restructuring through instruction bring about change.

Once again, I came into reading this chapter with a mindset that the chapter’s focus on “input” would be somewhat simple, knowing that this is a general overview of SLA. I’m humbled again as this is not an easy concept to grasp upon diving deeper. During my reading, I asked one of the questions in upper right hand corner out loud to myself: “How do learners get linguistic data from the input?” Ask a child this question and they might come up with the same initial answer I thought: they just do. VanPatten points out how different it is to learn a language than it is to learn anything else because when one learns how to count or about the batting average of their favorite baseball player, they do so through language. Learning how to make connections between what are really arbitrary symbols, sounds, words, and data is just a tiny bit of what makes learning a language so challenging and different than learning other content.

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This chapter helped answer a lot of the general questions I had about SLA and bring new questions to the surface. I trust VanPatten will answer these new ones in the future. I did not realize that SLA was such a young field, though I should have known, as the academic world has only recently made efforts to avoid xenocentrism and to reflect on culture from many perspectives. Of course, as VanPatten admitted, the five “givens” really are simple on the surface and are ones we could have identified in class. However, it was interesting to read VanPatten’s reflection on the details behind these “givens.” We, as those who could have so wisely discovered these five on our own, only accept them as “givens” because learning our first language was so natural. We recognize these “givens” because of the work that we have already done to learn our initial language (and perhaps a second).