Second Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Introduction

The process of learning a Second Language is not only determined by the effective presentation of a teaching model, but also enter other factors involved as national procurement principles language. Principles widely discussed and both the teacher as the student must consider. As already mentioned, the fact of learning a language involves not only language skills, but also knowledge of sociolinguistic aspects, or strategic discourse. Similarly, the acquisition of language cannot be separated from cognitive character implies since language and thought process are two elements intrinsic of language learning (Ortega, 2009).

Discussion

The cognitive constructivism

The idea that the acquisition and development of language are derived from development of reasoning in the child denies the autonomy of the call mechanism of language acquisition as domain specific linguistic knowledge. In other words, the acquisition of language depends on development of intelligence in children. The approach called cognitive constructivist or epigenetic was developed based on studies Epistemologist Swiss Jean Piaget, whereby the appearance of language occurs in overcoming sensor motor stage, around 18 months. At this stage of development cognitive, a kind of “Copernican revolution”, using the words of the Piaget (1979), there is the development of symbolic function, through which a significant (or signal) can represent an object meaning, beyond the development of representation by which the experience can be stored and retrieved. These two functions are closely related to three other processes that occur concurrently and that contribute to the overcoming of what Piaget calls “Radical self-centeredness”, present in sensor motor period, according to which there 'A lack of differentiation between subject and object to the point that the first one does not know even as a source of their actions. “In other words, the author speaks here of cognitive dedifferentiation between the subject and the world or people around you. These three cases are listed below:

the decentralization of actions in relation to the body itself, i.e. between subject and object (or between “self” and “other” or “I” and “the world”), the subject begins to known as the source or master of his movements;

the gradual coordination of actions, “rather than continuing to each form a small whole in itself, “they begin to coordinate to form a connection between means and ends;

the permanence of the object, whereby the object remains the same and equal to himself even when not present in the child's perceptual space.

By means of (a), (b) and (c) it is possible the effective use of the symbol, the representation a sign on the other, to exercise the principle of arbitrariness of the symbol. The child passing, for example, to be able to use a matchbox to “pretend” (Represent) which is a little truck. Likewise, for the child, an object, if displaced from its perceptual field continues to exist (i.e., the object becomes permanent). With language, symbolic play, the mental image, the successive coordination between actions and between these and the subject, the possibility arises internalize and conceptualize actions: ...