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Site: Isotis
Course: Promoting Second Language Learning
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Date: Sunday, 23 February 2025, 12:08 AM

Table of contents

1. The 4 stages of Second Language Acquisition

 Tabors (1997) identifies four main stages in Early Second Language Acquisition (ESLA):

  1. When the child first enters an environment where his/her home language is not spoken, he/she might still try to communicate with others using his/her language. This stage is normally fairly brief, because the child soon realises that his/her language is not understood by others.
  2. The child then enters the silent or non-verbal period, in which he/she mainly relies on non-verbal communication. This stage typically lasts between two and six months and is characterised by the employment of active listening and speech processing, through which the child explores the words, rules and expressions that are typical of the new language. The child may practice the language on his/her own, but does not use it to communicate with others.
  3. The silent period is followed by the telegraphic speech stage, during which the child utters his/her first speech productions in his/her second language (L2). The child communicates by using brief ready-made sentences that are typical of routine situations, such as “Happy birthday!” and “More water”. The acquisition of these formulaic phrases plays a key role in ESLA because it enables the child to interact with classmates and teachers.
  4. The final stage of ESLA is referred to as interlanguage; the child manages to communicate in his/her L2 but still makes a lot of mistakes caused by interference from his/her first language (L1).

 

2. Factors that influence L2 development

It should be noted that a child’s L2 competence cannot always be placed in a specific stage of ESLA; children sometimes display linguistic behaviours that are typical of different stages. Cummins (2000) states that it normally takes between 5 and 7 years of using and being immersed in a second language in order to acquire a level of L2 proficiency that is entirely suitable for schooling. 

The amount of time required to acquire this degree of L2 competence depends on a number of different factors, such as: 

  • the age of first exposure to the L2 (generally the earlier, the better);
  • the level of L1 competence;
  • the quantity and quality of linguistic input in both L1 and L2 that the child is exposed to on a daily basis;
  • the degree of motivation to learn the L2;
  • the similarity and “compatibility” between the two languages;
  • the child’s family’s Socio-Economic Status (SES). 

All these factors need to be taken into account by educators and teachers when evaluating the child’s L2 performance, in order to avoid mistaking errors that are typical of ESLA for signs indicating the presence of Specific Language Impairment or Specific Learning Disability.

Research has identified expressive vocabulary in L2 as one of the main weaknesses of bilingual children (Gibson et al., 2012), suggesting it should be one of the main targets of intervention programmes aimed at strengthening L2 skills. These kinds of intervention programmes are most effective when carried out at preschool or nursery level and when they involve explicit teaching of vocabulary and collaborative storytelling and reading (Barbieri & Bernabini, 2018). 

 

3. References and resources