5 - 7 years to reach grade
level proficiency (factors
include: age of arrival, prior
schooling, native language
literacy)
Example of Cognitive Theory An infant
experiences the house cat; they know
that it meows, is furry, purrs, eats from a
bowl in the kitchen – hence develops the
concept of cat first then learns to map
the word “kitty” onto that concept
Sociocultural Theory
Lily Wong Filmore
Fillmore stated that teachers can't do the job they have to do without the support of parents and
school administrators, so it is crucial that they understand what it takes to educate children in two
languages, how long it takes for children to master both languages, and why the process is not
helped by over-emphasizing test performance.
Child Language Data Exchange System
(CHILDES) database
Catherine Snow
contributed significantly to theories of bilingualism
and language acquisition through parent-child
interaction.
Nativist Theory
Noam
Chomsky
Chomsky suggests that language is an
innate faculty - that is to say that
we are born with a set of rules
about language in our heads
which he refers to as the
'Universal Grammar'. The
universal grammar is the basis
upon which all human languages
build.
Annotations:
Nativist Theory views
language acquisition as innately determined. Theorists believe that human
beings are born with a built-in device of some kind that predisposes them to
acquire language.
Innate Theory
Stephen
Krashen
It is based on 5 hypotheses: 1. Acquisition/learning
hypothesis 2. Monitor hypothesis 3. The natural
order hypothesis 4. The input hypothesis 5. The
affective filter hypothesis