Language
Acquisition || Language Learning || Mother Tongue || Foreign Language
Language Acquisition
Refers to the process by which people (children,
adolescents, and adults) acquire a language.
Characteristics
of Language Acquisition
It is natural because is the result of real
interaction between people in natural environment, in order words, people
acquire a language when they hear people speaking (based on oral language or communication).
It is based on meaningful interaction; it means that
when people acquire a langue, they just focus on meanings not on form.
It is subconscious in the way that when people acquire
a language, they are not aware of it. They do not even know that they are acquiring
a language. They just acquire it.
In language acquisition, people produce an ability in
language.
Language Learning
Refers to study of the language as system, mainly in
its written form. The aim is to understand the structure (form) of the language
and produce knowledge about it.
Characteristics of Language Learning
It takes place in classrooms (formal teaching). Moreover,
it focus on form and knowledge production, here the students are taught the
form and structure of a language and later they produce knowledge based on the
form and structure they are introduced by the teacher. For instance, the
teacher introduces them the structure of present simple for transitive verbs:
Subject+verb+object. The sentence: peter eats bananas. Then the students will
be able to write their own sentence based on structure they are introduced
(knowledge production).
It is conscious due to the students are aware of
learning a language. In addition to this, here the people (students) know that
they are learning a language.
Mother Tongue
Mother tongue is the first language of a person. In
addition to this, mother tongue is the language a person grows up with it. For instance, I am from Gaza province,
Mozambique. My mother tongue is Changana. It is my mother tongue because I grew
up with this.
Foreign
Language
Foreign Language is a language that belongs to another
people's country. Furthermore, it is not used as official and national language
in your country. For instance, Zulu language is a language of South Africa. So
in Mozambique, it is considered as foreign language because belong to another
country which is South Africa. Further example of foreign language: English,
German, French, Afrikaans, etc.
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