ACQUIRING A SECOND LANGUAGE

Abstract

Perhaps the most important discovery researchers in second‐language acquisition have made in recent years is something that most people knew already: acquiring a second language is not simply a matter of ‘knowing the rules’. Real second‐language competence is subconscious knowledge, similar to knowledge of a first language. Competent second‐language users, like competent users of the native language, do not think grammatical rules when they are producing or understanding the second language, and in many cases never consciously ‘learned’ the rules they use so well. (Grammar rules do help in certain limited situations: good ‘grammar’ users can apply conscious rules when they have time to think about and use them, as in writing, but even here our research indicates that grammar use makes a very modest contribution to grammatical accuracy. For most people, using ‘grammar’ in real conversation only leads to trouble. Constantly referring to rules gives one a very hesitant style of speaking that is not pleasant to listen to, and some of us have the bad habit of constructing our sentences via grammar rules while the other person is talking, which means that we are not listening!)