Other concepts have also been influential in the speculation about the processes of building internal systems of second-language information. Some thinkers hold that language processing handles distinct types of knowledge. For instance, one component of the Monitor Model, propounded by Krashen, posits a distinction between “acquisition” and “learning.”According to Krashen, L2 acquisition is a subconscious process of incidentally “picking up” a language, as children do when becoming proficient in their first languages. Language learning, on the other hand, is studying, consciously and intentionally, the features of a language, as is common in traditional classrooms. Krashen sees these two processes as fundamentally different, with little or no interface between them. In common with connectionism, Krashen sees input as essential to language acquisition.
Further, Bialystok and Smith make another distinction in explaining how learners build and use L2 and interlanguage knowledge structures. They argue that the concept of interlanguage should include a distinction between two specific kinds of language processing ability. On one hand is learners’ knowledge of L2 grammatical structure and ability to analyze the target language objectively using that knowledge, which they term “representation” .
CHAPTER II. USE OF EFFECTIVE METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING This chapter presents effective methods in the study of foreign languages and the research conducted by scholars. Moreover, some of the major cognitive theories of how learners organize language knowledge are based on analyses of how speakers of various languages analyze sentences for meaning. Mac Whinney, Bates, and Kliegl found that speakers of English, German, and Italian showed varying patterns in identifying the subjects of transitive sentences containing more than one noun.] English speakers relied heavily on word order; German speakers used morphological agreement, the animacy status of noun referents, and stress; and speakers of Italian relied on agreement and stress. Mac Whinney et al. interpreted these results as supporting the Competition Model, which states that individuals use linguistic cues to get meaning from language, rather than relying on linguistic universals. According to this theory, when acquiring an L2, learners sometimes receive competing cues and must decide which cue(s) is most relevant for determining meaning.