THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Main Campus, R. Palma Street, Cebu City

MASTERS OF ARTS IN EDUCATION
Major in English Teaching

Midterm Examination

In

Language Acquisition and Learning

( 11:30 am - 2:30 pm )

A Language Case Study of Ishotas on Noam Chomsky’s

Lingusitic Competence and Performance and Stephen

Krashen’s Five Hypothesis

Submitted to:

Dr. Grace Vip Derasin

Submitted by:
 Jellin G. Montano

Background of the Subject

The research subject of this case is covered by the name Ishotas. He is Japanese and
currently learning English. He isn’t a complete beginner. He studied English when he
was Junior High School. He wasn’t able to finish his High School, he dropped from
school because he believe he can just get a job without a degree. Right now, he is married
and has one son.

Ishotas joined some language exchange applications online. The reason is not to
learn English but to make friends with foreigners. In there, he was able to teach his
language to some people at the same time get his goal in making friends. As time passed
by, his newly found friends especially from England, America and Australia started to
communicate outside that website. And then, he realized that he needs to study English
because his foreigner friends knows basic Japanese which able him to understand them
but he doesn’t know so much about English. He said that sometimes language matters in
mutual understanding especially feelings and emotions.

And so he found my current company right now which is providing an online

English service to Japanese people. When he first dropped by in my class, I can’t really
understand him. As an online ESL teacher, I could say that he is a beginner specifically in
the bracket B. So it means that, he knows very few vocabularies, can’t construct
sentences well and do actions to let him be understood.

Ishotas case is not new to me. Many Japanese people are in the same case or worse
than him. English as Foreign Language ( EFL ) to them, I can just understand the
problems they have. Ishotas and I didn’t have the chance to learn English in a structured
way that is learning through textbooks focusing on grammar, pronunciation, vocabularies
and etc. He’s the kind of student who’s practical. He wants to learn the language in a
friendly, interesting and conversational way. So in our class,we basically only have a free
flowing talk about his life, culture, country and vice versa.

I. Ishotas’ case on Noam Chomsky’s Lingusitic Competence and Performance

Abstract

This case study investigates the competence and performance of a Japanese student
who is learning English, which is a foreign language ( EFL ) to them - Japanese. This
research is mainly anchored according to Noam Chomsky’s linguistic ability theory. The
aim of this case research is to determine whether the case subject is affected by
competence or performance in learning English.

Introduction

Traditionally, many language instruction programs have focused more on the

“knowing” part of learning a language wherein words and sentences are presented and
practiced in a way to best help language learners internalize the forms. We can assume
that once the language learners have ‘learned’ the information they will be able to use it
through reading, writing, listening and speaking. The bad point of this method is that the
language learners are unable to use the language in a natural way. Since the language
learners have been trained to learn the language through “knowing”, language learners
have difficulty reversing this training and actually “doing” something with the language.
To sum up, it is difficult to assess whether the learners’ insufficient proficiency is due to
limitations of competency or lack of performance.
 In linguistics, ‘competence’ refers to person’s knowledge of his language, the system
of rules which a language user has mastered so that it would be possible for that user to
be able to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and recognize
grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. On the other hand, ‘performance’ refers to
language seen as a set of specific utterances produced by native speakers, as encountered
in a corpus. Competence involves “knowing” the language and Performance involves
“doing” something with the language. The difficulty with this construct is that it is very
difficult to assess competence without assessing performance.

Case Presentation

Ishotas case is not new to me. Many Japanese people are in the same case or worse
than him. English as Foreign Language ( EFL ) to them, I can just understand the
problems they have. Ishotas and I didn’t have the chance to learn English in a structured
way that is learning through textbooks focusing on grammar, pronunciation, vocabularies
and etc. He’s the kind of student who’s practical. He wants to learn the language in a
friendly, interesting and conversational way. So in our class,we basically only have a free
flowing talk about his life, culture, country and vice versa. About six months of
consecutive speaking English, I personally found some improvements on him. In that
span of time, he takes about 6 to 8 lesson with me that is for about 4 hours. At first, since
he can’t express himself well, I’ll let him write a daily journal of the things happened to
him on that day. I’ll let him read it to me and then I correct his sentences, add phrases,
find better synonym of his vocabularies and teach him pronunciation. Later on, he got
used to it and asked me to let him express directly without preparing. For one year or so
of talking to him, there are moments wherein I asked him about his English level
satisfaction right now. So we have discussed his difficulty with the language.

Discussion
 In my point of view, Ishotas case is mainly concerned with competence and
performance. As we all know, competence is knowledge of language, which is naturally
lack of him due to fact that it is not his mother tongue. The part of knowledge being
focused of competence is exclusively linguistic. It includes knowledge of the vocabulary,
of phonology, of syntax, and of semantics. Ishotas have difficulty in remembering
vocabularies because he doesn't memorize it instead he wanna use it in his daily
conversation before he can remember it. With it comes to his word sounds or
pronunciation, he was able to follow the way his native friends utter the correct words.
His word meanings are good already because every time he notices unfamiliar word
when I speak to him he always wants me to give it’s definition. The only problem he has
still right now is his grammar structure which is difficult to fix since he doesn’t want to
learn by textbooks and through memorizing. This part of the knowledge of the language
which is universal and innate supposedly. When we say performance, it is the use of
language in speaking and understanding utterances is linguistic performance. In Ishotas
current level at the moment, he can produce the language but since he has a problem with
competence so his performance is affected. Performance is dependent on one’s linguistic
knowledge (competence) and in part on non-linguistic knowledge of an encyclopedia or
cultural kind, as well as on extraneous factors as mood, tiredness and so on.

Summary

Competence which is the fluent English speaker’s knowledge of his language is

contrasted with performance which refers to what people actually say or understand by
what someone else say on a given occasion. Very often, performance is an imperfect
reflection of competence by the difficulty in getting the brain and speech production to
work together smoothly. Ishotas has a lack of communicative competence for me because
he doesn't have the ability to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form
correct utterances, and also doesn’t know when to use these utterances appropriately. His
knowledge of the English language is low due to the reason of no linguistic ability likely
on syntactic, semantic and phonological. With this, he lacks also sociolinguistic
competence doesn’t know the appropriateness in terms of both form and meaning, i.e.,
whether an utterance is appropriately produced or understood in different contexts. This
appropriateness could vary in accordance with the status of participants, objectives of the
communication and norms of the communication. He also doesn't have a linguistic
competence for me. Linguistic competence lies at the heart of the knowledge of a
language, it is clear that speakers of that language know more than just the grammar of
that language. A grammar specifies the rules that the speaker knows but it does not state
how they can make use of that knowledge. In other words, grammar does not say how
this knowledge enables the speakers to produce utterances and to understand them. Nor
does it tell him/her how to acquire that knowledge. Thus, the grammar which the linguists
try to construct characterizes only one part of the speaker’s knowledge but since he lack
grammar competence, it is difficult for him to achieve linguistic performance.

II. Ishotas’ case on Stephen Krashen’s Five Hypothesis

Abstract

This case study investigates the second language acquisition of a Japanese student
who is learning English, which is a foreign language ( EFL ) to them - Japanese. This
research is mainly anchored according to Krashen’s Second Language Acquisition Five
Hypothesis. The aim of this case research is to determine where the case subject is
affected in the five hypothesis being presented.

Introduction

According to Krashen, language acquisition does not require extensive use of

conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill. His thoughts and ideas
seem to indicate that we learn a new language the same way as we learned our mother
tongue when we were babies. We are born and then, after immersion in an environment
of sights, sounds and smells, we say our first word. There is no logical reason a baby
learns a language. It just happens. There are no lessons and no teacher, just an organised
and sometimes random environment. Some babies learn faster than others. Some babies
have great difficulty in learning. He also stated that acquisition requires meaningful
interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers are
concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying
and understanding. Furthermore, he emphasizes that a comprehensible input is the crucial
and necessary ingredient for the acquisition of language. With that he said that the best
methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations,
containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early
production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are 'ready',
recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible
input, and not from forcing and correcting production. Finally he pointed out that in the
real world, conversations with sympathetic native speakers who are willing to help the
acquirer understand are very helpful.

Case Presentation

There are two ways of developing language ability. Acquisition involves the
subconscious acceptance of knowledge where information is stored in the brain through
the use of communication; this is the process used for developing native languages.
Learning, on the other hand, is the conscious acceptance of knowledge ‘about’ a language
(i.e. the grammar or form). In Ishotas case, he is learning English through natural
communication. As being mentioned on the previous study, he wants to learn the
language in a friendly, interesting and conversational way. As a second language teacher,
it’s ideal for me to create a situation wherein language is used in order to fulfill authentic
purposes. In this case, I will help him to ‘acquire’ the language instead of just ‘learning’
it. In Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, the 'acquired system' or 'acquisition' is
the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when
they acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language
- natural communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in the form of their
utterances, but in the communicative act. The scenario is present and very true to Ishotas.
The 'learned system' or 'learning' is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a
conscious process which results in conscious knowledge 'about' the language, for
example knowledge of grammar rules. Above all 'learning' is less important than
'acquisition'. There is a relationship between acquisition and learning. the acquisition
system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system performs the role of the
'monitor' or the 'editor'. The 'monitor' acts in a planning, editing and correcting function
when three specific conditions are met: that is, the second language learner has sufficient
time at his/her disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she
knows the rule. I can relate this to Ishotas case because mostly all of the time, he has
difficulty in expressing himself because he was translating the words he wanna say in his
mind first before saying it. The ‘monitor’ can sometimes act as a barrier as it forces the
learner to slow down and focus more on accuracy as opposed to fluency. Monitoring can
make some contribution to the accuracy of an utterance but its use should be limited.
For me, teaching Ishotas will always be a challenge to strike a balance between
encouraging accuracy and fluency in him. Given the fact of his level and sometimes the
context of language use also the personal goals of him. The Monitor hypothesis explains
and defines the influence of the acquisition on the learning. The monitoring function is
the practical result of the learned grammar. It appears that the role of conscious learning
is somewhat limited in second language performance. According to Krashen, the role of
the monitor is - or should be - minor, being used only to correct deviations from 'normal'
speech and to give speech a more 'polished' appearance. Krashen also suggests that there
is individual variation among language learners with regard to 'monitor' use. He
distinguishes those learners that use the 'monitor' all the time (over-users); those learners
who have not learned or who prefer not to use their conscious knowledge (under-users);
and those learners that use the 'monitor' appropriately (optimal users).

Discussion
 Learning is a conscious process that focuses the students’ attention on the form of the
language (structure). Acquisition, unlike learning, is a process similar to that by which we
acquired our mother tongue, and which represents the subconscious activity by which we
internalize the new language, putting emphasis on the message (meaning) rather than on
the form. Acquisition is, thus, the untutored or naturalistic way. In most classrooms
learning is emphasized more than acquisition. In traditional classrooms one of the first
things teachers say “pay attention”, and they have students analyze, and take notes on, the
new structure item in the lesson. Later, students are given practice in providing correct
answers either structurally or functionally, but always remaining conscious of what they
want to say. In more conservative classes they are evaluated on their grammatical and
lexical knowledge; consequently, they are forced to “study” for the exams. However, in
real life, when we interact with speakers of our own language, we rarely focus our
attention on the form of the language the speaker use. We are concerned, rather, with
what the speaker means or with the paralinguistic features of his speech (i.e., gestures,
signs, etc.), which determine the quality of the message. We have, for the most part, been
teaching grammar rules or rules of usage instead of facilitating acquisition of English in
the classrooms; consequently, it is necessary to change the type of activities we perform
in class in order to help students develop an accurate, automatic, and long-lasting second
language.

Summary

In a nutshell, as a regular teacher of Ishotas, it is my responsibility to encourage him

learn the basics like grammar before he will be able to speak the language well. For sure,
teaching of grammar can result in language acquisition (and proficiency) that is also
when the he is interested in the subject and the target language is used as a medium of
instruction. In this situation, both me as his teacher and him are convinced that the study
of formal grammar is essential for second language acquisition, and as his teacher, I must
be skillful enough to present explanations in the target language so that he can understand.
In other words, I should meet the requirements for comprehensible input and perhaps
with the students’ participation the classroom becomes an environment suitable for
acquisition. Also, the filter is low in regard to the language of explanation, as the students’
conscious efforts are usually on the subject matter, on what is being talked about, and not
the medium.

Krashen’s SLA theory changed our concept of language teaching and has suggested
new ideas for communicative language teaching. Nevertheless, the implications of this
theory should be adapted according to the teacher’s individual situation in order to obtain
the best results. The years to come will give more shape to this theory, so that, together
with other teaching theories and approaches, it will improve our methodology and our
results. SLA is a field so complex that no single theory or factor can account for it.
Consequently, despite Krashen’s claim that those hypotheses are “a coherent theory” and
others criticism, it is preferable not to see his ideas as a unified and integrated theory but
one of the many models dealing with certain aspects of SLA, which, like other claims,
hypotheses or theories, even competing ones, makes its due contribution to SLA research
in general.