TEAAFL

• Manfred Pienemann (1998) 
• Psycholinguistic theory that explains staged development in SLA from simple to complex)
• Each learner has to go through all stages BUT there are individual variations (according to the pace, outcomes, difficulties, etc

• Explains language learning as habit formation: 
  • Imitating & practicing leads to patterns of correct language use
  • Stimulus-response cycles
  • Positive reinforcement drives language acquisition 
• Teaching approach: Audiolingual Method with mimics and memorizatio

• It does not explain real-life / spontaneous language use
• Does not solve logical problem of language acquisition 
  • "People attain knowledge of the structure of their language for which no evidence is available in the data to which they are exposed as children." (Hornstein & Lightfoot, 1981

• Central component of Krashen's 'monitor model' (1982, dating back to 1970s)
• Important for language learning: learners receive spoken or written input -> necessary prerequisite
• Most beneficial: comprehensible input / "i plus 1" 
  • Elements that learners understand ("i")
  • New elements that are slightly above what the learner already knows (vocabulary, grammar, etc.): "plus 1

1. Acquisition-learning hypothesis
2. Natural order hypothesis
3. Monitor hypothesis
4. Input hypothesis (i+1)
5. Affective filter hypothesis

Krashen says that people acquire language through comprehensible input in a low anxiety environment. Comprehensible input means exposure to compelling reading and listening texts that are above a learner's current language ability

• Swain (1985)
• Claim: language learners need sufficient opportunities for language practice and use
• "Successful second language acquisition depends on learners producing language (oral or written)" (Lightbown & Spada, 2013: 215)
• Consequence: learners need rich input AND chances to produce output

• most prominent proponent: Long (1983/1996)
• Adding conversational interaction as an essential condition for a second language acquisition (+input and output)
• Key aspects:
  • Modified interaction to make input comprehensible for learners
  • Reaching mutual comprehension through 'negotiation of meaning' (checking for comprehension, asking for clarification, paraphrasing)
  • Feedback on outpu

Krashen defines comprehensible input as 'i+1', where 'i' is the current level of proficiency and '+1' is the level of profiency just beyond the learner's current level

Communicative competence is the ability "to actively use foreign language in meaningful communicative situation"

Knowing how to...

• Use languages for different purposes and functions
• Vary use of language according to the setting and the participants (e.g. knowing when to use formal/informal speech)
• Produce and understand different types of texts
• Maintain communication (e.g. by using different kinds of communication strategies

Viewing (audiovisual comprehension) and mediatin

Constructing meaning from the input we receive based on written texts (i.e. letters, words, sentences...

Constructing meaning from the input we receive based on spoken texts (i.e. sounds, words, sentences...

Uptaking and processing of information from textual forms of languag

Not just written text, but also oral, visual and hybrid/ multimodal form

• Happens when learners try to understand language by looking at individual meanings or grammatical characteristics of the most basic units of the text, (e.g. sounds for listening or words for reading), and move from these to trying to understand the whole text
• This supports learners decoding information by i.e. deciphering the earning of an unknown word from the context or from its use within a chun

• Takes place on the basis of cognitive patterns by means of which the recipient is able to draw on personal experience, different types of knowledges.
• For example: when viewing a film, we use previous knowledge about the topic or genre to be able to predict upcoming event
• Helpful to activate mental model

• When constructing meaning of a text (while listening, reading, viewing), bottom-up processing and top-down processing do not function separately on their own
• Instead, they interact with each other so that the readers/listeners/viewers combine both processing types to comprehend a text and fill the gaps the respective other processing type leaves behin

Knowledge about how things normally are in contexts in which we live, e.g. school life, families, hobbie

Mental structures about conventionalities routine situations and the associated forms of behavior they require, e.g. a dialogue in a restauran

Mental models refer to a range of complex cognitive structures in which information from the text is combined with the recipient's culturally framed schemes and scrips to build patterns. These are then brought together to form a coherent mental concept which facilitates comprehension

Reading / listening for the general understanding of a text without paying attention to details; collecting main ideas or initial reading impressions; finding orientation in a text, e.g. of a specific genre such as a newspaper article 

Reading / Listening for very specific pieces of information

• Activities before students engage with a text, audio, film etc.
• Top-dow
• E.g.:
  • Learners describe what they can see in the film poster
  • Learners speculate about the meaning of movie title
  • Key words are revised or introduced
  • Hypothesis-building: learners note down ideas what the film could be about

• Activities while students engage with a text/audio/film etc.
• Bottom-up
• E.g.:
  • Learners note down the main conflicts and themes encountered in a movie trailer (listening-viewing for gist
  • Testing prior made hypothesis about movi

• Follow up activities, that result in creative and productive enhancement
• E.g.:
  • Writing and developing a scene of a movie: "The first minute of the film"
  • Linking the film to students' lives, e.g. reporting discriminatio

Communicative competences is the ability "to actively use the foreign language in meaningful communicative situations"

Knowing how to:

• Use language for a range of different purposes and functions
• Vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants
• Produce and understand different types of texts
• Maintain communication despite having limitations in one's language knowledge