L1: an L1 is your first language, your native language, or your mother tongue. You are a native speaker of Spanish-so your L1 is Spanish language
L2: an L2, is a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but is learned later. If your native language is Spanish and you study English your L2 is English
Well, without further ado let’s get started…
Throughout the acquisition of a second language, there is always a background to the first language. As Bill Van Patten's podcast and his team say, there are four fundamental differences between the acquisition of L1 and L2. Motivation, quality and quantity of input, frustration, appearance.
Motivation is different between L1 and L2. For the acquisition of L1 there is no option to learn a language because children have no other choice. On the other hand, the acquisition of L2 gives the student the opportunity to choose which language to learn, either as a necessity or simply for the fun of learning. In this case, motivation is essential for the person who decides to learn a new language.
This motivation may be due to the need to keep a job, live in another country where the same language is not spoken (immigration), increase the level of their knowledge, etc. This answers the question why do people decide to learn another language on their own?
Currently, the Language Center of Instituto Superior Universitario was created to offer students the opportunity to study English. The aim is to achieve that students at the end of the study program attain a real A2 level, and can speak and communicate in English. However, from my point of view and experience, students have only one motivating factor: completing the English courses and obtaining the A2 level to graduate. That is, meet a requirement.
This creates a problem in learning English. Students attend English courses in a mechanical way, almost forced, with a single idea of meeting the hours of the subject, passing the semester, level by level. Faced with this problem, as teachers, we must motivate our students to change their minds to have a different exit profile. I definitely believe that the teacher has the responsibility to motivate in the classroom and make students aware of the importance in the professional, cultural and educational fields of acquiring a second language.
The second difference between L1 and L2 is the quality and quantity of the input. In the first case, children acquire it quickly up to 5 years (approximately) in a natural environment. In contrast, L2 is produced more slowly depending on the number of hours the person is in contact with the second language. In other words, to obtain optimal results, the L2 student should spend as much time as possible in an L2 environment. This would be favorable in migratory contexts.
Nevertheless, our reality is different. The students of the Institute receive 8 hours of English per week, 80 in total for each level, eight levels in total to get A2 according to the Common European Framework. However, this time is not enough to acquire a good level of English in L2. So, on many occasions, acquiring a second language can be frustrating. I’ll give some tips…
If I am not mistaken, following these tips help us to change our mind about the appearance to learn a second language and make us feel more comfortable with it. In a nutshell, it changes the frustration into a friendly way to acquire a second language.
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