MIDTERM
There are factors in second language acquisition that concentrate on emotional variables such as the learner’s anxiety level and self-confidence (59). These are aspects taken into account in Krashen’s “Affective Filter hypothesis.” Since Comprehensible Input is crucial in a learner’s second language acquisition, the affective filter, or the negative emotional variables, cannot interfere because it may hinder the learner’s ability to retain information.
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (or CALP) is a concept in the bilingual and cognitive theories of Jim Cummins’s work. In this theory it is believed that people are born with “considerable knowledge” and that bilingualism is a cognitive advantage, and the Native Language is the base of Second-Language Learning (59). This theory was utilized by teachers along with resources that help build L2 with the L1.
University of Southern California linguist, Stephen Krashen maintains that acquisition of second language must have learners immersed in the new language and then they must have prior knowledge about the language to understand words and topics; this learning of specific knowledge can also be called Comprehensible Input (58). Comprehensible input’s is generally characterized by shorter sentences, intelligible well-formed, utterances, less subordination, restrictive vocabulary, and a range of topics with focus on communication (58). Krashen believed that the learner’s current level of competence must be supplemental with the next natural order structure.
In 1972 Dell Hymes coined the term Communicative Competence which refers to the aspect of language users’ knowledge of the language that allows of the transmit of and interpret messages and to negotiate meaning interpersonally (620). Social interaction is an aspect of Communicative Competence and language. The learner is able to use grammar and spell well but they will also know proper language behavior of their social life. Learners capable of managing language within social contexts will succeed. A decade after Hymes, four types of competences were introduced, grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence (62).
Linguist Noam Chomsky believed that there are “mental mechanisms that are specifically linguistic” (Baker 100). These mental mechanisms are called Language Acquisition Device, or LAD; in other words, this part of the brain is designed to support language learning. Krashen further argued that language goes through this “device” and it inputs language into the learner and that only affective filters can undo comprehension.
