Second-language acquisition

Second-language acquisition is the process of learning a language after acquiring a first language. It includes both implicit development through exposure and explicit learning through instruction.

Comprehensible input: Language input that learners can understand despite encountering some unfamiliar forms. It explains how meaningful exposure can support acquisition without requiring every form to be taught directly.
First language: A language acquired early in life, typically through sustained exposure in the home or community. It provides the baseline distinction that makes a later-learned language a second language.
Stephen Krashen: An American linguist known for influential theories of second-language acquisition and language teaching. His input hypothesis and distinction between acquisition and learning framed influential debates about classroom instruction.
Task-based language teaching: A language-teaching approach organized around meaning-focused tasks rather than isolated language forms. It applies acquisition research by giving learners reasons to use language to accomplish meaningful goals.
First-language acquisition: The development of a first language, usually beginning in early childhood through exposure and interaction. It contrasts with learning after a first language has already been acquired.
Interlanguage: A learner’s developing linguistic system, shaped by the first language, the target language, and learning processes. It describes the evolving system learners build between their first language and the target language.
Language acquisition: The development of the ability to understand and use a language. Second-language acquisition is one form of language development, distinguished by prior first-language knowledge.
Merrill Swain: A Canadian applied linguist known for research on language immersion and the output hypothesis. Her work challenged input-only accounts by emphasizing what learners discover while producing language.
Content and language integrated learning: An educational approach in which learners study academic content through an additional language. It combines subject learning with sustained second-language use in instructional settings.
Foreign-language learning: Learning a language in a setting where it is not commonly used in the surrounding community. The distinction highlights how limited everyday exposure can separate foreign-language settings from second-language environments.

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