INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES, INPUT, AND INTERACTION: A COMPARISON OF FIRST AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

This paper discusses the problems of relating the
fmdings of First Language Acquisition (FLA) research
to the fmdings of Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
research and about relating both sets of fmdings to
teaching. It is argued that the fmdings of acquisition
order studies in FLA are not replicated in SLA studies;
that other factors, such as Ll transfer, general language
competence and memory capacity have more explanatory
power in explaining variations in the process
of acquiring a second language. The paper then describes
a link which has been found between FLA and SLA
in a study which followed the subjects of Gordon
Wells' FLA research as they encountered Foreign
Language Education in Secondary School. The paper
then considers the implications of two findings of
the original Wells project, INPUT and INTERACTION.
The author argues that comprehensible input may be
good for comprehension but not for acquisition of
the language system; and that a transmission model
of teaching precludes the learner from engaging in
the type of interactions which Wells showed to be
predictive of effective FLA.