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WorksheetsIntroduction to SLA – Revision for the FinalTest
Total questions: 100
Worksheet time: 50mins
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies how people learn a language other than their native language.
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In SLA, the term L2 can only be used for a learner's second language, not for third or fourth languages.
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A learner's native language is also called the first language, L1, or mother tongue.
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The target language (TL) is the language the learner has already mastered.
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A foreign language is typically learned in an environment where it is rarely needed outside the classroom.
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A second language is usually learned in a setting where that language is needed for daily communication and schooling.
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Language transfer occurs when learners keep their L1 completely separate and never use it while learning an L2.
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Semantics is the branch of linguistics that focuses on meanings such as who did what to whom and time relations.
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Pragmatics is concerned with the sounds and stress patterns of a language.
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Syntax deals with word order and how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.
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Morphology and lexicon include word forms, inflections, derivations and lexical choices.
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Phonology is unrelated to intonation or stress; it only covers individual consonant and vowel sounds.
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In SLA, input is absolutely necessary because it provides learners with data to build an internal language system.
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According to the Input Hypothesis, the most important factor in acquisition is the amount and quality of comprehensible input.
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Krashen's Input Hypothesis claims that input should be either far below or far above the learner's level to be effective.
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Comprehensible input is language that learners can understand with the help of context or visual cues, even if some forms are new.
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In the classroom, the teacher is one important source of input and should use visual cues, body language and paraphrasing to support comprehension.
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Cognates are unrelated words in two languages that happen to share similar meanings by coincidence.
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Authentic resources are any materials specially simplified for language learners.
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Some authentic resources, like paintings or silent short films, may not contain any target-language text at all but can still be useful for input tasks.
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For input to contribute to acquisition, learners should both be able and be compelled to understand the message.
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If a task can be completed by pure pattern matching or sound recognition without processing meaning, it still counts as good input.
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Top-down processing uses background knowledge and context to build meaning from a text.
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Bottom-up processing ignores linguistic details and looks only at the overall topic of a text.
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In real-life comprehension, learners typically use both top-down and bottom-up processes together.
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Comprehension is simply the construction of one single fixed meaning from a text.
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Understanding every word in a text does not guarantee that learners can interpret it adequately.
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Pre-reading activities should help learners activate prior knowledge and preview important language in the text.
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Guessing words from context is described as the most effective vocabulary-learning strategy and should always be used.
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Skimming, scanning and using graphic organizers are examples of reading strategies that can be explicitly taught.
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Listening strategies such as focusing on keywords, using signal words, and ignoring low-importance unknown words can increase comprehension.
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Captions on videos always improve comprehension, regardless of the difficulty of the input.
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Bimodal input, where learners read and listen at the same time, may help some learners but can overload others.
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Output is defined as any spoken or written production, even if it has no real communicative purpose.
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Examples of real output include describing a picture so that someone can spot differences or giving tips that others will evaluate.
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According to the Output Hypothesis, input alone is enough for full language development, so output is unnecessary.
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Swain argues that output helps learners notice gaps in their knowledge when they cannot say what they want to say.
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The slides state that output actually builds the internal language system, while input only provides practice.
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Speaking and writing practice can improve accuracy and speed of access to known forms.
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Beginners should be forced to produce long speeches from the first lesson to accelerate output development.
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Process writing views writing as planning, drafting, and revising rather than producing a single final product in one step.
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In process writing, revising can involve both surface-level corrections and global reorganization of ideas.
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Interpersonal communication typically involves an information gap and a purposeful back-and-forth exchange.
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According to the Interaction Hypothesis, negotiation of meaning during conversations is irrelevant for language development.
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A preemptive focus-on-form episode anticipates a problem and provides clarification before any error occurs.
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A reactive focus-on-form episode responds to a non–target-like form and usually requires some corrective response.
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Recasts, clarification requests, elicitation, and explicit metalinguistic correction are four feedback types discussed in the slides.
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The conclusion about interactional feedback is that it always has an immediate and guaranteed effect on learners' interlanguage.
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Longitudinal studies follow the same learners over an extended period of time to see how their language develops.
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Cross-sectional studies are designed to show detailed individual growth over time for a single learner only.
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Which option best defines Second Language Acquisition (SLA)?
The study of how people learn a language other than their first, including processes and factors influencing development.
A method of teaching grammar through translation exercises.
The ability to speak two languages with native-like proficiency.
The set of rules governing a language’s sound system.
Which term refers to the language that learners are trying to learn in a course?
Native language (NL)
Target language (TL)
International language (IL)
Interlanguage (IL)
Which statement about 'foreign language' learning is MOST accurate?
It takes place in an environment where the language is widely used in the community.
It always leads to native-like proficiency within one year.
It occurs in the learner's L1 environment with limited use of the new language outside class.
It refers only to learning classical languages like Latin and Greek.
Which linguistic component is MOST directly concerned with speech acts, politeness and contextually appropriate language?
Semantics
Morphology
Pragmatics
Phonology
Which of the following is an example of a semantic difficulty mentioned in the slides?
Confusing the sounds /θ/ and /t/.
Distinguishing between simple past and present perfect meanings.
Misplacing subject-auxiliary inversion in questions.
Omitting plural -s on nouns.
A learner who often says 'Why you are late?' is having problems primarily with which subsystem?
Phonology
Syntax
Semantics
Lexical choice
Which best illustrates morphological knowledge?
Knowing that 'I' usually comes before the verb in English sentences.
Recognizing that 'walk' and 'walked' are related by a past tense ending.
Realizing that 'Could you open the window?' is more polite than 'Open the window.'
Understanding that 'record' can be a noun or a verb depending on stress.
Which classroom task clearly COUNTS as input according to the input classification activity?
Matching conjugated verbs with their infinitive forms.
Reading a dialogue aloud in pairs without any comprehension check.
Listening to a house description and choosing the matching picture.
Copying a list of commands into a notebook.
Why does 'filling in missing lyrics while listening to a song' often NOT count as input
Because music is never useful in language learning.
Because students cannot hear the words clearly.
Because students may complete the task by sound matching or rhyme without understanding the meaning.
Because the lyrics are always too difficult for learners.
Which is NOT listed as a typical quality of comprehensible input?
It is slightly beyond the learner's current level.
It is interesting to the learner.
It is presented only through written texts, not audio or video.
It is provided in sufficient quantity.
Which strategy is recommended for teachers to make their speech more comprehensible?
Always speaking at native speed without pauses.
Using pictures, gestures and paraphrasing to support meaning.
Avoiding any visual aids to keep students focused on listening only.
Using only the learners' L1 to explain grammar rules.
Authentic resources are defined in the slides as:
Texts created specifically for graded language-learning textbooks.
Any materials not originally created for language teaching purposes.
Only literary novels and poems written by native speakers.
Materials that contain no images or visual support.
Which is an example of an authentic resource that may NOT contain any actual target-language words?
A grammar exercise sheet.
A silent short film used for discussion.
An adapted reading passage from a textbook.
A vocabulary list with translations.
According to VanPatten's processing principles, learners tend to:
Pay attention to grammatical endings before content words.
Process input for meaning first, focusing on content words.
Ignore time expressions such as 'yesterday' or 'tomorrow'.
Equally notice all forms in a sentence regardless of position.
The example 'I love four dogs' vs. 'I love my dogs' illustrates that learners may:
Always rely on plural '-s' as the only cue to number.
Ignore numerals when processing input.
Use other meaning cues (like 'four') so they do not need to notice plural '-s'.
Treat 'four' and plural '-s' as unrelated forms.
Which guideline is suggested for designing structured input activities?
Include as many new grammar forms as possible in a single activity.
Keep context minimal so learners focus only on isolated sentences.
Avoid giving any purpose beyond repeating forms.
Focus on a single form or contrast and embed it in meaningful contexts.
Elicited Imitation (EI) tasks mainly aim to measure:
Knowledge of vocabulary definitions.
Learners' ability to repeat sentences that tap morphosyntactic knowledge.
Attitudes toward language learning.
Listening comprehension of long lectures.
Grammaticality Judgement Tasks (GJTs) are used to assess learners':
Sensitivity to whether sentences are acceptable or ungrammatical.
Pronunciation of minimal pairs.
Speed in naming pictures.
Knowledge of sociolinguistic norms only.
Discourse Completion Questionnaires (DCQs) are especially useful for studying:
Lexical access speed.
Pragmatic strategies in context, such as requests and refusals.
Phonological contrasts.
Spelling accuracy in essays.
Narrative tasks (telling stories based on pictures or videos) provide data about:
Discourse organisation and tense–aspect use over longer stretches of speech.
Only single-word vocabulary knowledge.
Short-term memory span only.
Brain activation with ERPs.
Think-aloud protocols involve learners:
Completing a questionnaire after the task about their attitudes.
Verbalising their thoughts in real time while performing a task.
Writing a reflective journal at home.
Being interviewed months after the course is finished.
Stimulated recall differs from think-aloud in that it:
Occurs after the task while learners watch or listen to their performance.
Is only used for pronunciation research.
Requires learners to stay silent.
Cannot be used with video data.
Self-paced reading tasks measure:
How many books learners read per month.
The time learners spend on each segment of a sentence as they press a key to reveal it.
Only the correctness of comprehension questions.
Brain waves in response to unexpected words.
Interlanguage is described as:
A perfect copy of the target language.
A random collection of errors that changes every day.
A learner's systematic language system that is distinct from both L1 and TL.
The language spoken between two native speakers.
Which example from the slides shows that comprehension involves more than retrieval of surface information?
Checking spelling of each word in a sentence.
Answering 'Why did he say that?' in addition to 'What did he say?'.
Memorising a vocabulary list.
Repeating a sentence after the teacher.
Which of the following is an example of a top-down process in reading?
Sounding out each letter of a new word.
Using prior knowledge about daily routines to predict that the missing word after 'I went to the...' might be 'store' or 'market'.
Counting the number of sentences in a paragraph.
Marking all verbs in the past tense.
Which factor is NOT listed as important when selecting texts for learners?
Learners' linguistic knowledge (vocabulary, syntax, cognates).
Learners' background knowledge about the topic.
Text features such as organisation and visuals.
The teacher's personal favourite author, regardless of learners' needs.
Which reading strategy is especially useful for getting an overall idea quickly before reading in detail?
Scanning for specific information.
Skimming for main ideas.
Using graphic organisers.
Checking every unfamiliar word in a dictionary.
Which listening strategy helps learners follow the structure of a talk or story?
Listening only for names of people.
Taking notes in their first language only.
Listening for signal words such as 'first', 'next', and 'finally'.
Stopping the audio after every word.
Which principle is suggested for 'guessing from context' activities?
Learners should guess freely without any guidance.
Teachers should always insist on precise dictionary-like meanings.
Teachers should guide learners to use clues such as part of speech and semantic class and accept 'good-enough' meanings for fluency.
Unknown words should always be skipped without discussion.
Which of the following counts as REAL output?
Repeating a sentence after the teacher with no communicative purpose.
Copying model sentences from the board, then checking with classmates.
Writing tips for new students that will be shared and evaluated.
Filling gaps in sentences using a word bank while thinking only about grammar form.
Which of the following is NOT listed as a function of output in Swain's Output Hypothesis?
Helping learners notice gaps in their knowledge.
Pushing learners to pay more attention to input later.
Allowing learners to test hypotheses about language.
Directly building the entire grammatical system without input.
Which step in the writing process is concerned with generating ideas and deciding how to organise them?
Planning.
Drafting.
Editing for punctuation only.
Publishing.
Which activity would BEST support the 'revising' stage in process writing?
Brainstorming ideas with a partner before writing.
Writing the first version without worrying about mistakes.
Reorganising paragraphs, adding clearer examples, and correcting major grammatical problems.
Choosing a title before writing.
Interpersonal communication is characterised by:
One-way information flow from teacher to student only.
An information gap and purposeful back-and-forth exchange.
Silent individual reading without discussion.
Students listening to a lecture without asking questions.
Which statement best captures the difference between the Output Hypothesis and the Interaction Hypothesis?
Both deny the importance of input for acquisition.
Output Hypothesis emphasises benefits of producing language; Interaction Hypothesis adds the importance of negotiation during interaction.
Output Hypothesis is only about writing, while Interaction Hypothesis is only about speaking.
Interaction Hypothesis claims that feedback is harmful for learners.
When a student says 'Go pool' and the teacher asks 'Are you going to play pool or go to a pool to swim?', this is an example of:
Preemptive focus on form.
Reactive focus on form with clarification.
Ignoring learner errors.
Explicit metalinguistic explanation of grammar rules.
Which feedback type reformulates the learner's error into a correct version without overtly saying it is wrong?
Clarification request.
Elicitation.
Recast.
Explicit metalinguistic correction.
Clarification requests typically:
Provide the correct form directly.
Ask the learner to repeat or clarify because the message was not understood.
Ignore the content and focus only on pronunciation.
Change the topic of conversation.
Explicit metalinguistic correction is characterised by:
Simply repeating the learner's sentence with correct pronunciation.
Indirectly hinting that something might be wrong.
Clearly stating that the utterance is incorrect and providing rule-based information.
Asking many comprehension questions about content.
What conclusion about interactional feedback is true?
Feedback always causes immediate acquisition of the corrected form.
Feedback can be ignored in communicative classrooms, but it is very important when communicating with native speakers.
Feedback may provide additional input that can contribute to development, but its effects are not guaranteed or immediate.
Only explicit feedback has any value.
Which of the following is a TRUE statement about listening vs reading texts?
Spoken language is persistent and can always be reread easily.
Written texts are fleeting and cannot be revisited.
Spoken language is often affected by noise and overlapping speech, while written text has clearer boundaries and is more polished.
Listening always gives learners more time to process than reading.
Bimodal input (listening plus reading) is recommended as:
Always the best option for every learner regardless of level.
Potentially helpful, but it can overload learners.
A poor choice that should never be used.
Useful only for pronunciation training and intonation for advanced learners.
Which is an example of a revision activity that compels learners to understand input?
Copying a vocabulary list several times.
Ranking several opinions from most to least agreeable after reading a text.
Practising verb conjugation tables in isolation.
Memorising grammar rules without examples.
Which classroom activity aligns with using binary choice questions to compel comprehension of input?
Students decide whether each statement they hear is 'true' or 'false' about a story.
Students rewrite sentences changing present to past tense or changing past to future tense.
Students copy the transcript of a video, then they compare with their classmates.
Students memorise a dialogue for performance, then they will record a video.
Which best captures the relationship between extensive reading and vocabulary development?
A single exposure is usually enough to master a new word because students will learn by heart and can remember.
Learners often need 10 or more encounters with a word in varied contexts to consolidate it.
Vocabulary growth occurs only through explicit word lists, not reading.
Repeated encounters actually confuse learners and slow down acquisition.
Ear training in listening primarily aims to improve learners':
Ability to memorise grammar rules and structures.
Phonological perception of boundaries, prosody and variants.
Knowledge of discourse markers and linking words only.
Skill in translating texts into their L1.
Which best illustrates the idea that 'communication includes comprehension, not only speaking/writing'?
Students practise only giving presentations without listening tasks.
A learner who cannot understand the question 'Have you ever tried sushi?' cannot respond appropriately, even if they can form sentences.
Teachers correct pronunciation but ignore listening difficulties. For example, the word "honest" with the silent "h"; students often make this mistake.
Students read dialogues silently without any follow-up. Then, they perform in front of the class.
Which output principle about beginners is emphasised?
Beginners should mostly receive rich input before being pushed to produce extensive output.
Beginners should immediately give long speeches to build confidence.
Beginners should focus only on grammar drills without any input because they need structures to produce correct sentences.
Beginners should avoid listening tasks because they are too difficult, so they need to practice reading instead.
According to the discussion of output, speaking and writing practice support fluency and accuracy because
they repeatedly push learners to retrieve and use forms built through input.
they allow learners to ignore meaning and focus only on grammar.
they replace the need for reading and listening.
they prevent learners from noticing gaps in their language system, so they can speak freely without hesitation.
