I enjoyed this week’s reading on language acquisition! I think the Crash Course video did a nice job explaining how this looks through childhood and as we approach adulthood. The thought of learning a language as a child seems much easier than as an adult. I often think about this as I work to learn new (and improve upon already known) languages in adulthood, wishing I took my parents up on enrolling in language classes or trying harder in high school language courses. My own linguistic background has been largely developed in social settings and everyday use, wanting to talk to family members or my neighbors in a language other than English.
For many people, getting the accent down can be the most difficult part of language acquisition but it’s cool to know that we have all of the foundations to do so. I’ve often heard that the sound of our voices are developed by all of the sounds we hear and acquire throughout life, so the concept of a “sound house” in an interesting framework in thinking about accents – especially when accents are in some ways just a varied form of our own voices (Lippi-Green, 2012). Accents are a funny concept in the English language, everyone has one but it’s usually a label reserved for foreigners or ELs who speak it “differently.” There are so many varieties of English across the U.S., and even in the same cities, that’s it’s virtually impossible to distinguish one class of English as better than or more correct than another.
In learning a new or secondary language, BICS (basic interpersonal communicative skills) certainly comes first – as we find ourselves in social situations that require various levels of interpersonal communication. For many learners outside of a school setting, CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) can take a while to learn, particularly if we’re not exercising these skills as often as BICS (Cummins, 2013). Both BICS and CALP are important aspects of language learning, but CALP is often weighed more heavily in a school context and can negatively affect perceptions of emergent bilinguals language performance. I wouldn’t say that these definitions or classifications are the best way of identifying language development, as it’s too narrow of a framework that doesn’t allow for holistic understanding on language acquisition for emergent bilinguals. Some students are simply better at verbal or social communication than written, and vice versa. Students shouldn’t be framed as deficient in their language learning simply because of their learning differences and strengths.