Talking Language Acquisition with Dr. Bill VanPatten: What Every Language Teacher Should Know about SLA – Part 1 

In this week’s episode of Growing with Proficiency The Podcast, I was joined by an exceptional guest, Dr. Bill VanPatten. In part 1 of our conversation, Dr. VanPatten shares with us the importance of acknowledging the undeniable role of input in language acquisition, the true nature of language, and the limitations of traditional instruction. In this post, I’m highlighting our discussion, but to hear part 1 in full, listen above or here for episode 87. 

To start, I asked Dr. VanPatten how he began his work in language acquisition. Surprisingly, though he grew up in a bilingual household, he did not start his studies in linguistics until his second semester of graduate school. Unsatisfied with his then current program, Dr. VanPatten switched to linguistics by the suggestion of his program advisor. Once enrolled in linguistic classes, he was hooked. 

Facts of Second Language Acquisition

“Second language acquisition, what it is, how it works, and so on, and the nature of language, are the best kept secrets in language teaching.” – Dr. VanPatten

One of the facts that I wanted to discuss with Dr. VanPatten is the fundamental role of input. He explained that this fact has been around since at least the early 80s. However, as Dr. VanPatten pointed out, many people still call it a hypothesis. He continued to explain that for people to understand the fact of the fundamental role of input in language acquisition, teachers need to have some basic knowledge about second language acquisition. Otherwise, it makes no sense. 

If you don’t understand how second language acquisition happens, the nature of language, the nature of communication, and how these things fit together, what you’re going to do as a teacher is take input and teach the same old thing a new way. For example, teachers will teach verb endings or past tense with input. This, as Dr. VanPatten pointed out, is not how your students will effectively acquire the second language. 

What is Language?

I asked Dr. VanPatten the important question of what language is in simple terms. It can be so hard to explain exactly what it is and what exactly we are teaching as language teachers. He had a great analogy, though, of comparing language to constellations. Listen to episode 87 for his description. 

Dr. VanPatten emphasized that the word ‘teaching’ should not even be used in what we do as language teachers. What does that mean? Our classes aren’t about teaching any more if we’re about acquisition; our classes are about interaction and the content that we want to talk about. 

He really wants teachers to understand that you can teach Spanish as a subject. You can go and teach out of a textbook. However, that doesn’t mean students are acquiring language, though they might accidentally acquire some things because we do things other than just the textbook. 

Language Acquisition

Additionally, Dr. VanPatten outlined some of his research he did as a graduate student. One study he and an associate conducted involved evaluating language learners’ acquisition of a second language. Interestingly, the students were not evaluated in ways that we, as teachers, commonly use in our classrooms, such as with tests or essays. Instead, students were evaluated in an office atmosphere through casual discussions in the second language.

Listen to Dr. VanPatten’s description of the stages of language acquisition that he and his colleague found during this research here. His examples are ones of how the mind creates language over time and how language evolves in our heads. As Dr. VanPatten pointed out, “You don’t learn it from the input or learn it from rules, what you do is, your mind extracts data from input as it sees fit at a given point in time, while it is trying to create language in your head.”

When You Don’t See Progress…

Finally, at the end of part 1 of our discussion, I asked Dr. VanPatten if he would address what teachers should do when they are not seeing progress in their students’ language acquisition. First, he noted that, “We’re looking at them as students, and not learners of a language.” Though students might not retain grammatical or vocabulary development, we might be missing the fact that our learners have a lot more predictive words than ever before or that students’ sentences are getting longer than they were the previous year. 

Dr. VanPatten stressed that there’s all kinds of things that we’re just not looking at because we’re not thinking about acquisition or communication. We’re thinking about textbook language and standardized education, the way we measure things. He believes that we need to start thinking about development in other ways, not the standard or traditional ways.

Listen to part 1 of my conversation with Dr. VanPatten above or here. Next week, we’ll continue our discussion with the role of grammar and output in language acquisition.