Precisely, every American who has ever tried learning a foreign language in school and tried to use it among natives have a real experience of how difficult it is to become bilingual. Fluency in reading, writing, and speaking in a second language takes several years of instructions ( Bakalar, 2017) . Oral communication is a significant challenge because it involves recalling previously learned meanings and rules. When communicating in a new language, coming up with replies can be extremely perplexing, especially when there is a patient listener. Luckily enough for Americans, English is widely spoken worldwide by a large number of foreigners. Hence, learning a second language is optional in the United States. However, minorities and many foreigners have little or no choice to learn the second language (English). English is crucial for both social and economic advancement.
The Importance of Language in Student's Identity
According to Hopartean, exceptional mastery of grammar and vocabulary is not a sufficient basis for effective communication, however language give individuals identity. From his perspective, he goes ahead to suggests that such proficiency should be acquired to ease interaction between parties and the mastery of language becomes easy when it is properly understood. The fascinating idea about developing the second language is that it should happen involuntarily, effortlessly, and subconsciously.
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Comprehensible Input
In Krashen's theory, language requires comprehensible input. The frequent exercise of vocabularies that are ideally beyond the speaker's proficiency facilitates faster grasping of a second language. Apart from the word terminology, new rules concerning the language get picked in this manner. He says that mastery is achieved through decoding and understanding the messages embedded in them. What counts in the acquisition of the second language is not the quantity but quality. According to Krashen, speaking a particular style per se does not contribute mainly to language acquisition, but it is an outcome of it. This corollary perfectly explains the reason why children suddenly begin to speak the native language. However, when they start to talk, it does not mean that they are beginning their acquisition, but rather, they are portraying their competence.
Application in a Classroom
Understanding Krashen's theory is crucial, especially when teaching language minority students. Proper integration of the idea of comprehensive input with language minority students can display a significant difference in students' receptive ability. It is because the students get used to grammatical structures in chronological order. It stresses the fact that grammar is not essential in conveying messages. Even when the students are creative and equally bright, the lack of mechanics in their words does not translate that they must fail.
Psychological Restrictions
According to linguistics experts, psychological factors can easily interrupt the smooth acquisition of a second language ( Bakalar, 2017) . Mr. Krashen refers to these factors as the affective filter. They include inadequate motivation, anxiety, and lack of confidence. According to Krashen, these factors retard the process of second language acquisition by impeding comprehensive input from going through. This theory explains why children have the advantage of learning a second language more quickly compared to adults. It is because before reaching puberty, they are less concerned with making mistakes in the new language. The same case applies to needy students who come from low-status worlds. Low self-esteem impedes them from quickly understanding the original language.
According to researchers, basic native language instructions are crucial at this point. By officially providing recognition to minority culture and language in a school curriculum, it creates a less anxiety-environment for acquiring the second language. This approach helps to boost the self-esteem of LEP children and thus promotes academic excellence. Mr. Krashen maintains that he recently began to recognize the benefits of bilingual education not long ago. He stresses that bilingual education can make the input of the English language more understandable, specifically for LEP children.
However, while evidence for this theory is still evolving, unlike other tenets of bilingual educations, it is still controversial because the idea behind this hypothesis is counter-intuitive. The popular notion, "go east to go west," in this scenario study French to learn English, appears to many educators as irrational.
Justification of Krashen's Theory
Stephen Krashen believes that there is a considerable difference between the way we grasp our first language and subsequent languages. From his perception, he claims that every human being possesses innate capabilities that guide the process of learning styles. He conceptualizes that infants learn their mother tongue by listening attentively to spoken words the same way foreign languages are acquired. From his expert perspectives, Krashen prefers the teaching of language through mimicry and memorization. He terms it as subconscious attempts and exercises that improve mastery of language. Firstly, this is because there is hardly any set of rules that needs internalization. According to his postulation on the acquisition of the second language, Krashen believes that even though a learner could attain intellectual and language mastery at a tremendously quick speed, the process could work too slowly in communication
Cummin's Theory
Jim Cummins proposes another hypothesis of separate language development. With this in mind, he identifies two categories of learning proficiencies, which includes Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICs) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Skills. BICS refers to the most basic speaking and socials skills required by persons learning English as a second language ( Li, Cummins & Deng, 2017). The commonly known periods for acquiring these skills usually are two years of exposure to the new language. For this reason, this communicative proficiency is less demanding, restricted to specific contexts.
Unlike BICS, CAPS involve a more advanced and complex language usage in more formal environments such as classrooms and offices. The language focuses on the purpose of academics and less used in the social setting. On rough statistics as far as academic languages are concerned, it takes an ELL not less than five years to be on the same level as an English native speaker. Unlike BICS, CAPS is more cognitively demanding and not much reliant on context. It implies that a student is mandated to be more attentive throughout engagement in the academic discourse. It is important to note that, in the academic realm, most educators tend to focus more on less contextual and cognitively demanding scenarios. However, for ELL, educators need to switch to more context embedded and cognitively demanding tasks. This approach is crucial as it will give a chance to ELL to understand and consequently internalize the concept of each ideology in detail.
The Theory of Underlying Proficiency
According to this theory, Cummins suggests that a second language's development happens in the same part of the brain. This theory stresses that languages' literacy clues get contextually detached from cognitive demanding ( Rolstad, 2017) . While the surface aspects of languages, such as English and Swahili, literacy features are independent. The theory's paramount ideology is that once a child is conversant with the first language, both in reading and writing, it becomes much easier to transition into the second language. Mr. Cummins provides additional support to his hypothesis by exploring studies in the United States. It shows that students between the ages of 10 and 11 who immigrate shortly after learning a native language tend to remember the second language quicker than minorities who received little or no native language instructions.
Application in the Classroom
According to Cummins, the fundamental approach of attaining bilingual literacy is through efficient learning of the first language. It implies that a person learns to read by reading. According to him, it is easy to take a print out of a language that one understands. First, by learning vocabulary and spelling ability, then the grammar grows progressively, and eventually, one develops good writing skills (Cummins, & Deng, 2017). Once those skills get grasped, they provide a comprehensive input in the second language.
Conclusion
Teachers should adequately understand the stages of development of theories, both Jim Cummins and Stephen D. Krashen, of acquiring the second language and effectively applying those strategies in a classroom setting ( Rolstad, 2017). From the theories, they can identify the design that best fits the learning needs of their students. They can also be able to investigate the reactions to the methods of teaching the second language. Moreover, they can use the classroom setting as a research tool to demonstrate to students that integrating the second language is pragmatic.
References
Bakalar, B. (2017). Understanding the whole student: holistic multicultural education. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies , 4 (2), 96-98.
Hopârtean, A. M. (2016). Theories of foreign language acquisition: A cognitive perspective. Lingua. Language and Culture , 15 (2), 25-30.
Li, J., Cummins, J., & Deng, Q. (2017). The effectiveness of texting to enhance academic vocabulary learning: English language learners' perspective. Computer Assisted Language Learning , 30 (8), 816-843.
Rolstad, K. (2017). Second language instructional competence. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism , 20 (5), 497-509.
