I was born in Bandung, May 9, 1973. My parents are from Chinese descendant. They were also born in Bandung. My grandparents were born in Guangdong, the southern part of China. When they first arrived in Indonesia, they didn’t speak Bahasa Indonesia at all. They came to Indonesia because of the poverty in China at that time. The first place they visited was Medan. After sometime, they moved to Bandung, West Java. Both my parents were born in Bandung. I and my siblings were also born in Bandung. When I was 6 years old, my parents moved to Tasikmalaya, a small town 3 hours drive from Bandung. The first language I acquired was Bahasa Indonesia. Then, I learned Sundanese as I began to go to school at primary level. So, I spoke Bahasa Indonesia at home and I used both Bahasa Indonesia and Sundanese at school.

Krashen (1982) hypothesised that the process of learning a second language is distinguished from acquisition, with the latter being a subconscious process of gradual development of ability through use in natural communicative situations with other speakers. In my case, I would say that I acquired Bahasa Indonesia rather than learned it. Bahasa Indonesia is my first language and Sundanese is my second language.

Input is defined by Richards et al. (1989:143) as ‘language which a learner hears or receives and from which they can learn’. Scholars broadly acknowledge the significance of input in language acquisition (Tucker 2003) although the focus and nature of the learning environment will influence the type and quantity of language input.

I started to learn English when I was in Junior High School. I fell in love with the language the first time my teacher introduced the new language to me. As I graduated from High School, I realized that I have learned another language which will somehow change my direction of life later.

Earlier I mentioned that my grandparents are Chinese. This had lead me to a Chinese tradition family who celebrates Chinese New Year, values Chinese traditions and customs, and practices Chinese cultures. I still remember when my grandfather always spoke to me in Hakka dialect which I didn’t understand. Although my mother is a Mandarin teacher, I didn’t learn Mandarin from her. Instead, I had a private teacher coming to my house to teach Mandarin Chinese which is different from Hakka dialect. Mandarin Chinese is the National language used by Chinese people in China. The number of people who use the language is more than 1,5 billion, not to mention overseas Chinese who also speak the same language. With this in mind, I began to learn the language seriously but it turned out that I didn’t have much time to learn the language. I went to university in Jakarta. I took English Literature as my major in Bachelor’s degree. So I learned English in a more formal way. As a matter of fact, I started my teaching experience when I was in semester 2. That was the time when my lecturer asked me to teach Bahasa Indonesia to an expatriate. All these things led me to a conclusion that I acquired Bahasa Indonesia and I learned Sundanese, English, and Chinese.

Lightbown and Spada (2013) describe three types of environment that expose the learner to: 1. Natural interaction (e.g. in work or a social forum) 2. Traditional acquisition (e.g. conventional EFL/ESL classrooms, where form, grammar and vocabulary are emphasised) 3. Communicative teaching environments (where interaction is emphasised over form).

Of these, both the natural and communicative environments are, to some extent, in keeping with the Interaction Hypothesis put forward by Krashen (1981), which states that successful transition from exposure to assimilation is facilitated by collaborative and social efforts in the target language (also Lightbown and Spada 1999). However the reality of many L2 classroom environments is reflected in the ‘traditional’ setting, where exposure in the target language is limited to only a few hours each week. In addition, this interaction comes through the instruction of teachers, rather than being learner-driven as in the case of L1. Although L2 learners bring highly transferable social, contextual and linguistic knowledge to the classroom, working to a syllabus that is ‘forced on the learner from outside’ (Nemati and Taghizadeh 2013) may mean that the learning experience fails to meet the learner’s immediate goals with the same efficacy as in the L1 setting. In this kind of setting, I learned Sundanese more likely when I learned Indonesian with all the linguistic, pragmatic, and cultural aspects of the language. Nevertheless, the case was different when I learned English. Since Indonesia is not an English speaking country, the exposure of the language is not the same as learning Sundanese which is part of the country’s region.

Cummins (1991) observes that even with a sufficient amount of educational resources, L2 learning experiences are too often based on an isolated, task-oriented outlook with an insufficient awareness of context and culture. In addition, the instructor is ultimately just one sample of the speech community he or she represents. When these factors are combined, the opportunity to experience a diverse range of communication styles similar or equal to L1 is not always available to the L2 classroom language learner.

Pedagogical and cultural factors also come into play at this point. Students in education systems that favour control- and rule-oriented strategies or rote memorization may receive adequate amounts of exposure to L2 (O’Malley and Chamot 1990), but Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1977) finds that success in language learning requires access to input that is modified to make it comprehensible and, by extension, functional in nature. In this way, information about grammar is automatically available because the input is understood in context – this is similar to the process of L1 acquisition, where ‘the child discovers, interprets and ascribes meaning through contextualised behaviour’ (Nemati and Taghizadeh 2013).

CONCLUSION

Language acquisition and language learning are two sides of a coin. One may acquire a language and learn other languages but both of them work together as a system of human language which is difficult to explain. The process of acquiring a language and learning it may be different. However, the complexity regarding which process takes place first would be another interesting topic for research.

Classroom learning is more syntactic in nature than L1 acquisition, and requires a more conscious and sustained effort. In addition, seemingly positive attributes found in one learning process are not always of benefit when applied in the other. In fact, the previous experience of acquiring L1, the comprehension of structures and linguistic devices, and even the accumulation of knowledge about how these are deployed in social settings can become genuine barriers to successful L2 learning.

REFERENCES

 Cummins, J. (1991). Language Development and Academic Learning. In Malavé, L., and Duquette, G. (Eds.), Language, Culture and Cognition. (pp. 161-175)

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.

Lightbown, P. M., and Spada, N. (2013). How Languages Are Learned. (4th ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nemati, M., and Taghizadeh, M. (2013). Exploring Similarities and Differences between L1 and L2. International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences, 4(9), 2477-2483.

O’Malley, J. M., and Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning Strategies In Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J., Platt, J. and Weber, H. (1989). Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. Hong Kong: Longman.