Second language adquisition and second language teaching

Discuss what do you see as the relationship between second language acquisition and second language teaching? How are second language acquisition and second language teaching different? How might they affect each other and how might the study of one affect the study of the other?

In most of the countries, people speak a second language to communicate with the entire world due to the globalization.  This international language is called English, which is used by many people for many different purposes. When people study a second language, they gain a knowledge and understanding of the culture and as soon as they start studying it during early ages, the better results will be seen as a native speaker. In fact, students cannot truly master the language until they have also mastered the cultural contexts in which the language occurs. 

As you know, a second language is any language learnt after the first language also called “mother tongue”.  A second language is usually learnt to communicate with other countries where they share a common language.  Most of the researchers say the ages of 6 and 8 seem to be important periods for acquiring a second language and avoiding any accent. It is better to start a second language before a child goes through puberty.

Talking about the differences between SLA and SLT, it is obviously seen that children acquire language through a subconscious process during which they are unaware of grammatical rules, very similar to the way they acquire their first language.  In order to acquire the language, the learner needs a source of natural communication and a lot of practice.

The SLT starts as verbal behavior and there are many different methods of second language teaching such as:  grammar-translation method, the direct method, the audio-lingual method, the direct method, the communicative approach, among others.  Teachers do not usually use one singular style; they use a mix in their teaching to provide a more balanced approach.  Researchers have also pointed to interaction in the second language as being important for acquisition. 

The second language teaching affects the second language acquisition because both of them are attained to benefit the role of cognitive strategies in both the comprehension and learning of second and foreign languages.   One comes from the other one and they contribute to the development of the country to set goals that make more people learn as second language.  In short, learners have to hear and speak their second language by exposing to it as much as possible and acquire a good profiency on it.    That is my point of view.