Unlocking Language Learning: Dive into Krashen’s Monitor Model for Second Language Acquisition!
Second language acquisition pursuits involve a number of complex and innate processes that require thoughtful adaptation dependent upon a number of factors exclusive to the individual learner. A learner’s age, interests, motivation, learning style, and first language can all modify the rate of retention experienced during their time spent attempting to accquire a language. The field of second language acquisition has gone through numerous adaptations from it’s early days of research, and has been enlightened by Stephen Krashen’s¹ contributions to the field as he began to target the growing dissatisfaction with behaviorist theories being applied to learning design.
Stephen Krashen introduced the “Monitor Model” to the field in 1970, which encompassed five unique hypotheses that saught to provide new perspectives on how students acquired second languages. It is important to note that the term second language in this context refers to any language learned after an individual’s first language (their L1). This means that a second language (the L2) can indeed be the second language learned, or the third, fourth, fifth, etc. To get a better understanding of the Monitor Model, let’s jump into each of the hypotheses behind Krashen’s work. Much of the details behind this analysis have been…
