This chapter focuses on the learning and teaching of second language pronunciation. It starts by asking basic questions such as: Why is it so hard to sound like a “native speaker”? and Should second language learners even sound like native speakers? The chapter reviews the components of pronunciation including phoneme, segmentals, and suprasegmentals. It then explores the topics of comprehensibility, intelligibility, and accentedness, in order to consider which are most important for second language communication and learning. It argues that native-like pronunciation should not be the goal of pronunciation instruction; rather, the goal should be comprehensibility (i.e., how well a second language learner is understood by a listener). It reviews other issues related to pronunciation learning such as the distinction between receptive and productive knowledge, the role of identity in maintaining a first-language accent, and the role that biology plays in affecting second language pronunciation mastery. Finally, the chapter explores both explicit and implicit methods of pronunciation instruction.

This chapter overviews broad issues related to language acquisition research and answers fundamental questions related to first language acquisition, such as What is language? and How do children learn their first language? It begins by introducing some components of language, such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, pragmatics, and discourse. It also discusses language varieties (e.g., American English vs. Indian English) and explains their legitimacy. Then, the chapter addresses language learning during the first years of a child’s life. It also discusses bilingualism, especially of those who start learning multiple languages in their early years (simultaneous bilingualism). In order to understand second language acquisition for the rest of the textbook, the chapter focuses on a question: How are children able to learn a language without formal instruction? In order to answer this question, multiple language acquisition theories will be discussed.

Chapter 11 reviews an important third argument in support of the Innateness Hypothesis, which is based on another aspect of the maturational nature of language acquisition. Like the argument from stages, this argument directly relates to the process of language acquisition. The crucial point involves the claim, which we will refer to as the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), that language acquisition can only be successful if human beings are exposed to language input during a certain (early) period in their life span. The key claim is that language acquisition has to take place within a so-called critical (or sensitive) period, which, for human language, has been suggested to end around puberty. The evidence comes from cases of extreme deprivation, removal of brain tissue in operations or accidents, or from the fact that second language acquisition appears to be much harder after puberty than before it. We discuss various types of evidence that modify the beginning and end of the critical period and also ask why there would be such a period to begin with. We discuss in considerable detail a well-known case of language deprivation involving a girl named Genie.

This chapter explores ideas about ‘(non-)native’ speakers of English, with particular reference to the professional context of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). The use of ‘(non-)native’ speaker to describe a person’s use of English remains common in a variety of domains, despite much scholarly and professional argument against the term. Given that learners and teachers comprise the educational context of this chapter, I have chosen to focus on the native and non-native speakers themselves, rather than on their (so-called) native and non-native uses of English. In doing so, I hope not to fall into the trap of thinking of people as permanent members of closed categories, but, on the contrary, show how we might raise awareness of the (potentially negative) effects of such thinking on speakers of English, in the TESOL profession.

Bilinguals are individuals who use more than one language in daily interactions. They do not necessarily have an equally good command of their languages. Age of onset of acquisition (AOA) is probably the most important factor determining whether a native competence is acquired. All L1 children develop full competences in their languages, whereas very few if any L2 learners are able to achieve this goal. This suggests that the LAD guiding L1 is subject to age-dependent changes and is not fully accessible anymore in L2 acquisition. Such changes are reflected in the speech of early successive bilinguals. They use constructions that are also found in the speech of adult L2 learners but not in the language use of monolingual or bilingual L1 children. L1-L2 differences emerge as early as at approximately age 3;6, affecting the morphosyntax of the target language. Maturational changes of the brain are a major though not the only cause of this kind of linguistic behaviour. They open and close windows of opportunities. These constitute senstitive phases during which learners are optimally prepared for certain acquisition tasks. As of approximately age 6–7, children resemble adult L2 learners rather than simultaneous bilinguals.