The Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Current theories of second language acquisition are based on years of research in a wide variety of fields including linguistics, psychology, sociology and neurolinguistics. The length of time each student spends at a particular stage may vary greatly. These stages are most often identified as:

Stage I

The silent/ Receptive or Preproduction Stage: This stage can last from 10 hours to six months. Students often have up to 500 ‘receptive’ words and can understand new words that are made comprehensive to them.

Stage II

The Early Production Stage: The early production stage can last an additional six months after the initial stage. Students have usually developed close to 1,000 receptive/ active words. During this stage, students can usually speak in one or two words.

Stage III

The Speech Emergence Stage: This stage can last up to another year. Students have usually developed approximately 3,000 words and can use short phrases and simple sentences to communicate.

Stage IV

The Intermediate Language Proficiency Stage: Intermediate language proficiency may take up to another year after speech emergence. Students have typically developed about 6,000 words and are beginning to make complex sentences to continue their communication.

Stage V

The Advance Language Proficiency Stage: Gaining advanced proficiency in a second language can typically take from five to seven years. Students can speak English using grammar and vocabulary comparable to that of same age native speakers.

Every student of SLA goes through a predicable and sequential series of development stage. A basic knowledge of second language acquisition stage is extremely useful for mainstream classroom teachers and directly influences their ability to provide appropriate content-area instruction to ELL (English Language Learner) students.