Do you acquire or learn language?

It is not surprisingly that somebody who never goes to English lesson, but he can speak English in spontaneous communication. However, there are many people or students who have learned English at school for several years, but he is only able to memorize a lot of vocabularies or do grammar exercise rather than use it for active communication. Why could the two cases above actually occur in language domain? The answer is that because people pick up their second language into two ways, they are learning and acquisition.

People who are able to speak English actively and fluently without going to English lesson pick up the language through acquisition. People acquire the language by absorbing the language from their target-language community. They live in an environment in which all people use target language for communication, for example local people who live around some popular beaches in Bali who can communicate with foreigner fluently. People are able to acquire the language since they have good ‘spontaneous’ capabilities in receiving and producing the language. Initially, they must do a hard effort to build their spontaneous capabilities to get or use the language. Because they use it all the time with their environment, they are finally accustomed to the language. People acquire the language in natural and subconscious activity so that they can easily use in spontaneous conversation. It is similar with how we get our mother tongue. We can communicate with our parents, family, or friends because we do it naturally and subconsciously since we are child.

People who learn English as second language, on the other hands, pick up the language by using their ‘studial’ capability rather than spontaneous one. Most of their motivation get the language on this term is that they understand the language in term of the form or the structure of the language itself. They feel that they are successful of learning second language when they get excellent score from their written assignment. People learn English by organizing their learning and apply their conscious knowledge to do the task of English, particularly written task. They activate their studial capabilities to bring them to develop their competence in mastering the form of English, rather than using it for communication. In other words, they learn the language is to help them to check their spontaneous communication. Consequently, the more they monitor what they are saying, the less spontaneous they become.

In conclusion, whether people pick up the language through learning or acquisition depends on their sake of getting the language. When they get the language for spontaneous communication, it is suggested to acquire the language. If they want get the language for written test,on the other hand,they are suggested to learn English.