The Effects of Acquisition vs. Learning on Motivation
Approaches inspired by acquisition or learning will have different effects on the learner’s level of motivation along the learning process.
Acquisition-inspired approaches are normally detached from a syllabus and naturally more geared towards the learner’s needs and individual goals. They will also have activities based more on conversation rather than the study of grammar. As a result, they will produce more readily useful knowledge and raise the level of motivation as the learner builds up his communicative skills.
Learning-inspired approaches, normally tied to a syllabus, will emphasize the production of knowledge about the target language, especially its grammatical structures, at the expense of communicative skills. They will hardly meet the learner’s immediate goals. If not offset by a lively and charismatic teacher, the learning-inspired approach will drain the motivation, especially considering that proficiency in a foreign language can take a long time to be attained.
Age and The Efficiency of Acquisition vs. Learning
The majority of studies as well as the experience of those in the field of SLA indicate that the lower the age the easier, the faster and the more complete the learning will be. In the same way that age is a determining factor in foreign language learning in general, it is also a determining factor in the level of efficiency of acquisition and learning. Disconsidering individual differences like personality, motivation, hearing, and taking the normal learner as a sample, we can say that the lower the age, the more efficient acquisition will be over learning. At the same time, learning demonstrates to be partially efficient only during the age of intellectual maturity.