The Acquisition - Learning Hypothesis

It is believed that children acquire their first language (they don't learn it). According to Krashen we acquire a new language subcounsciosly as we use the language for various purposes. For example, if we are living in a foreign country and go to the store to buy some food, we may acquire new vocabulary or syntactic structures in the process of negotiating the purchase. In other words, we are not focused on the language. Rather, we are using the language for real purposes, and acquisition occurs naturally as we attempt to conduct our business. He also suggests that we can acquire language as we read. Indeed acquisition is contrasted with learning in Krashen's theory. Learning is a councious process in which we focus on various aspects of the language itself. On the whole it can be said learning is associated with explicit instruction.