English As Second Language Learning

Vocabulary acquisition is one of the essential aspects of language proficiency. Having a knowledge of only grammatical structures is not sufficient to contribute to a successful language acquisition. There should be a certain amount of vocabulary knowledge which can aid a foreign language competence. Following these lines, beginners are pressured to store many words in their memory and prepare them for instant use. Oxford and Scarcella (1994) suggest that vocabulary learning strategies help users of a foreign language (FL) reach certain number of remembered words. Thus, the knowledge of various language strategies can potentially aid reaching a high FL proficiency.

Characteristics: These are learners from ages 3 – 21 who are enrolled, or preparing to enroll in a school. Typically, they are not born in the USA or, their native language is no English. They may be Native Americans or Alaska Natives, or some other outlying area, where English is not used often enough such that it greatly impacts English proficiency. They may be migratory where the environment has a dominant language other than English. Such students have difficulty speaking, reading, writing, or understanding English, which may deny the child the ability to meet a proficient level of achievement on State assessments, ability to successfully achieve in a class where instruction is in English, or the chance

English is an international language which is used officially all around the world. Anybody who wants to make connections with the world we live in should learn English. I had English language classes in my secondary and high school years. I also took some private English learning courses throughout summers in my country, Turkey. However, I could not improve my English effectively as all Turkish students in Turkey. I fully agree that English will be learned most efficiently in the boundaries of an English-speaking country not in the home country because of some cases. Therefore, I came here, USA, to learn English better after graduation from my university.

Although vocabulary is the sub-skill of a language, it plays a very important role in language learning and teaching. In fact, vocabulary is central to language and is of paramount importance to language learners. On the other hand, words are the building blocks of a language that are used to label objects, actions, and ideas. In other words, people cannot convey the intended meaning without knowing vocabulary. It is widely accepted that vocabulary is a very important part in English language learning because no one can communicate in any meaningful way without vocabulary. As McCarthy (1990) stated, the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. Nation (1990) also affirms that vocabulary can be considered as the most important element in language learning because Learners think that many of their

Vocabulary is a crucial part of language that it is unattainable for a language system to achieve without them. Language structure is considered “the skeleton of the language,” it agreed that vocabulary is “the vital organs and flesh” (Harmer, 1991). So learning a language is to learn its vocabulary first. The acquisition of vocabulary is the central task for second language acquisition, and the language learners’ vocabulary competence takes a prestigious effect on the development and improvement of their ability to listen, speak, read and write (Lewis, 1993). In Vietnam, English education is intensely concentrated to all over the country and English has become a compulsory subject at all colleges and universities. However, we are often faced with such a situation: the students, after having learnt English for so many years, can memorize a large

Vocabulary is a significant component in language learning and attaining fluency. It is not an optional component as Milton (2009) comments “words are the building blocks of language and without them there is no language” (p. 3). However , learning vocabulary is not an aim in itself ; it is used to help language learners speak, listen , read , and write effectively. ( Nation, 2001 ) Ellis argues that having insufficient vocabulary bring problems to comprehension, and that creates difficulties to learners in their academic achievement. Having a large number of vocabulary makes learners more proficient in using a language (Meara 1996).

For many years, the teaching and learning of a second language has been the norm in schools throughout Europe and the United States. Teachers approached language instruction in a variety of ways like the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method, where students are taught fluency through conversation, or the Lexical Approach in which learners are able to understand and speak in large quantities of specific vocabulary and idioms (Richards and Rodgers 83-229). However, as the world progressed technologically, the methods of learning new languages transformed. Language teachers still inhabited classrooms and implemented these approaches, but computer programs complemented the lessons. Subsequently, desktop and mobile applications such as Duolingo surfaced, completely altering the way in which people were able to learn new languages. Although this media technology was the first of its kind, it is not necessarily new. While it can be considered “old” media, Duolingo still had a major impact on society, affecting social relationships and following technology.

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and

For me, learning a language is a complicated process. It is different from learning other subjects. It involves a lot of practices and follow up. When I talk about my personal experience, I would say that I have a rich experience in learning English as a second language. English was taught to me for ten years starting from grade seven till graduation from university. After graduation, I felt that I should improve my language skills. Therefore, I did a lot of efforts personally to increase my fluency. Until now I still learn the language. Indeed, learning a language takes a lifetime.

Rebecca Oxford (1990) classified vocabulary strategies into direct and indirect strategies with six categories. These categories contain 19 strategies and 62 sub-strategies. Direct strategies consist of 'memory ', 'cognitive ' and 'compensation ' strategies. Indirect strategies support and manage language learning without directly involving the target language hence, they strengthen the role of language learning and include 'metacognitive ', 'affective ' and 'social ' strategies. With the development of the concept of language learning strategies scholars have attempted to link these strategies to other aspects of language such as vocabulary as well. Studies such as O 'Malley and Chamot (1990) emphasized that most language learning techniques are used for vocabulary learning too. In line of this, the use of the memory strategies based on Oxford taxonomy is useful for vocabulary learning, and has a positive effect ,as a motivation to conduct the present research on increasing EFL learners ' vocabulary retention (Nemati, 2013).

This essay will try to explain through the use of research why and how people learn English as a foreign language. Brian Munoz is an example of a student learning English as a foreign language. He was born in Mexico and his first language is Spanish. As well as studying English he has also studied French. Brian has an interest in learning languages and wishes to one day be able to travel to the countries where those languages are spoken. Brian would first like to visit the united states in order to completely immerse himself in English. There are five members of his family, himself, his parents and his siblings.

To enable all students to learn and engage with the learning areas in the classroom, teachers employ a variety of teaching methodologies across all learning areas. Choosing an appropriate teaching methodology will make the process of teaching English as a second language easier and more rewarding for the teachers and students, and increase the likelihood of success. In this research, I will analyses a video clip of an ESL/EFL teacher and class in action for reflection on and evaluating the mythology to promote language learning.

Rubin established that learning strategies good learners use learning strategies such as guessing in meaning of words in context which is one of the most used cognitive strategies in second and foreign language learning. Another characteristics of a good learner underlined by Rubin is that good learners practice words by pronouncing them several times. Different researchers have investigated vocabulary learning strategies in various contexts in relation to most and least used frequent vocabulary learning strategies (Amerian & Heshmatifar, 2013; Kaya & Charkova, 2014; Omaar, 2016), learning strategies, L2 proficiency and gender (Green & Oxford, 1995), vocabulary size and general English proficiency (Gu & Johnson, 1996), attitudes towards vocabulary acquisition (Laufer, 1986), determine whether the classification of strategies used with English as a Second Language (ESL) could be applied to English as a Foreign language learning (EFL) (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Some studies sought to compare the use of vocabulary learning strategies in relation to age (Schmitt, 1997) and gauge the effectiveness of vocabulary learning strategies (Shams, 2012).

As a student teacher, I find it extremely important to learn and reflect on language acquisition theories made by many different theorist. As New Zealand is becoming more and more culturally and ethnically diverse (Stats NZ, 2013). This means classrooms will be more diverse. Hence it is important to have knowledge pedagogically on how teacher deliver a second language lesson and how to support ESOL students. Looking at Krashen’s theory, it is broken down into five hypothesis. Acquisition/learning, monitor, natural order, input and affective hypothesis. These hypothesis decipher language learning into different aspect where teachers need to understand and approaches to teaching english as a second language or a second language in general.

Due to the distinctions lie in cultural and linguistics aspects, writing in English is always quite challenging for most learners of English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL). These leaners tend to apply the knowledge from their native culture and language structures to produce certain intended responses in second language (L2), so as to produce semantically appropriate essay writing, which is more formally seen as language transfer (Bhela, 1999). This essay attempts to examine the issue of language transfer in ESL/EFL writing by relating and providing a general overview of the literature concerning the issue,