How Do Language Learning Strategies Impact Learning Of Second Language?

Working in a classroom with English Language Learners can be a great learning experience for those going to school to become teachers. Something that I was curious about in the kindergarten classroom that I am in, is how the ELL student’s in the class could learn different educational skills in a way that would be beneficial to them. What are the different strategies that teachers can use with ELL students to make them better learners? Through my question, my hope is to find out different strategies that I could use to help ELL students learn different educational skills.

Therefore, from the behaviourist approach, language acquisition can be seen as a stimulus-response process. Children learn language by immitation and analogy. The roles of imitation, repetition, reinforcement, and motivation are essential in learning the language. The First Language Acquisition is thus the result of nature which based on practicing.

Cohen (1998a, 1998b) considered test taking strategies as combination of two different kinds of strategies language –use and test-wiseness strategies; he also believed that target language learners consciously apply strategies which are regarded as mental operations or processes for the purpose of accomplishing language tasks (Nikaki and Stathopoulou 2009).

Guidelines to teaching a foreign language highlight all of these elements. Listening, reading, writing, and speaking are all taught and tested at beginner, intermediate, advanced, and superior levels so that these different learning methods are highlighted and executed at varying levels. Children also learn and are shown new ways of looking at the world through the varying strategies. In fact, correlation studies have shown that “students who have had several years of foreign language do better on SATs, particularly the verbal part” (WALKER). As root words, prefixes, suffixes, conjugation, and noun agreements are taught in new languages, it is easier to see connections to the structure of one’s first language. The knowledge of a language one is raised speaking and understanding is simply obtained through experience. However, learning a second language emphasizes the parts of language that come naturally in the first. It takes self-motivated work and dedication to learn a second language later in life, so the outcome of attaining a comprehensive grasp on a foreign language early on pays off in multiple ways.

One of the best ways to help students learn a second language is to use a variety of settings that promote talk and interaction. These not only help students understand new concepts, but they also help to provide a foundation for learning through reading and writing. Since literacy is part of language, reading and writing develop alongside speaking and listening. Students who spend time talking and listening to each other and working on reading and writing activities are able to develop more proficiency in all language modes.

Many second language acquisition theories have been developed over the years. These theories examine the avenues in which second language is acquired and the avenues in which they are

Acquiring second language is different with first language development. These differences are the learning environment, learning development, interlanguage, learning goal, knowledge transfer and others.

The first language helps in the initial stages of second language acquisition as it can serve as a referent and a tool to which students can turn when needed. It is useful, for example, to turn to the first language during the acquisition of new vocabulary or to compare the structures of both the first and the second language for understanding in a better way some concepts like verb tenses.

Language acquisition is very interesting topic, recently become part of our life and it helps the communication between people not only enables us to understand others. Also it has aids in developing relationships, as we know this language is crucial part of everyday life.

Although all the strategies help me further understand dual language learners, there are a couple that stand out. Let me start with strategy, planning 5. This strategy helped me to better understand that it is not only beneficial to pick a book that is related to the academic objective, but also a book that the children can relate to. When picking a book most teachers as well as I usually go for the books based on the academic objective. Which is great, but when you pick a book the children can relate to. It helps them to engage and participate more. It also helps with the discussion, because they are listening they can understand the story. therefore, eager to answer the questions when ask. Now when I choose a book to read I make sure it is relatable to the kids. One change I made when I’m doing my lesson plans, is picking the books I know the children’s like and relate to and see how I can fit them in the lesson plan.

Learning a second language is beneficial at all ages. Once you have been fluent in a second language, you can grab numerous of opportunities and benefits in it. Whatever your age, learning a second language can give lots of advantages especially in today’s global society. You can have the opportunity to get better job prospects, improved your understanding from all over the world and experience new culture. However, you have to learn second a second language in a best way in order to make you to easily understand what you have leant. Acquisition method is a best way to learn second language. Acquiring means learn or develop a skill, habit or quality in an informal way and the process of learning second language through experience instead of remembering, memorizing and understanding the rules of the language. Indeed, learning second language through acquisition is the best because it is more exciting, can learn new word without being forced, and learners can learn a second

Previous research has shown that there is a correlation between learner’s achievement in mnlanguage and teachers’ use of the target language (Carroll, 1975, Wolf, 1977). The maximum use of the target language may result in higher motivation as learners can realize how useful the knowledge of the target language is (MacDonald, 1993). Also, it brings about the benefits of language exposure and language gains (Inbar-Lourie, 2010). Cook (2001) also believes that the success of L2 learning depends on how learners are treated. Teachers have to provide learners with Opportunities and optimal samples for encountering the target language.

Second language acquisition is a process whereby people learn an additional language on top of their native ones. Learning a second language can be functional to oneself especially when communicating with a person whom you do not have a common language with. In acquiring the second language, there will be difficulties that one might face as compared to acquiring the first language, which makes it harder to acquire. Our mother tongue is easier to learn as we would have been brought up by our parents or grandparents that speak the language. Learning a second language can be difficult as we are not brought up for that language and would not know the basis of it. Some factors that makes it hard is the age of the learner, experience, the cognitive

The aim of teaching a second language is that it provides children with the necessary language skills that enables the child to communicate meaningfully as well as to read and write at the primary level. There is an order in which young children generally acquire their second language skills and those are as follows:

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).