Learning a second language is something that numerous people have attempted to do throughout the years. The motivation for doing this, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, varies from student to student. Learning a second language becomes effective when teachers are able to identify students’ individual learning problems, apply diverse methods and approaches to solve them, and nourish students’ learning motivation.
Petra Alicia Lagarda Villaseñor is seventy years old. She was born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico. It is a small town in the northern part of the country--not too far away from the United States. She is number nine of twelve children. Alicia’s first language is Spanish. Growing up, she was exposed to very little English. She has been to the US more than once in her life, and she has relatives who live there. Her son and her daughter, who is my mother, both speak English. My father and my sisters also speak English, many times at her house. However, she understands only a fraction of what we say, especially if we are speaking at a normal speed (she has asked for translations in the past). She likes to say short phrases and words in English, combining the English language with Spanish at times, in a jest. Cananea, https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cananea. TTC 2017 pp. 43-44. . My
In “Why Foreign Language Education Matters” Representative Rush Holt expresses the idea that the average American is generally deprived of what is known as cultural enrichment in their day-to-day lives, even though others believe that English should be the primary and only language Americans should speak. Holt conveys the overall concept that being bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual is a benefit not just for oneself but for our society. Rush Holt presents the argument with extreme concern for our upcoming generations and the consequences it may cause our nation’s economy to decrease in federal funding’s for education programs, as well as our global marketplace and national security who is highly dependent of translators, specialist, and
Australia is an extremely culturally diverse country, therefore many different languages are spoken in homes and communities across Australia. Consequently many primary school students are learning English as an additional language. EAL/D is an acronym used to refer to students whose first language is a language or dialect other than Standard Australian English; that is English is an additional language or dialect. In Australian schools it is essential students are able to speak and read English in order for them to understand and succeed in all content learning areas.
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
Entrepreneurship is regarded as one of the most important determinants of the industrial growth of the country.The dearth of the entrepreneul and managerial skills is one of the most common problems being faced by all under developed economies.Moreover,the potential for the employment of students graduating from professional colleges is enormous,but one major handicap which many of them face is poor communicative ability in English.Proficiency in English is recognised globally as a pre-requisite for entry into the work place.Since English plays a key role in the domains of entrepreneurship,corporate sectors and international business,its use has to be standardised,simplified,made more functional and intelligible. Students of professional colleges need a great deal of help in improving their ability in English language proficiency so as to entrepreneur and obtain easier entry into the corporate world.Proficiency in communication skills develops ability to grasp opportunities to offer economic advantages, maximising gains and above all building confidence in every individual that one could make things happen.
Language has been in the world since humans began to exist on the Earth. Language is an important part in constructing people’s perception and cultures. It is the reason that aggressors tried to teach their language to the victims who were invaded. People in the world, nowadays, interact with foreign people who speak different languages, so the possibility that people meet foreign people is increasing. As time goes, the society where people live requires them to learn a second or third languages. Some people think that they do not feel like they need to learn a foreign language, such as America and China. They claim that people can use the time better instead of learning a second language. In fact, this is the truth that we can survive even if we don’t know other languages. However, since the trend of our world has been changing, people make an effort to learn a foreign language for different purposes. Becoming a bilingual person(or multilingual person) gives an opportunity for people to gain more and better skills and abilities than other people who do not learn a second language. For these reasons, many researchers study and search benefits and necessity of learning a foreign language. Thus, many schools in the world have formally started a class which is learning a second language because of getting the positive things even though we are able to live in our world without knowing another country’s language. We will have a lot of advantages if we know how to speak and
“The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources-because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples” (Johnson). In today’s society, immigration is a controversial topic. Regardless of current views towards immigration, the nation is experiencing a daily influx of immigrants, particularly those with Hispanic heritage. To address this dramatic increase, a new program, The Influential, is effectively working to educate both U.S. citizens and immigrants. Instead of students taking two years of Spanish in high school, students will be mandated to take Spanish in the fifth grade and above. The Influential program focuses primarily on school aged children, affecting change in the mindsets of the nation’s youth that will carry the country into a more culturally aware future.
Many students today struggle with their English skills because their parents are immigrants and they cannot teach them. In my situation, my parents started to learn English the same time I started to learn it. Elementary school was some very difficult couple years I went through because I had trouble communicating with the kids my own age. I have always hated reading or writing because I find it incredibly boring and I was no good at it. I did not start learning how to speak/write in English until I was almost five years old since both of my parents did not speak English. I met with Ms. Ramirez, who taught me English every single day until the fifth grade. By that time, I was fluent and her help was not necessary anymore. Throughout those five years, my parents were taking English classes, also learning from what I learned and they had decent jobs by the time I was in middle school. Of course, the first couple years in Elementary school were extremely stressful, but I was able to overcome it because I had someone by my side the whole time. My real struggles with reading and writing, hit me my freshman year and I will never forget that.
In this article, Karmos and Csizér illustrate the way acquisition of language in different age gaps through incentive to learn English language as a second form of communication. The study offers a description of learning English in three different learner populations in Hungary. The population included university students, secondary school students, and adults. The researchers used questionnaires that were given to the population of the study to evoke their feeling on learning the second language so that they could understand the difference between the acquisitions of English as their second language.
Foreign languages are a must in today's world. There are many needs for a second language to be learned by everyone. The growing need to learn more languages is becoming more apparent in the public world today. In order to fix this problem, the school system needs to teach multiple foreign languages in order to grow as a nation both mentally and culturally.
Many researchers have hypothesized that language could be acquired only within a critical period, which is from early infancy to puberty. If this is true, this should be extended to second language acquisition as well, and, if so, young children should be better at acquiring the second language than adults, and the individuals who started to learn the second language in their early childhood should reach higher levels of proficiency in the second language compare to those who started to learn the language in their adulthood. If this prediction is true, it would importantly demonstrate that children should be exposed to language with rich vocabulary and grammar within the critical period, and foreign language exposure at school should take place in early grades in order to maximize their opportunity to learn the language effectively. However, the self-motivation and the value of learning the language may differ depending on the individuals and those factors can limit or expand the exposure to the target language. In this paper, I would like to discuss the correlation between the age that bilingual individuals are exposed to the second language as well as their motivation, and the value of learning the second language. I would like to suggest that regardless of the age that individuals are exposed to the second language, if one values the importance of learning the target language and maximize their exposure to it, they can reach to the native level of
Language remains an integral part of human culture that our brains instill before we are born. Scientists have known for years fetuses can hear inside the womb, but they have discovered newborns possess the ability to cry in a way which mimics their native language (Cox). Scientists also recognize that as humans age learning a new skill―like a language―proves increasingly more difficult. Adults’ brains do not possess the same absorbency skills that children do (Baer). For this reason, I would advocate for high schools and colleges requiring students to take at least two years of a foreign language. Numerous studies have linked learning a second language to increased cognitive function, heightened global awareness, and understanding foreign cultural traditions.
Krashen placed the variables affecting second language acquisition into three categories: motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety (Schutz, 1997). According to Kocher, motivation of an ESL student is “primarily connected with the desire to become part to the L2 speaking community (2013, pg. 14). This is primarily known as integrative motivation, an orientation that is socially and culturally oriented (Brown, 2014). Kocher outlines that motivation is often negatively impacted in a classroom setting due to embarrassment in messing up the second language (Kocher, 2013).
It's undoubtedly true that motivation in second language acquisition ( SLA) hints to the learner's attempt and desire to learn a language and their attitude toward learning language (Dornyei, 1994) . Motivation is regarded as a vital element in the develop of any activity . It plays a pivotal role in obtaining the desired goals. Motivation in SLA has been crucially investigated in variety contexts such as (Feng & Chen ,2009; Wu & Wu, 2008;Melendy,2008; Wang,2007; Lamb, 2007). As the components believe motivating EFL students to develop in the target language is extremely complex. In many cases , these students confront with problems in learning English and they are often demotivated to learn .the inquiry in the field of motivation has triggered an intense controversy among
Learning a language is quite possibly one of the most difficult and time-consuming endeavors a person could ever undertake. Therefore, it comes as no surprise, that a limited number of second languages are taught in schools across the western world, and languages are sometimes failed to be passed on to children growing up in a different country than their parents did. Conversely, by remaining monolingual, skills and knowledge will become concentrated only in certain countries and as the transfer of knowledge will cease the rate of human advancement will slow. This report intends to discuss the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning a second language, and investigate different ways of learning. To accomplish this, I have conducted into the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning another language.These particular areas were chosen for two reasons: first, it is speculated that since spoken and written language are how people communicate, there must be benefits for those who can speak more than one. Second, the process of learning a language is the ultimate test of mental fortitude. It is a medley of memorization and application that to even suggest it has no effect on one’s mental capacity or ability is absurd. This is necessary since it will confirm the existence of benefits to adopting alias lingua. It may be that there is no benefit, and either the world adopts one language, or each country focus on its own tongue. For this report, this paper has been
Student motivation and engagement is crucial for success in language learning. Motivation has been widely discussed by leading scholars like, Dornyei and Gardner (use first names) of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), particularly focusing on how it affects English Language Learners (ELLs) performance in various aspects of the L2 language and learning process. Teachers and students commonly use the term motivation to explain what causes success or failure in learning (Guilloteaux & Dornyei, 2008). Without sufficient motivation, even learners with the most remarkable abilities, excellent teachers, and curriculum, still cannot accomplish long-term goals.