Why Motivation Is Key for Second Language Learning Success

A learners’ reason for wanting to learn something new can affect their motivation. A learner who is self-funded and wants to learn for personal or job progression reasons is likely to be more highly motivated than some who been “told” to attend, sent against their will or who is not interested in the subject.

Many popular theories of second language acquisition have been analyzed throughout history. The socialization of L2 learners, their present emotional state that is present at time of acquisition, as well as the comprehensible input and output with the use of scaffolding play a major role in second language acquisition. Let us also not forget the importance of written expression as well as reading comprehension with these L2 learners. Each play a role in language development. However, I believe that in acquiring a language, one must use a variety of techniques that work together to create a balance within the learning environment. Furthermore, all L2 learners learn differently and so a variety of resources will need to be used based on the ability of each student. There are many theories that have been developed by highly qualified experts in the field on linguistics. However, I will address those areas that I agree with as I present my personal theories on second language acquisition.

Disagreements with other people is something that we will all encounter at various points in our lives. It is therefore important from an early age that we learn how to manage disagreements and move on successfully from them.

Children, like adults will have their disagreements. As children get older their arguments can become more serious and are not simple squabbles. In order for children and young people to trust us, it is important that we can identify difficulties and help them wherever possible to find ways through them. It is essential that children and young people perceive our way of doing this as fair. When you have a conflict with a child, there is an opportunity for learning about how to solve problems. Conflicts help children to understand that other people have different thoughts and feelings to their own. Listen to the child and try to understand their point of view, and help them to understand yours. Then together, try to think of ways to solve the problem that you are both happy with. It might take a while but it will be worth it, and will help to build your relationship.

First, children¡¯s acquisition of language is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar, granted by Chomsky. It basically states that humans are born with a language acquisition device that, the ability to learn a language rapidly as children. However, there is one important controversy in language acquisition concerns how we acquire language; since Chomsky fails to adequately explain individual differences. From the behaviorists¡¯ perspectives, the language is learned like other learned behaviors. It is learned through operant

The term conflict is defined as a mutual disagreement or hostility that occurs among two or more individuals. Conflict occurs daily among children in preschool and with adult or teacher guidance, children will learn effective resolution skills to solve their own conflicts. Without an adult or a teacher to guide them, they will not develop effective skills to solve conflicts themselves. Recent research shows us that young children have the capability of being loving, caring, and prosocial with the support of adults to maximize these competencies (Wittmer, 2012). As children are growing they can easily change their behavior with repetitive words from an adult figure. With adult support, children can get along with their peers and have less behavior problems in school as well as in the

However, it can be argued with (Bruner 1964) that social interaction doesn’t explain all the complexities of language acquisition. Almost every day the language we hear is often incorrect, poorly defined, incomplete and full of hesitations, mispronunciations and other errors, and yet despite this we still learn to talk following the correct grammatical rules. Again this indicates the idea of Chomsky’s (1968) LAD model that children are born ‘hard-wired’ with the innate knowledge of linguistic rules and so these rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing. From these estimations and presumption the child can work out grammatical sets of rules and when more language is exposed to them, the more their language develops. Even within Chomsky’s (1968) LAD theory, undoubtedly he believed the role and promotion of the ‘nature’ aspect is the core foundation on which language can develop. But his theory also requires the role of nurture

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.

p.21). Children should be expected to pass through the four components of phonological (sounding out simple letters and patterns), syntactic (structuring sentences), semantic (adding meaning to sentences) and pragmatic (creating context in sentences) respectively. As the child’s proficiency in each component increases it may be of benefit to expose the child to language that may be just outside of their knowledge base as suggested by Vygotsky in his “zone of proximal development” theory. (McDevitt, Ormrod, Cupit, Chandler & Aloa, 2013.

Many popular theories of second language acquisition have been analyzed throughout history. The socialization of L2 learners, their present emotional state that is present at the time of acquisition, as well as the comprehensible input and output with the use of scaffolding play a major role in second language acquisition. Kirsten Hummel states, “The one most effective way to increase L2 competence was by exposure to ‘comprehensible input’.” (Hummel, 2014, p. 73) Let us also not forget the importance of written expression as well as reading comprehension with these L2 learners. Each plays a role in language development. However, I believe that to acquire language one must use a variety of techniques that work together to create a balance within the learning environment. Furthermore, all L2 learners acquire language differently and so using a variety of resources that are based on the ability of each student is neccesary. There are many theories that have been developed by highly qualified experts in the field of linguistics. However, I will address those areas that I agree with as I present my personal theories on second language acquisition.

Babies are not born talking, they learn language, starting immediately from birth. How does this process take place? When do children master the skills needed for using language successfully? What stages do they go through as they learn to understand and talk? Do the languages they learn affect the way they think? This edition of Eve Clark's highly successful textbook focuses on children's acquisition of a first language, the stages of development they go through, and how they use language as they learn. It reports on recent findings in each area covered, includes a completely new chapter on the acquisition of two languages and shows how speech to children differs by social class. Skilfully integrating actual data with coverage of current theories and debates, it is an essential guide to studying language acquisition for those working in linguistics, developmental psychology and cognitive science.

There are plenty of teaching methods that are used to teach a language, they developed over the years and centuries, in this essay two well-known teaching methods will be discussed, their principles, their advantages, and their drawbacks, these methods are Grammar Translation Method and The Direct Method.

Teacher motivation has a strong impact on students’ motivation and learning (Gardner,2007). In addition to teaching, ESL/EFL teachers should increase students’ motivation towards learning by using different motivational strategies. As the teacher motivation is a crucial factor which influences student’ learning, I wanted to give my attention towards “ESL Teacher Motivation in Sri Lankan Schools.” The research question of my study is: What elements of motivation and de-motivation are reflected in Sri Lankan ESL teachers?

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

There are two different and contrasting arguments about whether L1 should be used in the foreign language classroom and today the English-only policy is a topic of heated debate. While some believe that L1 interferes with the acquisition of the target language, others think that it can be appropriately used in the classroom in specific occasions. According to Nation (2003), the use of the first language has a small but important role and there are many reasons for its use in the classroom. Although the use of L2 is pivotal when learning a new language, L1 should be used as well in order to facilitate the understanding of complex concepts (e.g. grammar rules, expressions and vocabulary), to assess comprehension as well as to use class time efficiently (Atkinson, 1987). In “Using L1 in the L2 Classroom”, Schweers (1999) reported a crucial statement written by Auerbach (1993): “Starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners’ lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves. The learner is then willing to experiment and take risks with English.” These brief sentences explain that the use of L1 in the language classroom has positive and favorable aspects which will allow a valuable and efficacious learning of the new language.