Sunday, May 13, 2007

Essential Life-Skillz: Learning a Language

For ages I've been wanting to learn a 3rd language; but til today still remain undecided as to which language to take up. I also regret not being able to learn my chinese well, and quitting French studies in Sec 2. Should I pick up Malay? Singapore is, after all, surrounded by Melayu speaking countries. Japanese? Whatever for? So I can understand and waste lots of time watching Animes? No thanks.

Anyway, the following research summary was done for a friend who needed help with a paper:

The first opinion is that languages can be learned mainly through imitation. The learner can reproduce a sentence that he has heard before or memorized. However, this is only surface level and there is no real understanding of the words that form the sentence. The learner will only be waiting for a chance to use the sentence. Through imitation of certain phrases but a weak grasp of sentence structure, they may come up with their own, new , never before heard sentences, which most of the time turn out to be grammatically wrong. One benefit from this is that the learners can practice their pronunciation and intonation.

It has been observed that parents correct their children’s speech, more often relative to the increasing age and maturity of the child. If they focus on the meaning of the sentence rather than form, it only corrects the choice of words but does not assist in helping the child to grasp successful communication.

Then, of course, we have the learners with a high IQ. Studies have shown a high success rate for this group of people, especially when assessing the oral communication skill and not metalinguistic knowledge.

Success is not imperative for users with a high level of motivation as there are other factors to take into account, such as the learning aptitude and method of instruction relative to the learners’ preference for learning. It is argued that teachers have no influence over a learner’s fundamental motivation. They can influence learners by providing a supportive and stimulating environment with activities appropriate to the culture and age group of the students. As such, positive motivation will increase success greatly.

Another opinion is that second language learners make errors due to interference from their native language. Since languages have structures and grammar distinctive to themselves, second language learners will have difficulties rediscovering the new language and often tend to transfer patterns from their first language. Doubly so if the learners interact with other learners who commit the same mistakes.

Habits, once formed, are tough to kick. As such, errors should be brought to the attention of the learner and corrected as quickly as possible. Persistent errors should be dealt with in the same way. Teachers play a vital role in this aspect, but must keep in mind that constant feedback may demoralize the learner and discourage them even more.

When interacting as a group, learners can get good practice in speaking and participating in group-work than just being spoon-fed by a teacher. It is unlikely that learners will commit more mistakes than usual in this situation but the drawback is that no one in the group is able to correct their groups’ mistakes as their level of language is on the same level. Teachers must thus design the task in a way that enables the learners to discover knowledge and information about the second language they didn’t know they had.

There is a debate on how much students absorb. Of course, students are restricted by sequences of development. Even when fed with a richer language input, they find themselves inadequate to learn a certain language feature and will end up being frustrated. Conversely, vocabulary can be self-taught as long as the users have the interest to improve. In this way, learners may also learn a great deal more than they were taught.

In conclusion, there are many variables when it comes down to learning a language. Personal characteristics of a learner, the structure of their native and target languages, learning through interaction with speakers of the target language and environment and manner of instruction are such factors.

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