Issues in Second Language Learning Essay

People today run low in a global village populate correspond with severally opposite from virtually the globe regularly done the Internet, modern exile enables a person to travel from Africa to Europe in a calculate of hours, products ar bought and sold with increasing ease from all over the word, work are provided any while, anywhere in the founding, and real time coverage of major international impudentlys events is taken for granted. Thus, it seems that culture back up linguistic communication is a requirement in todays highly globalised environment.However, second voice communication skill (SLL) is a long and onerous regale, and is a big parturiency for anyone. After all, attainment a starting line phraseology is a process that involves much of a young childs day, and ESL students in universities must work even harder in order to learn and acquire a second spoken communication. The learning process can be emotionally difficult for university students to take the step into a naked terminology and culture. Adult learners, possibly even much than children and adolescents, can be shy and embarrassed around other(a)s when trying out beginning language skills.Learners acquire a second language in numerous different ways. There are many similarities in how a second language is learned, besides thither are also differences based on individual student characteristics and language background. For example, outperform students may begin to imitate phrases and expressions very early and try them without perturbing slightly making mistakes. Conversely, other learners may not do their newfangled language for some time. Usually, at the outset, learners may experience cultural cuff as they are unresolved to a new language, therefore, a upstanding new culture.This common experience, describe as uprooting, is the abrupt transition from a familiar cultural milieu to an alien one. In the beginning of all(prenominal) SLL program, man y learners experience a so-called honeymoon period, during which students are enrapture with the alien language without a true judgment of them. As time progresses, it is common for students to become almost hostile toward learning new language. secant language learners often suffer greater rates of anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic complaints.Furthermore, inclined the stresses SLL students face, a student struggling with language issues may lack the physical, emotional, or financial resources to tend to basic needs. After this stage, the learners are transitioned to so-called alter adjustment. In the last stage, the stage of bilingualism, the learners incorporate the norms of the language and culture that they own acquired and learned into their own lifestyle and their own value set. Cultural Issues some students of SLL are struggling with learning a new language.These struggles stem above all from linguistic and cultural differences. Often, they experience the languag e shock phenomenon wherein learners exhibit anxiety when first entering a community in which they do not speak, or are not proficient in, the dominant language. It is a common occurrence in schools, where, despite their desire to speak the dominant language fluently, students must struggle for months or several years originally they understand everything that is being said. This feeling of anxiety is aggravated by the ignorance of others. remember the following example reported by Li (1999) When a Chinese mother went to pick up her daughter from school, she began to ask her some questions about her day, but in Chinese. The girl became upset with her mother and later explained that her classmates would prank at her in those situations. Moreover, whenever the teacher in her school inquired as to who had do a position mistake, one of her classmates would point to her and say, The Chinese girl, when it was usually not so. In addition to the language shock that occurs on entering a new environment, many students experience another kind of struggle.Beca wasting disease of the types of ordeal described above, second language learners have negative associations with speaking their native language. hitherto when they go home, that is the language in which their parents communicate. Moreover, their parents insist that they too maintain the exercise session of the native language as a connection to their homeland and heritage. hardly many second language learners, especially those who immigrated to English-speaking countries, associate increase and fluency in English with becoming American and so they call for to give up their native language.These learners are caught in a passage of arms while at home, they are expected by their parents to speak their first language at school they are pressured to speak the second language. other important gainsay that many second language learners face is grounds the curriculum and pedagogy used in the classroom. Wester n classrooms are largely Euro-centric and America-centric. Carger (1996) recounts the story of a Mexican American son, who was a student in a predominantly Latino Catholic middle school in Chicago.While the teachers and administrators never openly stated that they intendd their students were inferior, they treated them as if they were. The boys homeroom teacher often used a demeaning subtlety when she spoke to her students. She did not allow them to ask questions, nor did she encourage them to think on their own. Most of her assignments included content to which her students could not relate. For example, one task that the students were asked to completed was to describe the experience of going to the dentist. However, many of the students had never been to a dentist. pedagogic Issues A major problem confronting learners is the failure of the teachers to appreciate different learning strategies and styles among SLL students. Increased interest in student-centred learning approac hes amongst language educators has led to numerous studies investigating individual language learning strategies and their relationship to achievement in learning second/foreign languages. Studies have indicated support for appropriately utilize language learning strategies on second/foreign language achievement (e. g. , Griffiths and Parr, 2001).The consensus of the inquiry is that although all learners, regardless of success with language learning, consciously or unconsciously employ a variety of learning strategies successful language learners engage in more purposeful language learning and use more language-learning strategies than do less successful ones. Overall, findings indicate that both the oftenness with which learners apply language learning strategies and the strategies they choose are distinguishing characteristics between more successful and less successful learners.Learning strategies are strategies that contribute to the knowledge of the language system which t he learner constructs and which affect learning directly. They are locomote taken to facilitate the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of education. In addition learning strategies are the special behaviours or thoughts that individuals use to help them learn, comprehend, or retain new information. Furthermore, it can be argued that learning strategies can foster learners autonomy in language learning.Strategies can also assist second language learners in promoting their own achievement in language proficiency. Learning strategies, therefore, not moreover help learners become efficient in learning and using a language, but also contribute to increasing learners self-directed learning. Whether as a result of heredity, educational background, situational requirements, age, or other factors, Sudanese learners of the English language understand and process information differently.While one individual prefers a particular learning style over another, much(prenominal) a penchan t reflects a personal inclination for how to learn in a particular situation. As personalities change, so too may their learning style preferences after exposure to different learning/teaching situations. Early re see into language learning strategies was mostly concerned with investigating what language learning strategies learners used, without attempting to manage the links between dodge use and success. Recent research has rivet on determining the connections between outline use and language proficiency. much(prenominal) studies have shown that proficient language learners employed more strategies in language learning than less proficient language learners. Other findings have exposed a relationship between students perceptions of their language proficiency and strategy use. Oxford and Nyikos (1989) corroborate that greater strategy use accompanied perceptions of higher proficiency, while Wharton (2000) demo a significant correlation between the two factors, indicating the higher a students language proficiency self-rating, the more frequent strategy use was.Long lists of learning strategies have been identified by a number of studies over the past thirty years Oxford (1993) reported that there were at least two dozen different classifications. Generally, these learning strategies authorize under four broad categories, i. e. strategies that enable learners to (1) comprehend, store, retrieve and use information (2) manage and direct their learning through reflection and planning (3) attend their emotions and (4) create opportunities to practice the mastermind language with other mint. Learning strategy system can be direct or indirect.Basically, direct learning strategies require mental bear on of the target language. There are trio major groups of direct strategies, each processes the language differently and for different purposes memory, cognitive, and compensation. reminiscence learning strategies, also called mnemonics, involve mental proce sses used in written text information in order, making associations, and reviewing. Cognitive learning strategies involve the processing of the target language so that meaning becomes clear through processes wish well reasoning and analyzing.Lastly, compensation learning strategies enable second language learners to propose up for gaps in their knowledge and skills, by, for example, guessing meanings and using gestures. On the other hand, indirect strategies support and manage language learning often without involving the target language directly. The metacognitive, affective, and social learning strategies belong to the groups of indirect learning strategies. In essence, metacognitive learning strategies enable second language learners to plan, coordinate, evaluate, and direct their own learning as well as to monitor errors.Affective learning strategies, on the other hand, help learners gain control over their emotions, attitudes, and motivation through self-encouragement, self- reward, and reduction of anxieties. Finally, social learning strategies are ways of involving other people in enhancing learning through questions, cooperation and increased cultural awareness. Another pedagogical issue is that many SLL teachers do not generate environment that go out foster learners understanding of making the essential mental construction. The current research proposes that students need to construct their own understanding of their learning.Constructivism provides a way of understanding teaching and learning and offers information for developing various ways of teaching, because the challenge in teaching is not to lecture, explain, or otherwise to attempt to commute knowledge, but to create circumstances and experiences that engage the students and support their own history and application of language models needed to make sense of these experiences. The focus of constructivism is not unique to psychology it also has roots in several areas, such(prenominal) as linguistics. Constructivism is primarily a theory of human development that in recent years has been applied to learning.The learning or meaning-making theory proposes that people create their own meaning and understanding, combining what they already know and believe to be true with new experiences with which they are confronted. The theory views knowledge as temporary, developmental, social and cultural. Lambert et al. (1995) described constructivism as the primary basis of learning where individuals bring past experiences and beliefs, as well as their cultural histories and world views, into the process of learning all of these influence how we interact with and interpret our encounters with new ideas and events (p.xii).Guided by theories of constructivism, teachers must recognize that learning is a search for meaning meaning requires an understanding of the whole as well as its parts in seeking meaning, they must understand the mental representations that students use to interp ret the world and the assumptions they make to strengthen those representations and the goal of learning is for the SLL student to develop his or her own understanding.Hence the students cultural-social and historical contexts are of immenseness in their learning. companionable constructivist concepts have important implications in teaching strategies. Social constructivists believe that reality is constructed through human interactivity. Members of a society unitedly construct the properties of the world. For them, reality does not exist prior to its social invention, consequently it cannot be discovered.Also, social constructivism holds that knowledge is also a human product and is socially and culturally constructed, which suggests that individuals establish meaning by interacting with each other and with their environment. Additionally, social constructivism proposes that learning does not occur only within an individual, but is a social process meaningful learning among SLL students happens when they are obscure in social activities.Teachers can design instructional models based on the social constructivist perspective. These models promote collaboration among learners and with practitioners in the society. According to Lave and Wenger (1991) a societys practical knowledge is positioned in relations among practitioners, their practice and the social organization and political economy of communities of practice. This suggests that learning should involve such knowledge and practice.