Contemporary teachers are facing a challenge in teaching English as a second language at school, and thus there comes a need for them to familiarize themselves with how SLA functions for children. Eric Digests.org. offers an overview on Barry McLaughlin’s article “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn,” which deals with five commonly held myths and misconceptions about children and second language learning while giving practical instructions for classroom teachers. While I agree with most of the myths presented, there is one point that is slightly contradictory to what I have learned in our textbook. Also, though the digest presents the original arguments fairly enough, the way the author
Learning second language has become a trend around the world over these years. In nowadays society, just knowing one language seems not enough for today’s competitive environment. Along with the increasing number of the people who want to learn a second language, teacher’s mission of teaching second language become more and more significant. However, many teachers are holding the misconceptions which might influence the learnings of second language learners. “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning,” written by Barry Mclaughlin, is an article discussing the misconceptions about second language acquisition.
Actually, children who are proficient at face-to-face communication can have problem in academic language usages. Yet, teachers may assume that children’s oral abilities parallels to their overall language competence, and instruct the more complex subject in all-English classroom that in reality, hinders children’s academic reading and writing. Thus, the article’s appeal out of the forth myth is similar to the third one, which is to make home language available to children learning the second language. And I think the argument seems to echo Steven Krashen’s input hypothesis that acquisition occurs when the individual is exposed to language that is comprehensible with i + 1. To achieve the step beyond the current language level, students’ first language is helpful because it enhances the comprehension needed to build the bridge from i to
In some occasions a child is exposed to two languages simultaneously, causing the child to combine some aspects of the language. Moreover, the child can become very proficient in the two languages
As the title implies, the article, “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning” looks into the subject of five commonly held myths about children learning a second language: (1) children learn second language easily and quickly, (2) the younger the child, the more skilled in acquiring an L2, (3) the more time student spend in a second language context, the quicker they learn the language, (4) children have acquired an L2 once they can speak it, (5) all children learn an L2 in the same way. I personally recommend reading this article because even though the evidence may not seem adequate and is therefore, worthy of questioning, the article offers an interesting perspective of second language learning for children that would allow
Learning a second language. Today it is essential to learn a second language because every day other languages are used in almost all areas of knowledge and human development. In the educational field, learning another language is necessary for students because it could become students that are competitive and this will help them to research and study from different sources. Not only is important when it comes to the academic field but to survive abroad as a means of communication and interaction with other cultures throughout the world. Learning languages allows enriching life experience, creating new ideas, to exercise the brain, gain benefit from the world's cultural diversity and improve the professional prospects considerably.
The second language learners will be able to learn the rules of the language effectively when the learners have enough time for it. 2. Focus on Form. The highlight of the language is that an effective monitoring requires an enough time. But if there is not enough time, students need to focus on the patterns of the language usage or careful about the accuracy of the language pattern essentially.
Abstract Learning second language is like a nightmare for everybody. Even we afraid of it, we want to know the second language utterly, either fluency of speaking or using appropriate vocabulary. From the past to the present, there are lots of techniques or approaches to learn the second language in the best way. As we know that culture is the integral part of the language. So, in order to be successful in learning, we have to understand and know the target culture.
“Empirical studies also show that some immigrant parents sometimes fail to implement effective bilingual education because they firstly, are unable to keep speaking continuously at home out of habits when living in a foreign country; secondly, they fail to push hard enough for education; and thirdly, they try to help but do not know how” (Fan-Wei 115). Often times when children start going to a new school and make new friends, they get used to talking in the language spoken at school (their non-native language). Therefore, when a student starts learning a new language, they tend to practice it as much as possible and start talking to everyone they know in the new language. This causes the child to not speak enough of their mother tongue and eventually forget how to read and write it. On the other hand, parents may fail to make the effort to teach the child their native language because they are so focused on having their child and themselves excel at the new language.
The questionable and ambiguous nature surrounding the notion that children play an active role in acquiring language has been debated by many theorists of different perspectives. These three perspectives include the learning view, the nativist view and the interactionist view. In this essay I will discuss each perspective with reference to psychological theories and research that relates to each view. The learning perspective of language acquisition suggests that children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement (Skinner, 1957). The ideology behind this view claims that children develop language by repeating utterances that have been praised by their parent, therefore gaining a larger vocabulary and understanding of phrases over