Competence In Communication Skills In Second Language Acquisition

According to Sandra Clyne¹, Competence in communication skills in one’s first language is achieved by every child in every culture in every country in the world unless the child is differently abled with disabilities like Autism. Also this may not be the case of a child put in deficient developmental environment lacking adequate language stimulation. After years of constant exposure to the fairst language at home as well as in the immediate community environment the children become more confident, fluent and effective in communicating in their native language. Their communicative skills in the first language gets reinforced by the school environment in which additional skills such as reading and writing are involved.

It may sound logical

Judith Strozer and others supported this view and came to the conclusion that they differ from young children in brain plasticity leading to their difficulties in second language acquisition. Catherine Snow and M Hoefnagel-Hohle and others opposed this view point of the role of biological clock in second language learning. They opined that if the process of teaching/learning of a second language is well structured to suit such adolescents and young adults they will learning in an accelerated pace in most of the areas of language acquisition except pronunciation which is caused by the influence of first language. This may be possible for the adolescents and young adults due to their better developed abilities for abstract logical reasoning which is termed as formal operations by Piaget. This enables them to achieve analytical understanding of the intricacies of new language learning in relatively concrete terms.Adolescents can add a child-like willingness to experiment and play with language to this capacity for meta-linguistic awareness, and so they become the speediest second language

Classroom activities such as student presentations and culture circles should be designed to address issues of eliminating cultural barriers and invite valuing and sharing of personal experiences as well as use of native language would seem appropriate particularly fitting these factors into course areas like behavioural science, social science and literature, as well as English as a Second Language.

Within this context, it is worthwhile to note Jim Cummins’ reciprocal interaction model of education, which sees a network of meaningful oral and written communication among students and teachers as the matrix of learning. Student-directed projects, presentations and classroom discussions supplement and even begin to supplant the traditional lecture