Explain The Difficulties Of Learning A Second Language Essay

Learning a foreign language nowadays generally focuses on the four learning skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing in order that the students will be able to master their language competences in everyday life . For effective communication in any language, we need these four skills. The natural way of learning our first language begins with listening, then speaking, after that reading, and finally writing. (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992) One of the important skill to start learning a foreign language is listening skill. We notice that we use the same theory to learn any foreign language; the learners listen first the language and then imitate what they heard. They, after that, will produce their oral expressions. Accordingly,

Moreover, as they cannot practice French in their everyday life, they tend to be interested less and less in French. Fortunately, most schools in the big cities of Thailand still offer French as the optional second foreign language so the need to improve student learning and achievement still exists.

One significant problem for students who learn French in Thailand is the little chance to practice French with native speakers. Besides, in French class, there are too many students and it is hard for the teachers to let their students listen to the authentic

French conversation from the cassette, CD or another media during the class. With the progress of the information and communication technology today, students can get more and more knowledge, as well as the authentic information from the Internet.

They are able to improve their French listening skill via many resources on the websites, existing in large quantities. However, these websites spread out all over the

Internet and are difficult to find out properly and quickly by the search engines, especially for the French beginners whose language skills are still limited.

The social networking and the electronic media plays nowadays the