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Learning a New Language

Introduction

Learning a new language involves mastering and familiarizing oneself with the aspects, formats, and structure of a language in terms of writing and speaking. The process of learning a new language might not be easy and needs a great guidance and coaching to achieve excellence in the language. There are however barriers that come in the way of learning a new language. Personal perspective, attitude towards the language as well as the general personal view of the language are some aspects that may lead to barriers to learning a new language. A thorough and deep research into a language can assist one to achieve a better and simpler way to learn a new language.

Main Barrier to Learning a New Language

Barriers to learning a new language come into the picture when a learner cannot understand the language correctly. There are several aspects that act as barriers to learning a new language. In his book, “LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: The Bad News and the Good News. In Understanding Language: A Guide for Beginning Students of Greek and Latin” Fairbairn points out the basic barriers that prevent students from successfully learning a new language. Although Fairbairn bases his arguments on the Greek and Latin languages, they are completely applicable to other languages (Fairbairn).

Possessing an English mode is stated as the main barrier to learning a new language in Fairbairn’s book. An English mode refers to the situation where a learner possesses the belief or concept hat English is the standard for the way in which all languages should express ideas. Believing that English is the standard language causes learners to subconsciously try to fit every new language into the structure of the English language. Failure sets in from the beginning of the process of learning the new language as each language is different and independent from each other. By basing a new language on the way English is structured, one cannot independently formulate a language which leads to slow, and in other cases a wrong understanding of a given language (Fairbairn).

Fairbairn’s Concept to Understanding a New Language

Fairbairn seeks to help students to learn and understanding a new language by breaking them out of the English mode at the start of the book. In the book, he starts by providing the things that each language should achieve to facilitate communication by explaining how Indo-European languages accomplish their communication tasks and providing a way in which other languages can achieve the same. When students view new languages as different from English, it helps them to create a fresh focus on a different structure of language that is not English which in turn facilitates quicker learning and understanding a language (Fairbairn).

Achieving to break out of English mode is simply a way of creating a foundation to enable a student to learn a new language. Understanding the language itself involves grasping the major sections of the language which are its noun and verb systems. As an illustration, Fairbairn deals with what a language’s nouns and verbs must do and then goes further to explain how the forms of Greek and Latin achieve the functions that are needed. As a result, therefore, Fairbairn is able to make the hard tasks of memorizing forms and learning syntax easier more enjoyable and easier. Learners in the process gain a better understanding of the way in which a specific language works before they start working on learning the details. Fairbairn’s book, therefore, gives learners of a new language the conceptual benefits of studying a new language. New language-learners, therefore, can gain a great advantage in the process of learning a new language by reading Fairbairn’s book at the start of their study (Fairbairn).

Preparing students that do not have the least knowledge of grammatical terminologies and principles for studying a new language is one of the book’s greatest aims. At the beginning of the book, Fairbairn promises to give the readers adequate familiarity with language as a whole such that they will be able to understand what different sections of a language aim to accomplish to enables its users to communicate well in it. He went further to provide an illustration of the ways in which the languages of Greek and Latin achieve accomplish these tasks of a language. This illustration is very useful to most learners as they are unable to diagram sentences, point out parts of speech, or correctly explain syntax. Fairbairn achieves to help language beginners by enabling them to relate the new language to a wider notion of how languages work.

Fairbairn’s book acts as a companion to introductory texts on new language students. “Understanding Language” teaches what is exactly to understand beginning language grammar with no more, no less and is additionally clear, concise and motivational as well. In the book, Fairbairn illuminates the complexities of new languages helpfully by anticipating the challenges that are faced by teachers in explaining and by students in comprehending grammatical issues. Emphasis on the functions of the forms of a language is especially a great contribution and assistance to learning a new language. “Understanding language” provides an outstanding contribution for being uniquely helpful to learners as well as their tutors in learning and teaching a new language respectively. It additionally treats fundamentals of language and does not give English grammar undue emphasis and priority but presents the basic building blocks of language generally conceived.

Theory of Acquiring a Second Language

Michael Sharwood and Christopher Candlin in their book “Second Language Learning: Theoretical Foundations”, they provide an up-to-date survey and analysis of the theories of acquiring a second language from the early seventies to the present day. The book provides a discussion of the development of ideas in language learning and goes further to look at their implications and directions for future research. Students of the second language, as well as their teachers, can benefit from the book by achieving a clearer insight in the field of both linguistics and language pedagogy in the process of learning a new language. It engages study questions and activities that provide practical opportunities for replicating the language studies and exploring further the principles that it presents on second language learning (Sharwood & Candlin).

Candlin and Sharwood attempt to bring up the awareness of second learning acquisition researchers for the importance of breaking from the captivity of absolutist theories as well as their obsession with causality. They further encourage the move towards the incorporation of interpretative methods to the inquiry. They begin to set a stage for the process of language acquisition to take a direction towards incorporating the interpretative methods into the inquiry. Sharwood and Candlin have their book divided into sections where they organize each in terms of chronological developments. They depart from early research proceeds through a discussion of the works coming up from the perspective of creative construction to Krashen’s monitor theory and winds up with Pienemann’s teachability hypothesis. In another section, they consider of extension of recent theoretical models of linguistics, the markedness theory and a discussion of the implications and application of the research in class (Sharwood & Candlin).

Sharwood and Christopher insist on the theoretical need to notice, which in turn accounts for the transfer of intake for learning. Learners tend to notice before engaging in the learning process of a language or rather make noticing an essential condition for learning. He goes further to indicate that the degree of explicitness always has a differential effect on the level of intake and a higher intake level as well translates to a stronger effect on intake levels. Sharwood and Christopher proceed to agree that noticing the features in its input is a crucial step in the process of learning and understanding a language. However, the two differ from other scholars like Schmidt in that they consider noticing an input feature as a conscious or an unconscious process while noticing the gap is purely a conscious process. Noticing can, therefore, be said to perform a function of interfacing between the development of knowledge of a feature and the actual acquisition of the feature. Noticing can, therefore, be defined as the process through which learners get to develop explicit knowledge into an implicit one through a formal instruction process.

Perspective of Creative Construction

New perspectives on the specific nature of the process of creative construction are brought forth by the authors by using Brown’s notions of semantic and linguistic complexity to account for differences between the first and the second language acquisition processes. They go further to clarify the notions of the complexity strategy of learning and additionally bring forward a new analytical process and framework which can be of use in a study on the strategies of acquiring a second language syntax. The new process constitutes of an adaptation of and ordering theoretic method which tends to assume that there exists a logical relation amongst items of a group, and that is additionally built to determine the relationships. Creative construction, therefore, uncovers the empirical facts required before a learner can confidently engage in strategies of studying a second language (Sharwood & Candlin).

Krashen’s Monitor Theory

Krashen’s monitor theory of second language learning is incorporated to in Sharwood’s and Christopher’s book to bring forward the two independent systems of acquiring a second language which is the acquired and learned system. An acquired system is produced by a subconscious process which is similar to the process that is undergone by children when they acquire their first language. A learning system is usually the product of formal instruction process and involves a conscious process which brings forth a knowledge on language and grammar rules (Sharwood & Candlin).

Markedness Theory of Second Language Learning

Markedness theory is applied in many fields of learning a language such as a syntax, semantics, and morphology. One of the entities that are widely distributed are the unmarked and the compliment is marked members of the opposition. Markedness relations are not fixed but depend on the internal evaluation of the terms of a language. Markedness can be applied within a specific language or between two languages.

Learning a new language using Web 2.0

Learning a new language has been giving people problems from the past. The ability to master new languages has been perceived as a talent and only a few people learn a new language expect when they are forced to be circumstances. However, technology is taking over the world to make almost all the activities possible. Even when people are learning a new language, there is a concept that has been developed to aid in the process. The concept is referred to as the web 2.0 concept. The concept has been gaining popularity over time because the user contributes a great deal to the development of the concept taking place online. The idea has become effective due to the exploitation of the social media. Although the social media has been used mostly for entertainment and non-educational purposes, the web 2.0 technology has been a game-changer. It is the collaboration between the concept and the social media through sharing of information in the process of learning a foreign language (Stevenson & Liu).

Elements of Web 2.0

The following are some of the elements that the site uses to be effective:

· Wikis: these are the sites which allow one to be involved through contributing to the website. A good example is the Wikipedia where a user has the ability to collaborate and edit content on the website.

· Mobile computing: this is the trend toward user’s ability to connect irrespective of where they may be. We are living in a time where almost everyone has a Smartphone or other mobile device and a network which allow them to access the website anytime.

· Social networking: it involves reaching the target population through other people. It is important because it helps to advertise the existence of a good or service. Examples of social networks include twitter, Facebook among others.

· Interactive efforts based on the ability to access large numbers of users and their collective resources, such as crowd funding etc.

· Social curation: The collaborative sharing of information organized around one or more specific themes or topics. Social content curation includes Instagram etc.

Web 2.0 is an online technology that compares to the early days of the Web, characterized by greater user relationship and collaboration, more prevalent network connectivity and enhanced communication gateway. It makes it possible for people to communicate even if they are from different nations or cross-culture. Web 2.0 concept is different from the traditional worldwide web because it has a greater collaboration among Internet users, content producers, and businesses. The way people used to access data from the internet and use it or download it but now they have a real-time control over the information. As I mentioned earlier, the users are involved in the development making the idea user-friendly. The Web 2.0 has a social nature is another primary distinction between it and the ordinary, static Web. Increasingly, websites enable society-based input, interaction, data-sharing, and collaboration (Stevenson & Liu).

Web 2.0 is a word that describes the modification of trends in the use of World Wide Web concept and Web design aiming to enhance creativity, security while sharing information, increase interaction, and advancing the functionality of the Web from what it. These have led to the advancement and change of Web-based societies and exploited services, such as social-networking sites, for example, the YouTube and Facebook. Although the Web 2.0 comes out as a better version of the World Wide Web, the features have not changed but the difference manifests in the way the web is utilized. The term is a catch-all term used to explain several developments on the Web by changing the way it is used. The shift can be described as the evolution of Web use from passive consumption to an active participation, creation, and sharing. The users of the websites cannot only retrieve data but also interact by running the software through the browser (Stevenson & Liu).

Online study

The results of the online study showed that while users viewed the social networking elements of the Babbel website were less important than the other sector; there was still an attraction towards learning a new language from other users all over the world. Many users of the Babbel website were not the familiar site. They went to site primarily to learn a new language for fun, and most were not taking a formal language class. Their main agenda was to interact with other users but also concerned about how they could use the social network for dating purposes or other non-learning social purposes. The users were mainly the youth who were curious about the world and cross-cultural way of lives that they would want to experience. The other motivating factor is being part of the development process of the concept because they would be given a chance to contribute some useful ideas (Stevenson & Liu).

Conclusion

Learning a new language involves a lot of effort for a student to be successful. In relation to the above references, the authors provide highly useful mechanism towards learning a new language. Fairbairn provides a clearer and a more relevant concept towards studying a new language successfully. Sharwood and Christopher achieve this by providing ways to achieve a successful process and strategies of learning a new language. Stevenson and Liu, on the other hand, give a way to make use of social media to assist one in learning a new language.

References

Fairbairn, D. (2011). LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: The Bad News and the Good News. In Understanding Language: A Guide for Beginning Students of Greek and Latin

(pp. 3-12). Catholic University of America Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fgqfc.7

Smith, Michael Sharwood, and Christopher N. Candlin. Second language learning: Theoretical

foundations. Routledge, 2014.

Stevenson, M., & Liu, M. (2010). Learning a Language with Web 2.0: Exploring the Use of