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96-412: Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics , but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences , and multiple literacies. Increasing globalization has created a great need for people in

192-460: A card game that requires calling for cards may allow blended learning of numbers (1 to 10). When talking about language skills, the four basic ones are: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, other, more socially based skills have been identified more recently such as summarizing, describing, narrating etc. In addition, more general learning skills such as study skills and knowing how one learns have been applied to language classrooms. In

288-457: A country where the language is spoken. Translation and rote memorization have been the two strategies that have been employed traditionally. There are other strategies that also can be used such as guessing, based on looking for contextual clues, spaced repetition with a use of various apps, games and tools (e.g. Duolingo and Anki ). Knowledge about how the brain works can be utilized in creating strategies for how to remember words. Esperanto

384-415: A desired speech response), morpheme studies, behaviourism, error analysis, stages and order of acquisition, structuralism (approach that looks at how the basic units of language relate to each other according to their common characteristics), 1st language acquisition studies, contrastive analysis (approach where languages are examined in terms of differences and similarities) and inter-language (which describes

480-462: A few of the researchers who have dedicated time to this subject. They have worked to determine what qualities make a "good language learner". Some of their common findings are that a good language learner uses positive learning strategies, is an active learner who is constantly searching for meaning. Also a good language learner demonstrates a willingness to practice and use the language in real communication. He also monitors himself and his learning, has

576-425: A first language and with few exceptions, they will be fully successful. For second language learners, success is not guaranteed. For one, learners may become fossilized or stuck as it were with ungrammatical items. ( Fossilization occurs when language errors become a permanent feature.) The difference between learners may be significant. As noted elsewhere, L2 learners rarely achieve complete native-like control of

672-488: A major improvement over the previous or contemporary methods. The earliest applied linguists included Jean Manesca, Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff (1803–1865), Henry Sweet (1845–1912), Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), and Harold Palmer (1877–1949). They worked on setting language teaching principles and approaches based on linguistic and psychological theories, but they left many of the specific practical details for others to devise. The history of foreign-language education in

768-415: A method until the 19th century. Grammar translation method did not focus on listening and speaking, it has focused on reading and writing only. The grammar–translation method originated from the practice of teaching Latin. In the early 16th century, Latin was the most widely studied foreign language because of its prominence in government, academia and business. However, the use of Latin then dwindled and

864-401: A more balanced approach to teaching and helps students of a variety of learning styles succeed. The defining difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is the age the person learned the language. For example, linguist Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty. In most cases, people never achieve

960-426: A new kind of foreign language instruction needed, shedding light on what the grammar–translation was missing. They supported teaching the language, not about the language, and teaching in the target language, emphasizing speech as well as text. Through grammar–translation, students lacked an active role in the classroom, often correcting their own work and strictly following the textbook. Despite all of these drawbacks,

1056-506: A number of famous linguists are monolingual. However, anecdotal evidence for successful second or foreign language learning is easy to find, leading to a discrepancy between these cases and the failure of most language programs. This tends to make the research of second-language acquisition emotionally charged. Older methods and approaches such as the grammar translation method and the direct method are dismissed and even ridiculed, as newer methods and approaches are invented and promoted as

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1152-513: A part of the education curriculum around the world. In some countries, such as the United States, language education (also referred to as World Languages) has become a core subject along with main subjects such as English, Maths and Science. In some countries, such as Australia, it is so common nowadays for a foreign language to be taught in schools that the subject of language education is referred to LOTE or Language Other Than English. In

1248-483: A payment. Language learning strategies have attracted increasing focus as a way of understanding the process of language acquisition. Clearly listening is used to learn, but not all language learners employ it consciously. Listening to understand is one level of listening but focused listening is not something that most learners employ as a strategy. Focused listening is a strategy in listening that helps students listen attentively with no distractions. Focused listening

1344-605: A popular source in the linguistics field. See below Table 1. Collecting the number of second language speakers of every language is extremely difficult and even the best estimates contain guess work. The data below are from ethnologue.com as of June 2013. Grammar translation The grammar–translation method is a method of teaching foreign languages derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of teaching Ancient Greek and Latin . In grammar–translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between

1440-463: A result, he also published the world's first illustrated children's book, Orbis sensualium pictus . The study of Latin diminished from the study of a living language to be used in the real world to a subject in the school curriculum. Such decline brought about a new justification for its study. It was then claimed that its study of Latin developed intellectual ability, and the study of Latin grammar became an end in and of itself. "Grammar schools" from

1536-497: A small following, but offer useful insights. While sometimes used interchangeably, the terms "approach", "method" and "technique" are hierarchical concepts. An approach is a set of assumptions about the nature of language and language learning, but does not involve procedure or provide any details about how such assumptions should be implemented into the classroom setting. Such can be related to second-language acquisition theory . There are three principal "approaches": A method

1632-427: A strong drive to communicate, and has a good ear and good listening skills. Özgür and Griffiths have designed an experiment in 2013 about the relationship between different motivations and second language acquisition. They looked at four types of motivations—intrinsic (inner feelings of learner), extrinsic (reward from outside), integrative (attitude towards learning), and instrumental (practical needs). According to

1728-422: A student of Plötz, a major proponent of this method in the 19th century. In commenting about writing letters or speaking he said he would be overcome with "a veritable forest of paragraphs, and an impenetrable thicket of grammatical rules". According to Richards and Rodgers, the grammar–translation has been rejected as a legitimate language teaching method by modern scholars: [T]hough it may be true to say that

1824-484: A target language afterward may result in greater proficiency in the long run than studying the target language only. Various studies have been conducted on this "propaedeutic value" of Esperanto Many of these experiments' findings were compromised by unclear objectives, brief or anecdotal reporting, and a lack of methodological rigor. However, the results of these studies were consistently favorable, and suggested that studying Esperanto before another foreign language expedites

1920-500: Is a constructed language created in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof , a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist, aimed to eliminate language barriers in international communication. Esperanto is based on the Indo-European languages , and has a highly regular grammar and writing system. It has been proposed that learning Esperanto can provide a propaedeutic effect for foreign language study. That is, studying Esperanto for one year and then studying

2016-440: Is a hypothesis that when a child is going through puberty, that is the time that accents start . Before a child goes through puberty, the chemical processes in the brain are more geared towards language and social communication. Whereas after puberty, the ability for learning a language without an accent has been rerouted to function in another area of the brain—most likely in the frontal lobe area promoting cognitive functions, or in

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2112-423: Is a plan for presenting the language material to be learned, and should be based upon a selected approach. In order for an approach to be translated into a method, an instructional system must be designed considering the objectives of the teaching/learning, how the content is to be selected and organized, the types of tasks to be performed, the roles of students, and the roles of teachers. A technique (or strategy)

2208-466: Is a very specific, concrete stratagem or trick designed to accomplish an immediate objective. Such are derived from the controlling method, and less directly, from the approach. Hundreds of languages are available for self-study, from scores of publishers, for a range of costs, using a variety of methods. The course itself acts as a teacher and has to choose a methodology, just as classroom teachers do. Audio recordings use native speakers, and one strength

2304-434: Is helping learners improve their accent. Some recordings have pauses for the learner to speak. Others are continuous so the learner speaks along with the recorded voice, similar to learning a song. Audio recordings for self-study use many of the methods used in classroom teaching, and have been produced on records, tapes, CDs, DVDs and websites. Most audio recordings teach words in the target language by using explanations in

2400-406: Is in the environment that mother tongue are not playing a dominant role in students' life and study, such as the children in the bilingual family or in the immigrant family. That is to say, the capability of using code switching, relating to the transformation of phonetics, words, language structure, expression mode, thinking mode, cultural differences and so on, is needed to be guided and developed in

2496-443: Is seen as much the same as any other learning in any other species, human language being essentially the same as communication behaviors seen in other species. On the theoretical side are, for example, Francois Gouin, M.D. Berlitz, and Emile B. De Sauzé , whose rationalist theories of language acquisition dovetail with linguistic work done by Noam Chomsky and others. These have led to a wider variety of teaching methods, ranging from

2592-419: Is to develop students' general mental discipline. Users of foreign language want to note things of their interest in the literature of foreign languages. Therefore, this method focuses on reading and writing and has developed techniques which facilitate more or less the learning of reading and writing only. As a result, speaking and listening are overlooked. Grammar–translation classes are usually conducted in

2688-428: Is to make foreign constructions salient and transparent to learners and, in many cases, spare them the technical jargon of grammatical analysis. It differs from literal translation and interlinear text as used in the past since it takes the progress learners have made into account and only focuses upon a specific structure at a time. As a didactic device, it can only be used to the extent that it remains intelligible to

2784-653: Is very important when learning a foreign language as the slightest accent on a word can change the meaning completely. Many people read to understand but the strategy of reading text to learn grammar and discourse styles can also be employed. Parallel texts may be used to improve comprehension. Alongside listening and reading exercises, practicing conversation skills is an important aspect of language acquisition . Language learners can gain experience in speaking foreign languages through in-person language classes, language meet-ups, university language exchange programs, joining online language learning communities, and traveling to

2880-534: Is widely used in a variety of contexts in these countries, and signs are normally printed in both Arabic and French. A similar phenomenon exists in post-Soviet states such as Ukraine , Uzbekistan , Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan , where Russian can be considered a second language, and there are large Russophone communities . However, unlike in Hong Kong , English is considered a foreign language in China due to

2976-571: The Nordic countries and the Netherlands is considered a second language by many of its speakers, because they learn it young and use it regularly; indeed in parts of South Asia it is the official language of the courts, government and business. The same can be said for French in Algeria , Morocco and Tunisia , although French is not an official language in any of them. In practice, French

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3072-671: The Philippines use a second official language in their governments. According to GAO (2010), China has recently been putting importance on foreign language learning, especially the English language . Ancient learners seem to have started by reading, memorizing and reciting little stories and dialogues that provided basic vocabulary and grammar in naturalistic contexts. These texts (and they seem to have always been coherent texts, never isolated sentences such as those modern learners often practise on) covered topics such as getting dressed in

3168-456: The 16th to 18th centuries focused on teaching the grammatical aspects of Classical Latin. Advanced students continued grammar study with the addition of rhetoric. The study of modern languages did not become part of the curriculum of European schools until the 18th century. Based on the purely academic study of Latin, students of modern languages did much of the same exercises, studying grammatical rules and translating abstract sentences. Oral work

3264-406: The 18th century. Textbooks were therefore essentially copied for the modern language classroom. In the United States, the basic foundations of the method were used in most high school and college foreign language classrooms. There are two main goals to grammar–translation classes. One is to develop students' reading ability to a level where they can read literature in the target language. The other

3360-543: The 1970s and 1980s, the four basic skills were generally taught in isolation in a very rigid order, such as listening before speaking. However, since then, it has been recognized that we generally use more than one skill at a time, leading to more integrated exercises. Speaking is a skill that often is underrepresented in the traditional classroom. This is due to the fact that it is considered harder to teach and test. There are numerous texts on teaching and testing writing but relatively few on speaking. More recent textbooks stress

3456-460: The 19th centuries, the education system was formed primarily around a concept called faculty psychology . The theory dictated that the body and mind were separate and the mind consisted of three parts: the will , emotion and intellect . It was believed that the intellect could eventually be sharpened enough to control the will and emotions by learning Greek and Roman classical literature and mathematics. Additionally, an adult with such an education

3552-494: The 20th century and the methods of teaching (such as those related below) might appear to be a history of failure. Very few students in U.S. universities who have a foreign language as a major attain "minimum professional proficiency". Even the "reading knowledge" required for a PhD degree is comparable only to what second-year language students read, and only very few researchers who are native English speakers can read and assess information written in languages other than English. Even

3648-661: The Andaman Association and creator of the encyclopedic andaman.org Web site, made a report in December 1997 about the number of secondary speakers of the world's leading languages. Weber used the Fischer Weltalmanach of 1986 as his primary and only source for the L2-speakers data, in preparing the data in the following table. These numbers are here compared with those referred to by Ethnologue,

3744-734: The Grammar-Translation Method is still widely practiced, it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory. The grammar–translation method was the standard way languages were taught in schools from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Despite attempts at reform from Roger Ascham , Montaigne , Comenius and John Locke , no other methods then gained any significant popularity. Later, theorists such as Viëtor , Passy , Berlitz , and Jespersen began to talk about what

3840-461: The L1 group. The inability of some subjects to achieve native-like proficiency must be seen in relation to the age of onset (AO). Later, Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson modified their age cut-offs to argue that after childhood, in general, it becomes more and more difficult to acquire native-like-ness, but that there is no cut-off point in particular. As we are learning more and more about the brain, there

3936-456: The L2 learner's language as a rule-governed, dynamic system). These theories have all influenced second-language teaching and pedagogy. There are many different methods of second-language teaching, many of which stem directly from a particular theory. Common methods are the grammar-translation method , the direct method , the audio-lingual method (clearly influenced by audio-lingual research and

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4032-491: The acquisition of the other, natural language. Blended learning combines face-to-face teaching with distance education , frequently electronic, either computer-based or web-based. It has been a major growth point in the ELT (English Language Teaching) industry over the last ten years. Some people, though, use the phrase 'Blended Learning' to refer to learning taking place while the focus is on other activities. For example, playing

4128-399: The age of 5 have more or less mastered their first language with the exception of vocabulary and a few grammatical structures, and the process is relatively very fast because language is a very complex skill. Moreover, if children start to learn a second language when they are seven years old or younger, they will also be fully fluent with their second language in a faster speed comparing to

4224-539: The behaviourist approach), the Silent Way , Suggestopedia , community language learning , the Total Physical Response method , and the communicative approach (highly influenced by Krashen's theories). Some of these approaches are more popular than others, and are viewed to be more effective. Most language teachers do not use one singular style, but will use a mix in their teaching. This provides

4320-435: The capacity to figure out the grammatical rules. Error correction does not seem to have a direct influence on learning a second language. Instruction may affect the rate of learning, but the stages remain the same. Adolescents and adults who know the rule are faster than those who do not. In the learning of a second language the correction of errors remains a controversial topic with many differing schools of thought. Throughout

4416-432: The classroom than the cognitive processing of the students. He contested that the affective side of students and their self-esteem were equally important to the teaching process. In the 1980s, the strict grammar and corrective approach of the 1950s became obsolete. Researchers asserted that correction was often unnecessary and that instead of furthering students' learning it was hindering them. The main concern at this time

4512-782: The corrective processes. According to Noam Chomsky , children will bridge the gap between input and output by their innate grammar because the input (utterances they hear) is so poor but all children end up having complete knowledge of grammar. Chomsky calls it the Poverty of Stimulus . And second language learners can do this by applying the rules they learn to the sentence-construction, for example. So learners in both their native and second language have knowledge that goes beyond what they have received, so that people can make correct utterances (phrases, sentences, questions, etc) that they have never learned or heard before. Bilingualism has been an advantage to today's world and being bilingual gives

4608-531: The daily communication environment. Most people learn foreign language in the circumstance filled with the using of their native language so that their ability of code switching cannot be stimulated, and thus the efficiency of foreign language acquisition would decrease. Therefore, as a teaching strategy, code switching is used to help students better gain conceptual competences and to provide rich semantic context for them to understand some specific vocabularies. Practices in language education may vary by region however

4704-495: The entire school curriculum, culminating in his Opera Didactica Omnia , 1657. In this work, Comenius also outlined his theory of language acquisition . He is one of the first theorists to write systematically about how languages are learned and about pedagogical methodology for language acquisition . He held that language acquisition must be allied with sensation and experience. Teaching must be oral. The schoolroom should have models of things, and failing that, pictures of them. As

4800-516: The field of language learning, the empirical and theoretical, and these have almost completely separate histories, with each gaining ground over the other at one time or another. Examples of researchers on the empiricist side are Jesperson, Palmer, and Leonard Bloomfield , who promote mimicry and memorization with pattern drills. These methods follow from the basic empiricist position that language acquisition results from habits formed by conditioning and drilling. In its most extreme form, language learning

4896-497: The fluency, it is better to do foreign language education at an early age, but being exposed to a foreign language since an early age causes a "weak identification". Such issue leads to a "double sense of national belonging," that makes one not sure of where they belong to because, according to Brian A. Jacob, multicultural education affects students' "relations, attitudes, and behaviors". And as children learn more and more foreign languages, children start to adapt, and get absorbed into

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4992-520: The foreign culture that they "undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made". Due to such factors, learning foreign languages at an early age may incur one's perspective of his or her native country. Acquiring a second language can be a lifelong learning process for many. Despite persistent efforts, most learners of a second language will never become fully native-like in it, although with practice considerable fluency can be achieved. However, children by around

5088-421: The grammar of the target language into discrete rules that students were to learn and memorize. A chapter in typical grammar–translation textbooks would begin with a bilingual vocabulary list and then grammatical rules for students to study and sentences for them to translate. Some typical sentences from 19th-century textbooks are as follows: The philosopher pulled the lower jaw of the hen. My sons have bought

5184-432: The grammar-translation method and Gouin's "series method" to the direct methods of Berlitz and De Sauzé. With these methods, students generate original and meaningful sentences to gain a functional knowledge of the rules of grammar. This follows from the rationalist position that man is born to think and that language use is a uniquely human trait impossible in other species. Given that human languages share many common traits,

5280-439: The idea is that humans share a universal grammar which is built into our brain structure. This allows us to create sentences that we have never heard before but that can still be immediately understood by anyone who understands the specific language being spoken. The rivalry between the two camps is intense, with little communication or cooperation between them. Over time, language education has developed in schools and has become

5376-464: The importance of students working with other students in pairs and groups, sometimes the entire class. Pair and group work give opportunities for more students to participate more actively. However, supervision of pairs and groups is important to make sure everyone participates as equally as possible. Such activities also provide opportunities for peer teaching, where weaker learners can find support from stronger classmates. In foreign language teaching ,

5472-415: The initial stage of foreign language education. Gauthier and Genesee have done research which mainly focuses on the second language acquisition of internationally adopted children and results show that early experiences of one language of children can affect their ability to acquire a second language, and usually children learn their second language slower and weaker even during the critical period. As for

5568-479: The lack of opportunities for use, such as historical links, media, conversation between people, and common vocabulary. Likewise, French would be considered a foreign language in Romania and Moldova , even though both French and Romanian are Romance languages , Romania's historical links to France, and all being members of la Francophonie . George H. J. Weber, a Swiss businessman and independent scholar, founder of

5664-409: The language died out it was studied purely as an academic discipline. When teachers started teaching other foreign languages in the 19th century, they used the same translation-based approach as had been used for teaching Latin. The method has been criticized for its shortcomings. The overall concept of grammar–translation has been criticized since few verifiable sources support the existence of such

5760-488: The language you were learning on the left and the one you already knew on the right, with the columns matching line for line: each line was effectively a glossary, while each column was a text. Although the need to learn foreign languages is almost as old as human history itself, the origins of modern language education are in the study and teaching of Latin in the 17th century. In the Ancient Near East, Akkadian

5856-583: The last century much advancement has been made in research on the correction of students' errors. In the 1950s and 60s, the viewpoint of the day was that all errors must be corrected at all costs. Little thought went to students' feelings or self-esteem in regards to this constant correction. In the 1970s, Dulay and Burt's studies showed that learners acquire grammar forms and structures in a pre-determined, inalterable order, and that teaching or correcting styles would not change that. In 1977, Terrell"s studies showing that there were more factors to be considered in

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5952-413: The latter is being learned for use in an area where that language is originally from another country and not spoken in the native country of the speakers. And in other words, foreign language is used from the perspective of countries; the second language is used from the perspective of individuals. For example, English in countries such as India , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , Bangladesh , the Philippines ,

6048-642: The learner's own language. An alternative is to use sound effects to show meaning of words in the target language. The only language in such recordings is the target language, and they are comprehensible regardless of the learner's native language. Language books have been published for centuries, teaching vocabulary and grammar. The simplest books are phrasebooks to give useful short phrases for travelers, cooks, receptionists, or others who need specific vocabulary. More complete books include more vocabulary, grammar, exercises, translation, and writing practice. Also, various other "language learning tools" have been entering

6144-429: The learner, unless it is combined with a normal idiomatic translation. This technique is seldom referred to or used these days. Back-chaining is a technique used in teaching oral language skills, especially with polysyllabic or difficult words. The teacher pronounces the last syllable, the student repeats, and then the teacher continues, working backwards from the end of the word to the beginning. For example, to teach

6240-665: The learning of the majority language by minority language children and adults." SLA has been influenced by both linguistic and psychological theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge. Many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms , responsible for much of human learning, process language. Other dominant theories and points of research include 2nd language acquisition studies (which examine if L1 findings can be transferred to L2 learning), verbal behaviour (the view that constructed linguistic stimuli can create

6336-526: The majority of English-speaking education centers, French, Spanish, and German are the most popular languages to study and learn. English as a Second Language (ESL) is also available for students whose first language is not English and they are unable to speak it to the required standard. Language education may take place as a general school subject or in a specialized language school . There are many methods of teaching languages. Some have fallen into relative obscurity and others are widely used; still others have

6432-591: The market in recent years. Software can interact with learners in ways that books and audio cannot: Websites provide various services geared toward language education. Some sites are designed specifically for learning languages: Many other websites are helpful for learning languages, even though they are designed, maintained and marketed for other purposes: Some Internet content is free, often from government and nonprofit sites such as BBC Online , Book2, Foreign Service Institute , with no or minimal ads. Some are ad-supported, such as newspapers and YouTube. Some require

6528-424: The meaning of words clearly. The emotional distinction between L1 and L2 indicates that the "effective valence" of words is processed less immediate in L2 because of the delayed vocabulary/lexical access to these two languages. Success in language learning can be measured in two ways: likelihood and quality. First language learners will be successful in both measurements. It is inevitable that all people will learn

6624-456: The mirrors of the Duke. The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the dog of your uncle. The method by definition has a very limited scope. Because speaking and any kind of spontaneous creative output were excluded from the curriculum, students would often fail at speaking or even letter-writing in the target language. A noteworthy quote describing the effect of the method comes from Bahlsen,

6720-474: The morning (and how to manage the slaves who helped with that task), going to school (and evading punishment for not having been there yesterday), visiting a sick friend (and how to find an individual unit in a Roman apartment block), trading insults (and how to concede a fight gracefully), or getting a new job (a piece of cake if you have studied with me, an ancient teacher assured his students mendaciously). The texts were presented bilingually in two narrow columns,

6816-476: The name ' Mussorgsky ' a teacher will pronounce the last syllable: -sky, and have the student repeat it. Then the teacher will repeat it with -sorg- attached before: -sorg-sky, and all that remains is the first syllable: Mus-sorg-sky. Code switching is a special linguistic phenomenon that the speaker consciously alternates two or more languages according to different time, places, contents, objects and other factors. Code switching shows its functions while one

6912-459: The neural system of hormone allocated for reproduction and sexual organ growth. As far as the relationship between age and eventual attainment in SLA is concerned, Krashen, Long, and Scarcella, say that people who encounter foreign language in early age, begin natural exposure to second languages and obtain better proficiency than those who learn the second language as an adult. However, when it comes to

7008-508: The new method. For example, descriptive linguists seem to claim unhesitatingly that there were no scientifically based language teaching methods before their work (which led to the audio-lingual method developed for the U.S. Army in World War II). However, there is significant evidence to the contrary. It is also often inferred or even stated that older methods were completely ineffective or have died out completely, though in reality, even

7104-490: The oldest methods are still in use (e.g. the Berlitz version of the direct method). Proponents of new methods have been so sure that their ideas are so new and so correct that they could not conceive that the older ones have enough validity to cause controversy. This was in turn caused by emphasis on new scientific advances, which has tended to blind researchers to precedents in older work. There have been two major branches in

7200-418: The only and complete solution to the problem of the high failure rates of foreign language students. Most books on language teaching list the various methods that have been used in the past, often ending with the author's new method. These new methods are usually presented as coming only from the author's mind, as the authors generally give no credence to what was done before and do not explain how it relates to

7296-407: The opportunity to understand and communicate with people with different cultural backgrounds. However, a study done by Optiz and Degner in 2012 shows that sequential bilinguals (i.e. learn their L2 after L1) often relate themselves to the emotions more when they perceive these emotions by their first language/native language/L1, but feel less emotional when by their second language even though they know

7392-444: The relationship between age and rate SLA , "Adults proceed through early stages of syntactic and morphological development faster than children (where time and exposure are held constant)". Also, "older children acquire faster than younger children do (again, in early stages of morphological and syntactic development where time and exposure are held constant)". In other words, adults and older children are fast learners when it comes to

7488-501: The same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the critical period hypothesis . In acquiring an L2, Hyltenstam found that around the age of six or seven seemed to be a cut-off point for bilinguals to achieve native-like proficiency. After that age, L2 learners could get near-native-like-ness but their language would, while consisting of few actual errors, have enough errors to set them apart from

7584-426: The sandwich technique is the oral insertion of an idiomatic translation in the mother tongue between an unknown phrase in the learned language and its repetition, in order to convey meaning as rapidly and completely as possible. The mother tongue equivalent can be given almost as an aside, with a slight break in the flow of speech to mark it as an intruder. When modeling a dialogue sentence for students to repeat,

7680-563: The second language. For L2 pronunciation, there are two principles that have been put forth by Levis. The first is nativeness which means the speaker's ability to approximately reach the speaking pattern of the second language of speakers; and the second, understanding, refers to the speaker's ability to make themselves understood. Being successful in learning a second language is often found to be challenging for some individuals. Research has been done to look into why some students are more successful than others. Stern, Rubin and Reiss are just

7776-407: The speed of learning by adults who start to learn a second language later in their life. In the first language, children do not respond to systematic correction. Furthermore, children who have limited input still acquire the first language, which is a significant difference between input and output. Children are exposed to a language environment of errors and lack of correction but they end up having

7872-415: The students' native language . Grammatical rules are learned deductively ; students learn grammar rules by rote , and then practice the rules by doing grammar drills and translating sentences to and from the target language. More attention is paid to the form of the sentences being translated than to their content. When students reach more advanced levels of achievement, they may translate entire texts from

7968-424: The study of how a second language is learned/acquired is referred to as second-language acquisition (SLA). Research in SLA "...focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language... [and] a knowledge of second-language acquisition may help educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programmes for both foreign language courses and

8064-426: The target language and the native language. Advanced students may be required to translate whole texts word-for-word . The method has two main goals: to enable students to read and translate literature written in the source language, and to further students' general intellectual development. It originated from the practice of teaching Latin; in the early 16th century, students learned Latin for communication, but after

8160-436: The target language. Tests often involve translating classical texts. There is usually no listening or speaking practice, and very little attention is placed on pronunciation or any communicative aspects of the language. The skill exercised is reading and then only in the context of translation. The mainstay of classroom materials for the grammar–translation method is textbooks, which, in the 19th century, attempted to codify

8256-445: The teacher not only gives an oral mother tongue equivalent for unknown words or phrases, but repeats the foreign language phrase before students imitate it: L2 => L1 => L2. For example, a German teacher of English might engage in the following exchange with the students: Mother tongue mirroring is the adaptation of the time-honoured technique of literal translation or word-for word translation for pedagogical purposes. The aim

8352-418: The teacher repeating a student's incorrect utterance with the correct version, are not always the most useful because students do not notice the correction. His studies in 2002 showed that students learn better when teachers help students recognize and correct their own errors. Mackey, Gas and McDonough had similar findings in 2000 and attributed the success of this method to the student's active participation in

8448-404: The test results, the intrinsic part has been the main motivation for these student who learn English as their second language. However, students report themselves being strongly instrumentally motivated. In conclusion, learning a second language and being successful depend on every individual. In pedagogy and sociolinguistics , a distinction is made between second language and foreign language,

8544-614: The underlying understandings which drive it are fundamentally similar. Rote repetition, drilling, memorisation and grammar conjugating are used the world over. Sometimes there are different preferences teaching methods by region. Language immersion is popular in some European countries, but is not used very much in the United States , in Asia or in Australia . Second language The distinction between acquiring and learning

8640-500: The workforce who can communicate in multiple languages. Common languages are used in areas such as trade, tourism, diplomacy, technology, media, translation, interpretation and science. Many countries such as Korea (Kim Yeong-seo, 2009), Japan (Kubota, 1998) and China (Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002) frame education policies to teach at least one foreign language at the primary and secondary school levels. However, some countries such as India , Singapore , Malaysia , Pakistan , and

8736-423: Was considered mentally prepared for the world and its challenges. At first, it was believed that teaching modern languages was not useful for the development of mental discipline and so they were left out of the curriculum. When modern languages began to appear in school curricula in the 19th century, teachers taught them with the same grammar–translation method as was used for Classical Latin and Ancient Greek in

8832-407: Was gradually replaced by various vernaculars on the national and regional level and with French and later English on the international level. After the decline of Latin, the purpose of learning it in schools changed. Previously, students had learned Latin for the purpose of communication and not just reading, but it came to be learned as a purely academic subject . Throughout Europe in the 18th and

8928-456: Was made by Stephen Krashen as part of his Monitor Theory . According to Krashen, the acquisition of a language is a natural process; whereas learning a language is a conscious one. In the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations. In the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction; however,

9024-420: Was minimal, and students were instead required to memorize grammatical rules and apply these to decode written texts in the target language. This tradition-inspired method became known as the grammar-translation method . Innovation in foreign language teaching began in the 19th century and became very rapid in the 20th century. It led to a number of different and sometimes conflicting methods, each claiming to be

9120-469: Was relieving student stress and creating a warm environment for them. Stephen Krashen was a big proponent in this hands-off approach to error correction. The 1990s brought back the familiar idea that explicit grammar instruction and error correction was indeed useful for the SLA process. At this time, more research started to be undertaken to determine exactly which kinds of corrections are the most useful for students. In 1998, Lyster concluded that "recasts",

9216-534: Was the language of diplomacy, as in the Amarna letters . For many centuries, Latin had been the dominant language of education, commerce, religion, and government in much of the Western world. By the end of the 16th century, it had largely been displaced by French, Italian, and English. John Amos Comenius was one of many people who tried to reverse this trend. He composed a complete course for learning Latin, covering

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