Learning of A Second Language

Learning of A Second Language

Ever since God punished the people who wanted to build the Tower of Babel with the “confusion of tongues” in the time of old testament, people around the world have faced the problem of communication. When giving out a historical overview of second-language teaching in “Second-Language Acquisition in Childhood,” McLaughlin stated:

As early as the third millennium B.C., in what was probably the world’s first great civilization, the Sumerians had scribed devoted exclusively to education. When the country was conquered by the Akkadians in the last quarter of the third millennium, these scribes complied the oldest known bilingual dictionaries. Long continuous passages were translated from Sumerian into Akkadian, line by line. (McLaughlin 2)

It was since then that people started exploring the arts of language. For years, people have been arguing about the most appropriate methods to teach a second language (L2).

One question that teachers encounter in the classroom is the use of the learners’ native language (L1). While a group of people think that teaching of the target language should involve no L1, another group of people consider L1 as a help to L2 teaching.

Throughout the years, L2 teachers around the world have been analyzing the data they gathered for years along with their personal experiences to find out which approach of L2 teaching works best for teachers themselves. Those who are in favor of the Grammar-Translation method believe that L1 holds great significance in L2 teaching and learning.

They teach grammar rules in the mother tongue of the learners as a basis of instruction.

Methods such as the Natural Approach , the Silent Way , Total Physical Response , Audio-Lingual Method , and the Direct Method emphasize different concepts of language teaching and learning but followers of these methods all avoid L1 in the classroom. As the debate goes on, it is crucial for all the L2 teachers to first ponder on the goal of language teaching and then to decide what role they want L1 to play in their L2 classroom. For a L2 learner who lives in an environment where the target language is not used on a daily basis, such as English taught in Taiwan, exposure to L2 helps accomplish the goal of language learning, which is to communicate.

The use of L1 in L2 classrooms is primarily based on the Grammar-Translatio...

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...eelings with others. Taking reality and ideal both into consideration, no one should go to extremes in the debate of the use of L1 or L2.

However, if we clarify the goal we want to reach in the L2 classroom, the decision should not be too hard to make. Since school-aged students usually cannot choose what to learn or how they would like to be taught at school, no matter how tough a reality they need to deal with, the teachers should always keep the ultimate goal of teaching and learning in mind so that the students will not be deprived of the opportunity to true learning. They should always know by hearts that when they are with the students in the classroom, they are introducing a concept of communication to the students; they are focusing on the communicative competence of the students. Moreover, they also bear the responsibility to acquaint their students with a healthier learning attitude towards language learning, which is to be able to communicate with people who speak the language they are learning. If all of these notions come first in language teaching and learning, the teachers will realize that it is worth trying to use L2 in their L2 classrooms to fulfill the goal.