Teach English in XihuZhen - Rizhao Shi

The acquisition of language has always been an interesting subject for researchers to study. Especially, when it applies to teaching environment and how it may affect the students’ study behavior. Some people believe that there are not many different between learning a first language (L1) and a second language (L2). Therefore, they fail to approach students correctly in term of helping to achieve in studying a new language. With all of these problems, this essay focuses in the differences between L1 and L2 in the aspect of the age, the environment, and the technique. First of all, age plays an important part in studying a language. With the first language (L1) or as known as the native language, people begin to familiar with it since birth, a language they cannot choose for themselves. According to Madisha, “a first language is a language that babies acquire from birth until about 7 or 8 years old.” This is the range of time, when baby’s brain starts to process the new information around them and language in one of them. For example, a mother will greet her baby with a “hello,” every time she picks her baby up. Eventually, the baby will recognize the word “hello” as a form of communication, a greeting from one person to another. By the age of 6, children will have a good amount of vocabularies enough for them to communicate with their family and friends. However, with the second language (L2), people usually learn them in a much later stage in life (Madisha). It is a common knowledge that many people begin to study L2 when they enter high school. At this age, people do not have the capacity to learn a new language as they are younger. Their brain has a fixed function in learning a new language and it will need more challenges to accomplish it. Also, L2 is a language that people can choose to which one they want to study, not the same as L1 where they cannot choose their native language. Secondly, the environment plays an important role in learning a language and go hand-in-hand with the previous paragraph. As cited in Ghazali, “real language is language, which children have acquired through physical interaction with the environment.” A child who grows up in a family and a community will have an opportunity to sharpen his/her language. For example, Vietnamese children who are born in America will have English as their native language because they will have higher opportunities to interact with their friends, classmates, teachers, etc. In many cases, these children can understand a little bit or none Vietnamese at all because of their lack interaction with their parents when they begin their school years. Only a few are able to acquire both English and Vietnamese as their first language. However, with those people who learn a second language they have limited accesses to the language. For example, Vietnamese students, who live in Vietnam, learn English strictly from their classes and teachers with no other options to improve their language skills further. This makes their language lack its fluency and accurate. For people who have the opportunity to travel or study-aboard, their language skill will improve dramatically compare to people who only learn inside the country. Therefore, environment is also a key in aiding people to learn a new language. Finally, the technique of in learning a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is different as well. With L1, children copy their parents’ voice and sound in forming a word. Most of children’s techniques in learning language is repeating and copying what they see and hear. From the example in second paragraph, a child will try to repeat the word “hello” after hearing his/her mother say it repeatedly. Sometime, children may repeat a word without understanding its meaning but it is a way for them to absorb a new language. Yet, learning L2, most of the time, cannot go the same routine as L1. As mentioned in the second paragraph, people learn L2 mostly in their high school where teachers will provide them with an inflexible technique of learning. Some teachers can be flexible and try to engage students in a conversational assignment but most teachers will more focuses in grammar and writing more than reading and listening. This will limited down the students’ change to develop their language skill and will lead to most of the students cannot communicate a basic conversation when they graduate from school. In the conclusion, the acquisition of first language versus second language helps people to understand more about the differences in the learning of the two languages. It also provides more depts in improving the way people look at the learning of second language and how they can make it more flexible and effective to those who want to learn it. Studying a second language may be difficult or not as smooth as their first language, but with the right techniques the road will become a little bit more effortless. Therefore, it does not matter whether people learn their first language or second language. If people know which direction to follow and how to do it, they will learn it better and have more opportunities to improve their language skill. Works Cited Ghazali, Fawzi Al. “First Language Acquisition Vs Second Language Learning: What Is the Difference?” 2016, PDF file, https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/22469/1/First_Language_Acquisition_Vs_Second_Language_Learning.pdf Madisha, Lusi. “Difference Between.” Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 30 July 2018, www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-first-language-and-second-language/.