TEFL Mount Airy North Carolina

Many factors contribute to the differences of learning a first language compared to a second one. It is commonly understood that children begin recognizing sounds even from any early age, when the synapses in the brain are beginning to connect the many areas of communication pathways. When a child is born, he quickly recognizes the familiarity of his mother's voice. From recognizing sounds, and then reproducing them, the child graduates into understanding the combination of sounds to form words, and then subsequently putting them into an understood order to create an intelligible communication. This progression is natural and critical to begin immediately in one's life, for communication between individuals creates the social nature that each person develops on a broad scale. For communication to increase between two individuals that speak two different languages, a problem-solving technique is consciously developed to decode the other language into one's mother tongue and vice versa. The simplest form of deciphering this problem is to use gestures and visible motions. This is the most effective form of basic language teaching, as the human race worldwide uses the same variety of motions that can be easily related to. Beyond the motions and gestures, which are similar learning techniques in both the first and second language learning, there are also radical differences. One of these lies in the latter development of the ego. When a child is learning his first language, he is very egocentric but indifferent to how he sounds or the nonsense that may come from his mouth, as he is learning to formulate his communication to the outside world. However as the child grows and develops, so does the ego that inhibits him from making mistakes in anything he does, in order to avoid a self- or societal shame. The adult is more careful to understand the words coming from his mouth in order to sound more intelligible than a child in the same level of the learning experience. Overcoming the human ego allows the adult to progress maybe quicker than he would by restraining his insecure tongue. Language acquisition at any point follows the same pattern: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By practicing and sounding out the new language that has been heard, even through error, the learner is able to learn the language efficiently. Often times the ego – by need to understand completely – does not want to practice sounds until the need has been met. This matured egocentric thinking is naturally supported by the adolescent period of brain development when the left hemisphere (the critical and analytical side) becomes more dominant than the right hemisphere (the emotional side). The adult at this point has established an internal security of himself and his comfortable identity, which serve as a protection of the ego. The child's ego, however, is more adaptable to the situation and emotional in character, allowing the positive progression of the language acquisition more acceptable. To overcome the fear of altering the ego in adult learners, the best audience is needed for the student: patient, accepting of mistakes, encouraging, empathetic, and supportive. It is important for the educator to recognize how the student feels when they are conversing. The more peace and relaxed the learner feels inside the conversation, the more he will open up and feel comfortable in practicing the language, even with errors. Recognizing the positives of progression will always encourage more practice and more improvement. References Comparing and Contrasting First and Second Language Acquisition. http://www.literature.freeservers.com/image_polat/ccfsla.html 1. Guiora, Alexander (1972b.) Overcoming the Barriers 1. http://www.chinesemadeeasier.com/barrier1.html Author: brittany Wilhelm Date: January 31, 2012