Becoming Fluent

Becoming Fluent PDF Author: Richard Roberts
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262529807
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book

Book Description
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning: evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children. An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign lanugage by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

Becoming Fluent

Becoming Fluent PDF Author: Richard Roberts
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262529807
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book

Book Description
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning: evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children. An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign lanugage by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

Language Formation by Adults

Language Formation by Adults PDF Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004465847
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Get Book

Book Description
Languages formed by adults without formal instruction, a product of language contact, likely replicate the emergence of grammars in hereditary languages. The phenomena attested in such languages provide new insights into how grammatical forms and meanings emerge in languages.

Identity Trajectories of Adult Second Language Learners

Identity Trajectories of Adult Second Language Learners PDF Author: Cristiana Palmieri
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 1788922204
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the motivations of adult second language (L2) learners to learn Italian in continuing education settings in Australia. It focuses on their motivational drives, learning trajectories and related dynamics of identity development triggered by the learning process. Central to the study are adult L2 learners, who are still a largely under-researched and growing group of learners, and readers will gain a better understanding of the learning process of this specific group of learners and ideas for sustaining L2 adult learning motivation in continuing education settings. Furthermore, the book discusses the role played by the Italian migrant community in Australia in making Italian a sought-after language to learn. It explores how a migrant community may influence motivation, and highlights and expands on the notion of L2 learning contexts, showing the existence of sociocultural environments where second language learning trajectories are affected by the presence of migrant groups.

Language Development

Language Development PDF Author: Patricia J. Brooks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444331469
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Get Book

Book Description
An accessible introduction to language development aimed at a wide audience of students from different disciplines such as psychology, behavioural science, linguistics, cognitive science, and speech pathology. It requires only minimal knowledge of psychology, and is intended for undergraduates from the second year of studies onwards. The wide accessibility to undergraduates is achieved by avoiding technical terminology when possible and explaining all crucial concepts in the text. From the first moment of life, language development occurs in the context of social activities. This book emphasises how language development interacts with social and cognitive development, and shows how these abilities work together to turn children into sophisticated language users—a process that continues well beyond the early years. Covering the breadth of contemporary research on language development, Brooks and Kempe illustrate the methodological variety and multi-disciplinary character of the field, presenting recent findings with reference to major theoretical discussions. Through their clear and accessible style, readers are given an authentic flavour of the complexities of language development research. With such research advancing at a rapid pace, Language Development uncovers new insights into a variety of areas such as the neurophysiological underpinnings of language, the language processing capabilities of newborns, and the role of genes in regulating this amazing human ability.

Talking to Adults

Talking to Adults PDF Author: Shoshana Blum-Kulka
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135655642
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book

Book Description
The focus of this volume is on how language is used between adults and children. The results is a volume that will appeal to readers in language development and narrative discourse. Has the potential to become a classic graduate-level text/reference.

Systems Development in Adult Language Learning

Systems Development in Adult Language Learning PDF Author: John Leslie Melville Trim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book

Book Description


Identifying the Needs of Adults Learning a Foreign Language

Identifying the Needs of Adults Learning a Foreign Language PDF Author: René Richterich
Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Pergamon Press
ISBN:
Category : Adult education
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Get Book

Book Description
Analyse et identification des besoins en langue. Définition du rôle joué par l'identification des besoins dans le système unité/crédit. Suggestions pour de nouvelles méthodes d'identification.

Social Aspects of Language Acquisition - Language Socialization and Grammatical Development

Social Aspects of Language Acquisition - Language Socialization and Grammatical Development PDF Author: Jessica Narloch
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638754634
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 49

Get Book

Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Duisburg-Essen, course: Language and the Mind, 16 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: There are many ways of talking to children and preverbal infants and also a great variety of opinions about how important the child's environment is or if it plays a role at all. The question is not only how and why children understand grammatical forms and language (Ochs & Schieffelin 1995: 73), but also which role other aspects, such as Parentese and Baby Talk, play. Are they necessary or totally unimportant? Should parents talk to their children at all or is it senseless because they do not understand what the parents say to them? Some people are of the opinion that Parentese only plays "a minimal role" (Garnica 1977: 63) whereas other people think that the verbal environment is important. In how far is the acquisition of language "the result of a process of interaction between mother and child" (Snow 1977: 31)? By explaining some aspects of talk to children, such as Parentese, Baby Talk, expansion, correction, imitation and by giving examples of children being socialized through language, the question about which role these aspects really play in first language acquisition should be answered.

Later Language Development

Later Language Development PDF Author: Marilyn A. Nippold
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book

Book Description


Why children's and adults' code switching ought to be treated alike

Why children's and adults' code switching ought to be treated alike PDF Author: Stefanie Dalvai
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668896666
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 19

Get Book

Book Description
Academic Paper from the year 2016 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 1, University of Innsbruck (English Linguistics), course: Systemic and/or Applied English Linguistics: Language Development in Multilingual Children, language: English, abstract: Even if there has been a change in time, code switching in children, in contrast to adults’ code switching, is still regarded as a ‘problem’ by several people, professionals included. Even if the idea that a child should learn to answer in the appropriate language is per se right, it was the context in which it all happened which was wrong. Some people in my town believed that in a German-speaking kindergarten Italian shouldn’t be used as it would contaminate the language of other children. This is not a single case but part of a large number of misconceptions which have led parents and teachers to think of code-switching as a kind of linguistic disorder and, consequently, sending children to professionals, who might also not fully understand the field of code-switching. This can lead to wrong assumptions, stigmatizing children who are intrinsically ‘normal’ as ‘bad’ speakers. All this fears don’t apply to adults’ code-switching as it is seen as something more rule-governed. That is why the aim of this research paper is to present several arguments to support the idea that code-switching in multilingual children is not the result of a lack of proficiency, but rather the consequence of a strategic use of both languages to facilitate the achievement of linguistic and social goals (Bullock 2009). Furthermore, it will be argued that there are not so many differences between adults’ and children’s code/switching and that, as a consequence, they should be treated equally. To demonstrate this, several studies will be presented in which adults’ but, first and foremost, children’s code-switching fulfil a complex socio-pragmatic function. In the end, evidence shall be given to prove that a third grammar of code-switching doesn’t exist, and that therefore no description of a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of code-switching can be postulated. This all shall attest that code-switching is an individual process which changes not only because of the different languages involved but also because of cultural phenomena. After a short definition of the term code-switching and its historical background, my personal connection to it will be presented, followed by the last two sections explaining the difference between adults’ and children’s code-switching through a juxtaposition of both.