Causes of Problems in Learning English as A Second Language as Perceived by Higher Secondary Students

B. William Dharma Raja*, K. Selvi**
* Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli.
** Pre-Doctorate Scholar in English, Department of Education, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli.
Periodicity:October - December'2011
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.1.4.1604

Abstract

Language is a very important means of communication. It is very difficult to think of a society without language. It sharpens people’s thoughts and guides and controls their entire activity. It is a carrier of civilization and culture (Bolinger, 1968). In the case of the mother tongue, the child learns it easily, due to the favourable environment and by the great amount of exposure to the language. But, learning a second language requires conscious efforts to learn it and the exposure to the second language in most cases is limited (Bose, 2007). Majority of the students have favoured classroom instruction for the second language acquisition (James, 1996). There are so many factors affect the process of learning a second language, including attitude, self-confidence, motivation, duration of exposure to the language, classroom conditions, environment, family background, and availability of competent teachers (Verghese, 2009). Here the authors took up a study on analysing the various reasons for the problems faced by the second language learner. The reasons identified were: environment, attitude and teacher’s competence. Environment and family background play vital role in success of learning process. For example, countries like India, where majority of the people are farmers, have the poor background in education. Moreover, the income of majority of the families is not adequate. Hence, the parents are not interested in giving good education background to their children. In contrast, they are willing to engage the children in some jobs in order to earn money. This is the very basic reason and the affecting factor in teaching. Attitude is yet another affective factor in learning a second language. Attitude is the way that you think and feel about something. The successful acquisition of a second language seems to some extent, contingent upon learners’ views of the language learning environment, the learning situation, and how they view the target language and its speakers (Narayanan et al., 2008). Like the environment and attitude, teacher’s competence is also a variable factor that affects the second language learning. He should be proficient in the language; his knowledge of and expertise in methods and techniques of language teaching should be of a reasonably high standard (Verghese, 2009).

Keywords

English as a second language, Perception, Learning

How to Cite this Article?

Raja, B. W. D., and Selvi, K. (2011). Causes Of Problems In Learning English As A Second Language As Perceived By Higher Secondary Students. i-manager’s Journal on English Language Teaching, 1(4), 40-45. https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.1.4.1604

References

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