10/11

I had a lot of strong opinions and personal connections after reading chapter 18 in section 9 of Anthology. To begin, I feel like there are a great amount of underlying factors that affect the success of ANY age language learner. I don't agree with the fact that adults will not become as proficient as children who start to learn it at a young age. I think it really depends on the circumstances. If an adult is simply learning the language for a required class, then it's a possibility that they might not become as proficient, but if their job depends on learning this new language they probably have the motivation to become very proficient. The affective factors are very influential in these situations as well. When I think about myself when learning Spanish as a second language, if I felt more comfortable practicing my Spanish with native speakers and making mistakes all the time I would probably be a lot more proficient that I am right now. My self-esteem and anxiety of making mistakes really limits me at times. This is something that teachers really need to take into consideration when designing the environment in their classroom. It should be a place where students feel comfortable messing up and speaking out, because this will only enhance their success at learning the language.

Along with this is the sociolinguistic competence. I have a lot of personal experiences with this as well after studying abroad in Spain over the summer. I believe that it's great for learners to be great at grammar and able to conjugate verbs and write out sentences correctly, but if if they cannot communicate correctly with the native speakers there is still going to be a huge barrier for them. For example, if they don't know how to appropriately make a complaint or compliment someone, they might not be able to get their point across. This also relates to other matters such as gestures, eye contact, etc. In some cultures if someone is yelling at you, it is disrespectful to look that person in the eye. In our culture, if someone is yelling at you, it is disrespectful not to make eye contact. Even though someone has learned the language, small interactions like this will still give the student a hard time adjusting to the culture. This is why a simple conversation class to learn about speech acts and communication strategies is probably a great resource for language learners to have. It will help them adjust to the day to day interactions that they have with people and truly make it easier for them.