Background
The paper is analysis of a second language learner. Chutimon is a 28 year old Thailand national. Her first language is Thai. Chutimon is fluent in her native language Thai. Her second language is English which she has studied in primary and secondary school. She has some profound knowledge in Japanese language which she studied for one and half years before abandoning the course.
English language is the second language she is currently learning. She began her first experiences in learning English in secondary school where it was incorporated in the Thailand educational curriculum. Chutimon’s learning of English can be divided into three distinct phases that are based on her varying needs and the environment where the learning occurs at each instance. Chutimon is a passionate English learner and her dream is to work internationally in matters concerning business. She therefore considers learning English as crucial to enabling her deliver well in her future career where she expects to interact with different nationalities.
The first phase is in primary and secondary school. This is where she begins the process of learning English. English is part of the Thai educational curriculum and is incorporated in the primary and secondary school programs. During this time, her parents who are well versed in English help her learn the language while she is at home.
Chutimon later joins Kaplan International College in the UK where she enrolls for a five month course in English. This form the second phase of her learning process. While at Kaplan International College, her passion for learning English is still driven by the need to improve her proficiency which she thinks is currently not good enough to allow her communicate effectively especially in business matters. While at Kaplan, she gets to learn the language in an interactive environment by relating with the native English speakers and other international student. Kaplan provides her with a learning environment she most prefers. She enjoys the learning experience in the College.
After completing this five month English learning course, her last phase comes when she enrolls for a master’s degree in International business. At this time though, her passion for learning English declines and she finds less time to learn the language. The master’s degree program takes most of the time she had been using to learn her second language.
During the interview sessions, Chutimon proved to be a passionate English learner who was ready to do anything to accomplish the proficiency she thought was crucial for her own future career. As a learner, Chutimon was able to identify her needs quite early and at a young age and even devised personal methods that would make learning English easier and enjoyable for her.
At the time, N was very motivated to learn English especially because her mother was an English teacher and her father was also a fluent speaker of the language. Similarly, she was expected to pass her English exam while at the same time she had a good relationship with the English teacher which further motivated her to perform better in the language. At this time, N considered learning English as quite easy as her mother usually taught her before she began taking the English lessons in secondary school.
In the last phase she does not dedicate a lot of time to learning English which does affect her proficiency. If she had maintained the same passion as she had in the initial phases, her proficiency would have improved.
The needs for which N learns English vary from time to time, in the primary and secondary education Chutimon was targeting to achieve her educational requirements which was to pass the course but her main priority was to learn the language for her future engagements in international business. This is what is described as declarative knowledge which is acquired for the purpose of fulfilling a particular task. This is what she applies in most instances of her learning process.
At primary and secondary school she is not offered the perfect environment she would want for integrative learning. Despite this, her parents compensate for this missing component. She is not satisfied with the content offered in class and she does not think it provides her with the necessary skills to gain proficiency in English.
Being a second language beginner, she has no expertise to use the language for purposes beyond achieving the immediate task at hand. To achieve this task, she incorporates the declarative knowledge with procedural knowledge which is the knowledge of how to learn (Kyungsim , H., & Alexandra , L. G. 2006). This is inevitable as she has to pass her exams and therefore she must devise strategies that will help her achieve her needs. Without either of the two, she would not be able to achieve her target need. Procedural knowledge enables an individual to select information that will be helpful to them from a wide range of available information. Without using this knowledge, Chutomin would not be able to determine which information is important for her to pass the English courses that she was taking. Chutomin was able to achieve all the above strategies.
She knew that the reasons as to why she was studying English at primary and secondary levels was not just to pass her exams but as a crucial ingredient for her future career. She devised ways as to how she would pass the exams and for her, it worked. She had no special challenges in passing her exams but she still has an urge to learn more as she feels that her main needs are not met. Her parents become the focal point of achieving her main needs of gaining proficiency as they help her learn more basic of communicating in English and at least offer her a more interactive and integrative environment than school to practice her proficiency skills.(Kyungsim , H., & Alexandra , L. G. 2006).
She later joins Kaplan College for a five month course in English. During this period, her most immediate need is to be able to communicate effectively with other people. Without this she would have a tough life in a foreign country and it would even be hard for her to acquire the most basic services. This challenge propels her to develop a greater passion for the language. In this case her strategies range from personal planning of learning the language to acquiring knowledge from the classroom and external environment and these strategies seem to benefit her. She also devises informal methods that would help her learn pronunciation such as listening to English music and watching English movies. She also prefers varying learning methods depending on the environment. Kaplan offers her most preferred integrative learning environment. Being a social learner as she reveals during the interview, Chutomin interacts with other students and prefers learning in groups to help determine how well her proficiency is working on a practical setting.
According to Krashen (2002), when a learner devises his/her own strategies that would be beneficial to them in them in learning a new language, it means they have been able to identify their needs efficiently and thus have a clue as to how they can accomplish them. The learner is able to gain more from acquisition techniques of learning than the formal classroom methods. This is evident in Chutomin’s case as her communication in English improves. A demanding environment also provides the learner with a better challenge that propels them to devise strategies that will enable them fit well in it. The amount of acquisition though has an impact on the value addition to the learner’s expertise on a language. Krashen notes that the classroom environment is vital in terms of acquisition and formal learning and therefore holds the key to how much the learner benefits.
Learner’s motivation to learn English
Motivation in every Endeavour in life is a paramount aspect. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic and as such sources are of motivation may vary for both. Attitude and personal traits are big determinants of everything we do in life and more so in Education. Moreover, different things affect motivation of a learner at different stages of life. Learning a second language is not an easy task. Motivation is a basic need if a learner has to succeed in learning a second language. This means the learner needs to step outside the comfort of speaking their fist language and learn to use a second language in communication. For success in learning English as a second language, it is important to incorporate both instrumental sources of motivation and the integrative aspect as well (McWhorter, K. T. 2006). Though Chutimon’s motivation was not tied to academic performance, it can be rightfully said that he drew some of his motivation from class work. In her interview, she remarks that she performed much better than most of her classmates. This means that she took her English lessons seriously. English being part of the curriculum and incorporated into the syllabus it was given that the mark scored in English was to be constituted in the overall mark. This means that there was pressure for her to perform in the language. Although analysis shows that Chutimon is a social learner, her integrative aspect of motivation was not taken care of. Except for home and school where she spoke English with her mother and classmates respectively, it is clear that life outside these two spheres she drew no motivation. The Thailand English syllabus does not offer learners a chance to learn the English culture. More over the Thailand culture is dominant and as such does not provide a chance to learn the English culture. Another source of motivation for the learner is her mother. In the interview, Chutimon mentions that during her early academic life her mother gave her home lessons on English. In the interview, Chutimon’s ambition is to become an international businessperson. She states that she feels that is important to know English, as it is a global language. Being a woman with the ambition to be a global business person is another source of motivation. This means that she also drew a lot of motivation from her future inspirations. It is understood that her motivation to learn English as a second language would be a very crucial step towards achieving her dream. This is gave her another reason to study English and subsequently perform well in the subject. Overall, in her lower levels of education, motivation is seemingly instrumental, as she knew that she had to perform well in the subject. Kolb’s cycle encompasses four learning approaches namely, feeling, thinking, watching and doing. Critically, it can be categorically said that her earlier education life did not advocate the Kolb’s learning cycle, as she had no opportunity to experience the real English culture. Life in her primary and secondary school did not offer many real situations to apply her skills in English.
It can be said that her desire to understand English as a second language is attested by the step she took to further her studies in the United Kingdom at the Kaplan International college. In her 5 months stay in England she met with native English speakers and consequently a window for integrative motivation was provided. Unlike her early years in Thailand, this gave Chutimon a chance to experience the English. Being in an Anglophonic country, it implies that the English culture is dominant. It seems that Kaplan International College took care of her English needs and as she states it was the most enjoyable experience. All throughout in her journey to study English as a second language .Interacting, socializing and speaking in English was such a big source of motivation in the United Kingdom. This could be stated to be the stage in life when her motivation for learning English as a second language was at the peak. Considering her natural, character; being out going and innately social, this was undisputedly of the times in her life that her zeal to learn English was fuelled. Her learning experience at the Kaplan International College was very critical in addressing all the areas as provided by Kolb’s cycle. She got a chance to feel, think, watch and act as an Anglophone. Her integrative bit of motivation was well taken care of by her experience in the United Kingdom.
Analysis of learning styles
Using the Index of Learning style, an analysis of Chutomin shows that she is has more preference for social learning over other methods. In fact, this method seems to work well with her. In n primary and secondary school she was not given such a chance to utilize this method of learning. However, she supplemented whatever she learnt in class through visual and listening methods with a bit of integrative and social learning at home where her parents offered a more viable integrative learning g environment. Since she has knowledge of her most important needs for learning the language Chutomin is forced to devise her own learning styles that are reflective of her needs. The learning style adopted, especially when chosen by the learner provides greater motivation while also improving the learner’s attitude towards a language (Federación de Asociaciones de Educación de personas Adultas, 2007).
People tend to use a combination of learning techniques depending on situation. This therefore means that one learning style cannot effectively address all situations an every learner must incorporate more than one style. For Chutomin she tends to be very comfortable when social elements are used in the learning environment and if in the process this method is altered, she is not able to effectively adapt to the change. Similarly, in its application, the learner has preferences. Altering this order again, leads to loss of focus by the learner which eventually means they cannot effectively apply whatever has been learnt. In essence, this implies that if the learner has adopted only one learning style, they are most likely to face challenges when it comes to application. If the learning style they are used to is withdrawn, the learner will tend to lose direction and behave in a manner that suggests presence of an unfavorable situation.
Chutomin is also very comfortable with auditory methods of learning. By listening to English music and watching English movies, she is able to further compare her speech skills and learn pronunciation of words. She also does interact with natives and compare their pronunciation with her own while learning as much as she can from them. She is a learner who is not afraid to make mistakes during conversations and is ready to be corrected as she considers it a crucial real time method of improving her pronunciation and proficiency skills.
When learning a new language the best approach is to utilize the learning method that favors the learner. This method will be used in the learning process and enables the learner to gain proficiency in the language. In the long run once proficiency has been acquired, they will shed off the trait and be able to adapt automatically to changing situations.
The learner’s social style has a profound effect on the swiftness with which they gain proficiency. For Chutomin she is described under the ILS scale as an excellent social learner and one who can also utilize moderate sensing to acquire more skills on the language under study. According to Brown (1987), this social technique does not involve a problem solving approach and such learners tend to have long term goals that they wish to meet. These learners are motivated by a future event that they tend to associate with. Chutomin associates herself with international business in the future and thus considers English as paramount to how this association will succeed.
Social learners tend to consider the learning process as their sole responsibility rather than an obligation they are forced to fulfill. As such they tend to enjoy the whole process and are always motivated to learn something new. Chutomin reveals in the interview that one of her language priorities is to expand her general vocabulary. She achieves this through interacting with native and non-native speakers and such an environment enables her to recognize her own strengths and weaknesses and work on them
It is important for the teacher therefore to relate the daily learning tasks of each learner to their prior knowledge of the language. This proves to be a crucial instance of the learning process (Keogh, B., Dabell, J., & Naylor, S. 2008). By understanding that Chutimon is a social learner, the teacher will be able to determine what important concepts he/she has to apply to ensure that a social setting such as group discussions are available for the benefit of such learners.
The interview reveals that Chutimon is a learner who focuses on the detail and is more concerned about how much she improves her language than other external factors such as exams. She considers internal improvement as more crucial than all other factors. Her energies therefore focus on improving her own grammar while any other benefits are secondary to her.
Learning strategies
Sizeable research shows that there is undisputable correlation between strategies employed or exposed to a learner and the rate or effectiveness through which a learner perceives information. Strategies should not be imposed since it could lead to resistance among learners .Therefore, it is important to allow learners to so a self-analysis and asses their strengths and weaknesses before settling on a strategy that befits their needs. Remembering that the learner was brought up in Thailand, it means that personal rehearsals and memorizing were the only tools at hand. This was occasioned by lack of fellow English speaking learners. Her English speaking was only confined to home and school with her fellow English learners and the teacher. Transference of learning strategies as a tool was not well utilized. Transference involves practicing and applying what has been taught or learnt in future. This helps in reinforcing understanding and sticking of concepts learnt. Transference therefore enhances longer retention of information and evokes thought (Bjorklund, M. 2008). When a learner is exposed to a new situation he or she is able to critically analyze the situation and respond after connecting with what he /she has learnt.
As English experts say, there is no English literature that cannot be used as a tool to sharpen the understanding of the language. Listening to music, reading magazines and all other English was a thumb up to Chutimon. In her interview, she states that she did not understand all the words as used in songs and magazines. This tool could have been much more resourceful if she had used the dictionary to look up the meaning of the difficult words that she encountered.
In her early life, the English she leant was confined to academic work and application outside school was limited. As a strategy, reflective learning was not well addressed by the situation in her mother country.
Chutimon felt free to make mistakes when speaking English with the natives. She did not hesitate to ask for clarification from her friends whenever she went wrong. This was a good tool for learning English. It is true that we learn through mistakes and seemingly, Chutimon understood it very well. She is very social and may be this could be the reason why she was not afraid to make mistakes. Her esteem was high and there was no room for fear.
She applied the Kolb’s cycle in her endeavor to learn English. Kolb’s cycle is a reflective way of learning whereby the learner reflect on what he/she has learnt and consequently apply them in real life situation. Life in college and after secondary school gave her a chance to apply to Kolb’s cycle. In the United Kingdom, she was able to synthesize and apply the English she learnt both for both academic and non-academic purposes.
Although she enjoys learning in groups and acknowledges the importance of doing so, Chutimon states in the questionnaires that she finds studying English alone very interesting. Studying languages cannot be a personal affair. Language is a tool of interaction and as such working in groups is commendable. Therefore studying alone is not a good strategy and more particularly, when studying a second language.
Chutimon also prefers using guidelines and procedures provided by the teacher. Although this is a good strategy, it is important to go an extra mile and find out new ways of learning English. Teacher’s guidelines are not sufficient alone and a learner should seek flexibility in terms of doing things outside the norms provided by the instructor or the teacher.
The learner also finds it very useful to make social arrangements, reading novels and using English at work. These strategies are very resourceful in reinforcing a good understanding of English and complementing what is taught in class. Using English in these contexts caters for the informal use of English. It also prepares one and equips learner with skills to switch from one context to the other. For instance, English as used in shopping malls and at the office are very different. As a strategy, I find this very resourceful in learning English as a second language.
Listening to music and interacting with the native English speakers are other strategies that enhance pronunciation of English words. However, listening to music is tricky since musicians use short forms and slang English for rhyming. Listening to speeches of eloquent English speakers could also have taken care of the bit left out by music. Moreover, listening to and reading written speeches is a strategy that sharpens a learner’s ability to pronounce English word correctly.
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