By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
A KIND of language is used in speech or writing by most people all over the world every day. Almost everybody speaks at least one language daily all around the globe, which may possibly be their first or second language. Perhaps a language learner will have been studying his second language for several years, but he feels himself that his language is not improving much better than before significantly. Why on earth is it so? Might he have been learning a second language the wrong way? As a language learner, he should try to think all about the best solution to this problem.
First of all, any language learner should know the nature of a language, that is, the features which are generally found in most languages, before he studies this language. The language nature has been described as six aspects in the book `Teaching-Learning English as a Language´ by ThiHa, also a retired professor of English from the Yangon University of Education. Those aspects are as follows.
1) Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.
2) Language is a set of arbitrary rules of word order.
3) Language may be in one of two forms.
4) Language is a system of systems.
5) Language is a set of skills.
6) Language is a tool for communication.
According to Aspects (1) and (2), languages are arbitrary. That means languages are usually different in vocabulary usages, onomatopoeic words, and grammatical patterns from one another. By Aspect (3), languages can be in the spoken form, the written form or both. In accordance with Aspect (4), languages mostly consist of the phonological system, the morphological system, the syntactic system, and the semantic system, in which the first system is related to speech sounds, the second to words and their forms, the third to sentences, and the fourth to meanings. As we all know, there are four main language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, some have added thinking to these skills as an extra one. Of course, the so-called thinking skill and one of the four skills go hand in hand whenever they are done. As regards Aspect (5), a large number of people have been using some language as a major asset for communication till now. Nevertheless, this could be no more than a communicative skill for others sometimes. Some language learners do not take any notice of these aspects of language, especially Aspects (1) and (2). If so, they will almost certainly speak or write a foreign language just like their native languages incorrectly. In other words, their speaking or writing will be of un-language expressions.
As to the language skills, in addition, they might be kept separate from each other while they are being learnt, yet they are found interrelated and interdependent very often. We can try to think that we have got language proficiency in our mother tongue whether consciously or unconsciously. Among the skills of language, we have to develop the listening skill first. After this skill comes to the speaking skill. Then, the reading skill goes before the writing skill. Thus, either the listening and speaking skills or the reading and writing skills have become co-skills. Nonetheless, all these skills also rely on themselves conversely one way or another. Most language learners would like to speak or write in another language without a good command of pre-skills, listening and reading. Indeed, they need to listen enough before they speak effectively and efficiently. Only after reading enough must, they start to write accurately and explicitly. In my opinion, writing is the most difficult of language skills for it varies enormously even about the only subject matter depending upon an author’s ideas, choice of words, presentation styles and so on.
In order to get both language acquisition and language learning, language learners should have a learning environment of language. If not, they have to create such a learning environment by listening to music or the radio, watching the news on TV, seeing movies, reading books and something like these ways. This language environment can be created together with their friends, using a language to be still studied as much as possible. Saya Zaw Gyi, a poet laureate and writer of Myanmar, said that every language learner should go to live in the country where the language is spoken in a few years or so. I totally agree about what he said. Otherwise, the language learner will never be in a real-life situation of language. Unless he can afford it, he will have to make a language learning environment on his own as hard as he could lest he lacks an extrinsic motivation for language study.
Not having adequate language resources is an interesting challenge which some language learners may face. The Internet, computers and books are great resources for all language learners. Those resources must be available, valid and reliable enough for language learners to study as well. It would be better for them to easily get a wide knowledge of language from the Internet and computers. It is best if books are written only in the language they are studying. They should choose the resources from native speakers whenever possible in that they are able to study the very language only. Libraries are a bank of knowledge about different languages too. Furthermore, language learners themselves ought to collect as many resources for study as a researcher does.
There are popular ways arising from language learning such as attending courses, online teaching-learning and self-directed learning. Still, language learners do not sometimes find it a significant achievement in learning a language as they expected, even though they have attended a number of courses. That is, in truth, why they still have a little exposure and practice with the language. `Little knowledge is dangerous´, as the saying goes. For instance, anyone will never be a clever translator if he has yet read a lot although he goes to a translation class. For my money, there are no best ways in learning languages. Language learners should not spend too much time just sharing their knowledge of the language. Moreover, they need not follow the learning guidelines of well-known mentors to the letter. Should one learning way fit them to improve their foreign language inch by inch, they must carry on learning this way continuously.
It is natural to meet language barriers for language learners to a certain extent when they begin studying a language. In my experience, nearly all learners who have got to confront language barriers have difficulty in pronunciation of words. For example, there are no final consonant sounds in the Myanmar language, but in the English language. Some Myanmar students who are studying English do not want to enunciate each word of English with care. Even adult learners of language are too shy to utter a final consonant sound. Those who have learned a language a little bit overcome the language barriers with the help of broken language. The main reasons for these may include a strong influence on learners’ first language. To be a language expert, anybody should not be ashamed of his language learning by any means.
Different learners have diverse attitudes towards language learning. Some like to study a language as a subject; others as a language. The ones who are studying a language just as a subject may do well in their language exams, but it will be really difficult for them to be an authority on this language. Language is language. Owing to instructors or learners, the language ought not to be in the nature of a subject. The learner had better understand a language only in that language. Using a bilingual method or a translation method of language learning could mean making oneself understood. As a result, the language learner might use one language meaninglessly and ungrammatically. Language learners shall, therefore, get rid of a subject-oriented attitude to learning languages.
To sum up, firstly, all language learners should be fully acquainted with the nature of language. Secondly, they must study enough for receptive skills, listening and reading, before productive skills, speaking and writing. Thirdly, they have to produce a language learning environment all by themselves. Fourthly, they can only use a monolingual dictionary if at all possible. Fifthly, they need to do continuous learning of language. They should even try to study a language for at least one hour a day for six months on end. A language is a thing that we will be using or otherwise losing it. Never stop developing a language proficiency level bit by bit. And don’t be shy about language learning at all. Make sure that learners have their own styles of learning the language. Finally, they will need to have simply a linguistic attitude towards any language in order to have got a mastery of the language.
