Why Do People Learn Language

8/17/2019 Why Do People Learn Language

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A. Why do people learn language?

The reasons people have for learning languages and the reason for

their success as language learners. There are number of dierent reasons for

language study and the following list will give an idea of the great variety of such reasons.

a. School Curriculum; The greatest number of language students in the

world do itb. Advancement; it oers a chance for advancement in their

professional lives.c. Target language community; is one where the inhabits spea the

language which the students is learning.

d. !nglish for speci"c #urposes; applied to situations where students

have some speci"c reason for waiting to learn the language.e. Culture; they want to now more about the people who spea itf. $iscellaneous; some people do it %ust for fun

#eople involved in language teaching often say that students who

really want to learn will succeed whatever the circumstances in which they

study. All teacher can thin of situation in which certain motivated students

do signi"cantly better than their peers; students fre&uently succeed in what

appear to be unfavorable conditions; they succeed despite using methods

which e'perts consider unsatisfactory.

$otivation is some ind of internal drive that encourages somebody to

pursue a course of action. (anguage learners who are motivated perceive

goal of various inds. )n general* strongly motivated students with long term

goal are probably easier to teach than those who have no such goal. +ind of

$otivation separate into two main categories, extrinsic motivation* which is

concerned with factors outside the classroom* and intrinsic motivation* which

is concerned with what taes place inside the classroom. )t has been

suggested that there are two main types of such motivation;

a. )ntegrative motivation


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Students need to be attracted by the culture of the target language

community* and in the strong form of integrative motivation they

wish to integrate themselves into that culture.b. )nstrumental motivation

This term describes a situation in which students believe thatmastery of the target language will be instrumental in getting them

a better %ob* position or status. The language is an instrument in

their attainment of such a goal.

We can consider factors aecting intrinsic motivation under the

heading of physical conditions* method* the teacher and success.

a. #hysical conditions

)t is clearly the case that physical conditions have a great eect on

learning and can alter student-s motivation either positively or

negatively.b. $ethod

The method by which students are taught must have some eect on

their motivationc. Teacher

Whether the student lies the teacher or not may not be very

signi"cant. What can be said* though* is that two teachers using the

same method can have vastly dierent result. The children showed what their learning priorities were by putting

these &ualities in the following order;. /e maes his course interesting0. /e teaches good pronunciation1. /e e'plains clearly2. /e speas good !nglish3. /e shows the same interest in all his students4. /e maes all the students participate5. /e shows great patience

6. /e insists on the spoen language7. /e maes his pupils wor8. /e uses an audio lingual wor

The Students were also ased to list any additional &ualities they

thought were important. The most popular were,


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/e shows sympathy for his pupils./e is fair to all his students 9whether good or bad at !nglish:/e inspires con"dence.

d. SuccessSuccess or lac of it plays a vital part in the motivational drive of a

student. oth complete failure and complete success may be de<

motivating.

. What a native speaer nows=ative speaers 9or competent users of the language: now how to say

a word > that is how to pronounce it. This nowledge is made up of three

areas* sounds, stress and intonation.

n their own the sounds of a language may well be meaningless. )f you

say Itl 9the lines show that this phonetic script: a few times* e.g. @ tu. tu,

tu’ it will not mean very much in !nglish. =either will the sounds * a* or

s. ut if we put all these sounds together in a certain order we end up

with the word @cats- > and that does mean something.All words are made up of sounds lie this* and speaers of a language

need to now these sounds if they are to understand what is said to them

and be understood in their turn. Some of the problems that speaers of

!nglish as a foreign language have are precisely because they have

diBculty with individual sounds > for e'ample the Spanish speaer who

says @bery- instead of @very- or the apanese speaer who says a word

which sounds lie @light- instead of intended @right-.When they use the word native speaers now which part of that word

should receive the heaviest emphasis. Dor e'ample* in the word

@photograph- not all the parts are of e&ual importance. We can divide the

word into three parts, @ pho’, ‘to’, and ‘graph’. Competent speaers of thelanguage will say the word lie this* PHOtograph/, stressing the "rst

syllable. The situation changes with the word @photographer- where the

stress shifts to the second syllable* i.e. @ phoTOgrapher’. Stress in words

also changes depending upon a word-s grammatical function, @ perMIT’ is a


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verb* but ‘PEmit’ is a noun* and the same is true of the words @imPOT’

and ‘IMport’ * for e'ample. The changing use of stress is also one of the areas of nowledge that

competent language speaers have. Dor e'ample if ) say ‘I can !"’ ) am

probably only taling about my ability to run. ut if ) say ‘I #$" run’ ) am

probably stressing the word can because somebody is suggesting that )

am not able to run and ) am vehemently denying it. )n the same way if

someone said to you ‘Is this %our PE"cil&’ it might well be a simple

&uestion with no hidden meaning* but if the &uestion was ‘Is this 'O!

pencil&’ this might suggest that there was something very surprising

about your ownership of the pencil.=ative speaers of a language unconsciously now about stress and

how it wors. They now which syllables of words are stressed and they

now how to use stress to change the meaning of phrases* sentences and

&uestions.Closely connected with stress is intonation* which means the tune you

use when you are speaing* the music of speech.)ntonation means the pitch you use to change that pitch. Eo you use a

high pitch when you say a word? Eoes your voice fall or rise at the end of

the sentence? Dor e'ample* if ) say @Fou-re from Australia* aren-t you?-

starting my &uestion at the medium pitch of my voice range and dropping

the pitch at the end of the sentence 9on @aren-t you-: this will indicate to

other competent speaers of !nglish that ) am merely seeing

con"rmation of a fact about which ) am almost completely certain. )f* on

other hand* ) say the same &uestion with my voice rising in the end* i.e.

Fou-re from Australia* aren-t you?

This might well indicate that the &uestion is a genuine one and ) am

asing the listener to satisfy my doubts about their nationality.

)ntonation is a big indicator of involvement as well. )f ) tell what )

thin is a fascinating story and my listener says @/ow interesting-* starting


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at a low pitch and dropping their voice on ‘in’ of @interesting- ) will be fairly

despondent since by their use of pitch and intonation they will have

plainly told me that they did not thin much of my story. /igh pitch and a

small fall* on the other hand would me much nicer* since that would

indicate that my audience was fascinated by what ) had to say. )ntonation

is clearly important then* and competent users of the language recogniGe

what meaning it has and can change the meaning of what they say

through using it in dierent ways.

C. What a language student should learnwhen we teach !nglish we need to be sure that our students can

be understood when they spea. They need to be able to say what they

want to say. This means that their pronunciation should be at least

ade&uate for that purpose.Students need to use rhythm and stress correctly if they are to

be understood. Students need to be able to recogniGe intonation > at the

very least they need to recogniGe whether the tune of someone-s voice

suggest that the speaer is sure or uncertain.Students need to learn* nothing that some grammar was

necessary for lower level students while some was more stylistically

appropriate to advanced level. Students to learn the vocabulary which

was appreciate for their level and stressed the importance learning

vocabulary in conte't.Syllabuses are organiGed and measured the relative merits of

grammar* vocabulary* functions* situations* topic* and tas as the main

organiGing principle round which a syllabus could be designed. The teacher-s variety of !nglish might be the main one for the

students whereas for more advanced students nowledge of many

varieties is a de"nite advantage.

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Why Do People Learn Language