TEACHING ENGLISH TO TEENAGERS

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND THEIR RELATION WITH SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN CHILDREN, TEENAGERS AND ADULTS.

Individual differences (ID’s) is an area of psychology that has been preoccupied by how people respond in a different way facing the same or similar circumstances. This fact applies to the teaching and learning process. In this report I want to emphasize in the matter of acquiring or learning a second language.

According to Zoltn Drnyei (2005) Individual differences have been closely related with the success or failure in a L2, producing relationships with language attainment in instructed settings mainly because of psychological differences which lead to behavior, attitude, aptitude and motivation.

This concern started to take place at the end of the nineteenth century, Sir Frances Galton (1822-1911) is said to be the first to investigate ID’s scientifically followed by Alfred Binet (1857-1911) constructing the first intelligence test together with his colleague Theodore Simon in 1905. Other techniques were developed to design test of personality, attitudes, specific cognitive attitudes and other psychological constructs.

Regarding to the acquisition of a second language, it has been observed there is a wide variation among language learners in regard to their success in mastering a L2 a line of research dating from the 1960’s up to date have shown that in order to succeed in a L2 besides attitude and motivation together with creative participation it s needed the application of individualized learning techniques. Peter Skehan’s proposed ‘’learning strategies’’ in 1989 and ‘’learning styles’’ in 1991.

According to my own experience in teaching English as a second language to students between 15 and 18 years old, I have observed some differences since the psychological point of view. Some ask for explicit instruction while others seem to deal better with abstraction. With this respect I need to accommodate my teaching according to these differences; however, to be honest I have found it something difficult to achieve.

The first difference we found has much to do with age and brain maturity. And, with this respect there are many myths and theories, still I will try to embrace the main differences.

Children learn Speaking according to the amount of input they receive in the classroom and outside of it. Some children present the phenomenon: ‘’language loss’’ since they forget their first language, this is called ‘’subtractive bilingualism’’ the objective if that they experience ‘’additive bilingualism’’. In general they can acquire a second language if they are long exposed to it with relatively little interference.

Regarding to the writing skills, writing is a skill that must be taught as nobody learn to write ‘naturally’ in contrast with speaking. Normally, children are willing to write when they have a reason, when their writing is directed to someone and they know someone is going to read their message. Still, there is a difference between the children content knowledge and their writing proficiency.

Second language learners often need help in order to express what they want in a paper. I do not have experience with children, however I teach my six-year old daughter and I have faced this particularity in her. She often needs a visual context before she can write, her most common writings are letters, and poems all of them directed to family and friends.

Children needs motivation and that someone believes in them. Researchers demonstrate that young children's writing skills develop best when the teacher believes they are able of expressing their thoughts and opinions on paper, when they have frequent opportunities to communicate meaningfully in writing (Graves, 1983; Harste, Woodward & Burke, 1984; Hudelson, 1984; Peyton, 1990; Schickedanz, 1986).

Often children write for meaningful communication before they have mastered oral language or are capable of reading.

Another characteristic of childhood is that they learn without a grammar instruction and they seem to learn a great quantity of words between the age 2 and 5, in spite of that students struggle when trying to write a piece of paper of something they were asked. Some strategies can use as brainstorming, visual aids, the steps of drafting, revising and editing as recursive processes.

Teenagers pass through many psychological and cognitive changes in this stage that also affect their learning ability in a positive and negative manner. Their cognitive ability is better; however, their ability to learn a second language starts to diminish as Erin Lennegerg pointed out: ‘’ changes in language acquisition ability are linked to stages in brain maturation.’’ According to the ‘’critical period hypothesis’’ there is a biological timetable ideal for learning a L2. The critical time occurs around puberty. This is base on the apparent evidence of the plasticity of the brain. Since birth all functions are located in one or the other hemisphere. The language function appears to be in the left hemisphere, the term ‘’lateralization’’ is used to refer to the assignments of these functions. After the lateralization occurs it is more difficult to learn a second language to the point of mastery. (Thomas Scovel: 1969). The question of matter is when does this lateralization occur?

According to Eric Lenneberg (1967) lateralization starts at the age of 2 to finish around puberty. Certainly, there are other arguments about this matter Norman Geschwind (1970) believed this happened much earlier while Krashen (1983) suggested that this lateralization occurs around 5 of 6 years old.

On the other hand, teenagers have an advantage when learning a L2 and this is because at this stage of puberty, the student pass through the operational stage of intellectual development becoming capable of abstraction and of formal thinking.

So, how do teenagers learn English? they have many similarities with children, the input they receive is still important for the speaking skill. One difference is that they can have a formal instruction on grammar combined with the other skills.

Teenagers need to be highly motivated in the classroom and to feel what they are doing is important for their general development. They can expand their vocabulary with reading; in fact this skill provides many benefits not only for vocabulary acquisition but for writing, grammar and spelling.

I have observed they are reluctant to read if they are told what to read. I have tried to give my students options, I offer at least three titles so they can chose and this way they are more willing to engage in the reading section.

In pronunciation, they can pass a hard time trying to produce a native like accent, what I do is to show them how they must move their tongue in order to produce a certain sound; then we practice with different words containing that sound. They have fun trying to imitate me. Since the time of instruction is very short, I provide them with some links of web pages where they can listen and practice their English, I also suggest to watch movies with the audio and subtitles in English as well as to listen to songs. When they really are engaged in all this practice they progress much faster.

Another advantage we have when working with teenagers is that we have a great quantity of topics to work with in contrast to children, their general knowledge and culture is bigger and we can take advantage of this to make an interesting class.

Teenagers still learn quickly and if we know how to approach them it is a rewarding experience. I personally love working with them.

Finally, I want to talk about adults learning a second language; the main disadvantage is that their interference is bigger that in adolescence although interference can also be useful. They can have a hard time trying to grasp correct pronunciation as their first language is strongly set up in their brains. Besides English input they need a conscious effort in contrast to children. In their case there is no language acquisition but language learning.

Adults can use their literacy in their L1 to transfer it to the L2 in reading and in writing, if they are highly motivated and have the enough time to study and practice they can master the language, the only disadvantage in pronunciation as it has been observed it is difficult for them to acquire a native accent. Since my point of view this is a little and non important as far as they understand and express in communication what important can be not to have a native like accent?

In my own experience, I learned English as an adult, I was 21 years old and I felt free to express myself, I remembered once one teacher told me in my first year of learning my English was very good but I had a strong accent, now I understand. On the other hand, I think I have improved it a lot because I teach myself with specific books, audios and a lot of input.

I consider we need to have great motivation and attitude not only as learners but as teachers; many times we can motivate students with our attitude as well as with our teaching techniques. We need to believe in them and teach creatively without distinction of the age, of course taking into consideration their uniqueness as individuals.

REFERENCES:

· Zoltn Drnyei, The Psychology of the Language Learner - Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition, 2005, pp 1-7

· Blanche Perotta. Writing Development and Second Language Acquisition in Young Children. Childhood Education, Vol. 70, 1994. Retrieved at: http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5002207069

· Comparing and Contrasting First and Second language Acquisition. Retrieved at: http://www.literature.freeservers.com/image_polat/ccfsla.html

· Acquiring English as a Second Language. What’s ‘’Normal’’, What’s Not. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Retrieved at: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/easl.htm

· Judie Haynes. Getting Started with English Language Learners. Chapter 1. Key Concepts of Second-Language Acquisition. Retrieved at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/106048/chapters/Key_Concepts_of_Second-Language_Acquisition.aspx

· Language learning by adults (the so-called "second language acquisition"). Retrieved at: http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test4materials/secondlangacquisition.htm

· Teaching Diverse Learning. Writing. Considerations for ELL’s. Retrieved at: http://www.lab.brown.edu/tdl/elemlit/writing.shtml