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Aliu 1

Agnesa Aliu

ELT

1415.G.10

Causes of problems in learning English as a second language

Language is the most important means of communication. It is very difficult to think of a society
without language. It sharpens people's thoughts and guides and controls their entire activity. It
is a carrier of civilization and culture (Bolinger, 1968). We can define language as a system of
communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas,
and experiences."(E. Bruce Goldstein, 2nd ed. 22 ) .When it comes to the mother tongue, the
child learns it easily, due to the great amount of exposure to the language, the neuroplasticity of
the child’s brain and many other factors. But, learning a second language requires conscious
efforts and the exposure to the second language in most cases is limited (Bose, 2007).
English as an international language, has become inseparable and unavoidable in the Education system.
Yet, despite all the effort and time put in schools students fail to be speakers of the English
language. There are many factors that contribute to a persons’ language acquisition. I myself
have had the opportunity to teach English, and was faced with many problems regarding
students’ language progress. I was able to identify the cause of the problem. Because of the fact
that I was teaching Turkish adults, my number one problem was the dissimilarity between the
Turkish and English language. The Turkish language belongs to the Altay branch of the Ural-
Altaic linguistic family, while English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West
Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Meaning that, they are different in every way,
thus, this variety in languages makes the process of acquiring a second language extra difficult
but not impossible. As a known fact, there are many techniques, approaches and methods to
teaching a language. The literature on teaching is crammed full of well researched ways that
teachers can apply to enhance the opportunities for students to learn. And, it is also equally
filled with suggestions of what not to do in the classroom. However, there is no rule book on
which teaching methods match up best to which skills.
While I was lucky enough to detect the problem of my students and work on it by combining
certain techniques, teachers who handle English classes face insurmountable other difficulties.
Many people wonder that how come one studies 12 years English in school and still is not able
to speak it? Therefore, the objectives of the current research are: To identify the leading causes
for problems in learning English as a second language, to find out the significant difference, if
any, in the causes of problems in learning English with regard to sex, locality of the school and
habit of reading English newspaper, of listening to English news music, movies etc.
Aliu 2

From a study made in 2008 “Obstacles of Learning English as a second language”. The main
reasons identified were: Environment, attitude and teachers’ competence and methodologies.
(Annual Report 2008 12)
Environment and family background play a vital role in the success of the learning process. For
example, in poor countries, where the majority of the people are farmers, have a poor
background in education. Moreover, the income of the majority of the families is not adequate.
Hence, the parents are not interested in giving a good education to their children. In contrast,
they are willing to engage their children in some jobs in order to earn money. This is the very
basic reason and the affecting factor in teaching.
Attitude is yet another affective factor in learning a second language. Attitude is the way that
you think and feel about something. The successful acquisition of a second language seems to
some extent, contingent upon learners' views of the language learning environment, the
learning situation, and how they view the target language and its speaker.[Narayanan et al.,
2008].
Like the environment and attitude, teacher's competence is also a variable factor that affects
the second language learning. He should be proficient in the language; his knowledge of and
expertise in methods and techniques of language teaching should be of a reasonably high
standard (Verghese, 2009). Twelve years of school study do not make students mastery over
English. Why this happen? While they are in schools English is not taught properly. As majority
of the students are hailed from rural areas, bilingual method is adopted in language classes.
This method helps only to slow learners to some extent. Moreover, this act reduces the real
learning process as a whole. If a student does not understand anything in English, he/she asks
for explanation in the L1,meaning in his/her mother tongue. Consequently, the English teacher
is in a state to adopt bilingual method. ELT specialists view this as a wrong methodology.
Environment however, is claimed to be the leading cause for the problems in learning English as
perceived by researchers while comparing it with the other two dimensions namely “Attitude”
and “Teacher's Competence”. (ANOVA results)
Aliu 3

In the field of language learning, there has been a long-standing idea that females are more
adept at languages than males, excelling in their native tongue and also foreign language study.
But is there any truth behind this theory, or is it just academic folklore? Of course, it is
dangerous to proclaim any characteristic as sweepingly male or female. Many linguists believe
that sex is just one small harmless element of an individual, and their language is based on
many social and cultural factors. But, many other famous linguists embrace the idea that for a
list of reasons females tend to be better at languages than males including Anne Merritt, Will
Roscoe, Barry Bishop. They claim that the reasons for that are:
1.The female brain shows greater activity in the areas used for language encoding.
2. According to the language journal Porta Linguarum, studies from Europe, East Asia, and Latin
America have all concluded that female foreign language learners tend to use more varied study
methods than their male peers.
3. Language learning site Busuu has reported that female users of the site are four times more
likely to chat with native speakers of their target language, concluding that they are more
converse than males.
4. According to the Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, girls tend to be more motivated to
study languages than their male classmates. Studies in Canada, the UK, and Hungary all show
that female students are more likely to continue their foreign language studies in school, even
when the language class isn’t mandatory.
What I from my teaching experience have noticed regarding the gender issue is that, it is very
important to choose the right literature which is convenient to both sexes. When the content of
the piece of literature is in the interest of the girls only, boys tend to feel neglected and that
effecting and to some amount, hindering their progress. Therefore, gender indeed plays a role in
the language learning process.
The location of the school is yet another problem causing factor in the English learning and\or
learning process as a whole. The geography of where schools are located and the impact of so-
called education deserts on students is the topic of a newspaper by a pair of researchers from
the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “If school is to serve students and expand educational
opportunities,” the paper asserts, “then stakeholders must prioritize the importance of place
and understand how it shapes department options.” When it comes to English learning,
according to a 2015 research, the statistics show that, multicultural countries have more English
speaking people than those surrounded by only one nationality. For example if your school is in
Dubai, even though your first language is Arabic, you will be juxtaposed with the English
language in a number of ways. Because of the high number of tourists, everything written in
Arabic ( in stores, institutions etc. ) has its English translation aswell, meaning that an English
learning student is surrounded by the English language in and out of the school. Thus, making
students learning process much easier.
Emily Reynolds states “First-generation and low-income students are disproportionately likely
to attend schools close to home. Increasing numbers of students are also breadwinners, with
community ties and jobs that are difficult to uproot. So even when these students are informed
about schools far away that might be a good fit, or given scholarships to attend, many, for a
variety of reasons both financial and cultural, choose to stay local.”( lines 394-95).
Aliu 4

The habit of reading, listening and writing in English outside of the school is the best thing a
student can do for his\her English acquisition. One should never rely on the school a 100%.
From a research made in the Balkans when good speakers of English were given questionaires of
how and what they did to acquire the language, the majority of them claimed to be self-taught.
A student says: “ If it wasn’t for my own studying, I wouldn’t be able to speak today”.(qtd. In
Balkans Daily 9A).
Another study was made in 2012 in the secondary school of New Delhi in India with the ANOVA
test to find out how many students put their own effort into learning English outside of the
school and how many actually completely rely on the school to teach them. More specifically,
how many of them have a habit of occupying themselves with the English language outside the
school, how many of them don’t and how much that affects their grades. According to the
statistics, the students who never listen to English news perceived more problems in learning ESL
than those who listen to news occasionally, daily and frequently. The percentage of students
who read, listen and write in English outside of the school, was much lower than that of those
who never or occasionally listen to English news, music ,movies or write in English. (30% never,
50% occasionally, 20% frequently ).
Children are more successful when their parents are involved in their education. Parents have to
create conducive atmosphere to learn English. Their role is to encourage their children to
communicate in English even at home. They should provide English newspapers, journals and
magazines to enrich the reading skill of their children. They may also encourage them to listen
to English news and to watch English programmes.
Aliu 5
This paper reports on the findings of international collaboration studies who used statistics such
as standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation, t-test, ANOVA, and Post hoc
ANOVA test. The objectives of the study were to find out the leading cause of the problems in learning
ESL. To find out whether there was any significant difference in the causes of problems faced by the
students on the bases of different variables such as sex, locality, habit of reading English dailies and
habit of listening to English news or to English in general. English teachers from India, Bulgaria and
Dubai discussed the roots and causes of the problems English learning students face within the
Educational system and why school fails to teach English properly to students. Results suggest
that real but often invisible barriers exist in the English classroom in terms of its effectiveness.
In addition, there appears to be a general perception amongst English students that English is
hardly learned in schools.
Since the importance of the English language in this era is undeniable, the results of the studies
suggest that as a first measure to be taken should be the government conducting in-service
training to train the teachers to use English language in classrooms. They should try to bring
reforms in the pattern of examination. Separate marks could also be allotted to test the spoken
language of the students. An attempt should also be made to give rewards to the rural students
for those who performed well in English examination. Government should facilitate all schools
with language laboratory. The Government may encourage the management to develop the
oral skills of the students.
English teachers have to encourage the students to communicate in English. They may impart
the spoken aspects of the language once/twice in a week. Teachers should create student-
friendly and learner centered environment. They should motivate students for participative
learning. They should also strengthen the communication skills of the students by making them
to raise their doubts in English. While taking classes, the teacher should pay individual attention.
They should stimulate the interest of the pupils to read English newspapers and magazines.
The mind of the students should always be ready to learn. They should read English newspapers,
journals, novels, etc., as per the advice of their parents and teachers. They should also develop
their habit of listening to English news and referring dictionary. They should not study English
from an exam point of view. If they study English from an exam point of view, they may not able
to write on their own. The conversation with their parents, teachers and peers should always be
in English. To learn English, opportunities have to be utilized by them effectively and efficiently.
Appendix
Paragraph 4, line 6: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models used to
analyze the differences among group means and their associated procedures (such as
"variation" among and between groups), developed by statistician and evolutionary biologist
Ronald Fisher.

Works cited
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