,
Maharaja of Gwalior, studying English'', 1846 Language teaching practice often assumes that most of the difficulties that learners face in the study of
English are the consequence of the degree to which their native language differs from English (a
contrastive analysis approach). A native speaker of
Chinese, for example, may face many more difficulties than a native speaker of
German, because German is more closely related to English than Chinese. This may be true for anyone of any
mother tongue (also called the first language, normally abbreviated L1) setting out to learn any other language (called a
target language, second language or L2). See also
second-language acquisition (SLA) for mixed evidence from linguistic research. Language learners often produce errors of
syntax,
vocabulary, and
pronunciation thought to result from the influence of their L1, such as mapping its grammatical patterns inappropriately onto the L2, pronouncing certain sounds incorrectly or with difficulty, and confusing items of vocabulary known as
false friends. This is known as
L1 transfer or "language interference". However, these
transfer effects are typically stronger for beginners' language production, and SLA research has highlighted many errors which cannot be attributed to the L1, as they are attested in learners of many language backgrounds (for example, failure to apply 3rd
person present singular -s to verbs, as in 'he make' not 'he make
s'). Some students may have problems due to certain words being usable, unchanged, as different
parts of speech. For example, the word "suffering" in "I am suffering terribly" is a verb, but in "My suffering is terrible" is a noun, and confounding matters is the fact that both of these sentences express the same idea, using the same words. Other students might have problems due to the prescribing and proscribing nature of rules in the language formulated by amateur grammarians rather than ascribing to the functional and descriptive nature of languages evidenced from distribution. For example, a cleric,
Robert Lowth, introduced the rule to never end a sentence with a preposition, inspired by Latin grammar, through his book
A Short Introduction to English Grammar. The inconsistencies brought from Latin language standardization of English language led to classifying and sub-classifying an otherwise simple language structure. Like many alphabetic writing systems, English also has incorporated the principle that
graphemic units should correspond to the
phonemic units; however, the fidelity to the principle is compromised, compared to an exemplar language like the
Finnish language. This is evident in the Oxford English Dictionary; for many years it experimented with various spellings of 'SIGN' to attain a fidelity with the said principle, among which were SINE, SEGN, and SYNE, and through the diachronic mutations eventually settled on
SIGN. Cultural differences in communication styles and preferences are also significant. For example, a study among Chinese ESL students revealed that preference for not using the tense marking on verb present in the morphology of their mother tongue made it difficult for them to express time-related sentences in English. Another study looked at Chinese ESL students and British teachers and found that the Chinese learners did not see classroom 'discussion and interaction' type of communication for learning as important but placed a heavy emphasis on teacher-directed lectures.
Pronunciation English contains a number of sounds and sound distinctions not present in some other languages. These sounds can include vowels and consonants, as well as
diphthongs and other morphemes. Speakers of languages without these sounds may have problems both with hearing and pronouncing them. For example: • The
interdentals, ('three') and ('thee'), both written as
th, are relatively rare in other languages. • Phonemic contrast of with (
beat vs
bit vowels), of with (
fool vs
full vowels), and of with (
bet vs
bat vowels) is rare outside northwestern Europe, so unusual mergers or exotic pronunciations such as for
bit may arise. Note that [bɪt] is a pronunciation often used in England and Wales for
bet, and also in some dialects of American English. See
Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and
pin–pen merger. • Native speakers of Japanese, Korean, and most Chinese dialects
have difficulty distinguishing and , as do speakers of certain Caribbean Spanish dialects when these sounds are at the ends of syllables, a phenomenon known as
lambdacism, which is one form of lallation. • Native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish or Galician, and Ukrainian may pronounce -like sounds where a , , or , respectively, would be expected, as those sounds often or almost always follow this process in their native languages, what is known as
debuccalization. • Native speakers of
Arabic,
Tagalog,
Japanese,
Korean, and important dialects of all current
Iberian Romance languages (including most of
Spanish) have difficulty distinguishing and , what is known as
betacism. • Native speakers of almost all of Brazilian Portuguese, of some African Portuguese registers, of Portuguese-derived creole languages, some dialects of Swiss German, and several pontual processes in several Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian and Ukrainian, and many dialects of other languages, have instances of or always becoming at the end of a syllable in a given context, so that
milk may be variously pronounced as . This is present in some English known as but may be shunned as substandard or bring confusion in others. • Native speakers of many widely spoken languages (including Dutch and all the Romance ones) distinguish voiceless stop pairs from their voiced counterparts merely by their sound (and in Iberian Romance languages, the latter trio does not even need to be stopped, so its native speakers unconsciously pronounce them as , , and voiced
fricatives or
approximants in the very same mouth instead much or most of the time, that native English speakers may erroneously interpret as the or , and , , or of their language). In English, German, Danish, and some other languages, though, the main distinguishing feature in the case of initial or stressed stopped voiceless consonants from their voiced counterparts is that they are aspirated (unless if immediately preceded or followed by ), while the voiced ones are not. As a result, much of the non-English and will sound to native English ears as and instead (i.e.
p
arking may sound more like
b
arking). • Ukrainian,
Turkish and
Azeri speakers may have trouble distinguishing between and as both pronunciations are used interchangeably for the letter
v in those languages. Languages may also differ in
syllable structure; English allows for a
cluster of up to three consonants before the vowel and five after it (e.g.
strengths,
straw,
desks,
glimpsed,
sixths).
Japanese and
Brazilian Portuguese, for example, broadly alternate consonant and vowel sounds so learners from Japan and Brazil often force vowels between the consonants (e.g.
desks becomes or , and
milk shake becomes or , respectively). Similarly, in most Iberian dialects, while a word can begin with , and within a word can be followed by a consonant, a word can never both begin with and be immediately followed by a consonant, so learners whose mother tongue is in this language family often have a vowel in front of the word (e.g.
school becomes , , or for native speakers of Spanish, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and Catalan, respectively).
Grammar International students typically exhibit a positive attitude toward learning English. This positive outlook persists across genders. Education in non-English-speaking countries usually focuses on grammar. English is introduced as a compulsory subject beginning in the first grades in these countries. However, despite the widespread implementation of English education, disparities exist in the quality of instruction across different types of schools. Consequently, these variations in educational quality have resulted in a gap in English proficiency among students from various regions. •
Tense, aspect, and mood – English has a relatively large number of
tense–aspect–mood forms with some quite subtle differences, such as the difference between the simple past "I ate" and the present perfect "I have eaten". Progressive and perfect progressive forms add complexity. (See
English verbs.) •
Functions of auxiliaries – Learners of English tend to find it difficult to manipulate the various ways in which English uses
auxiliary verbs. These include negation (e.g. "He hasn't been drinking."), inversion with the subject to form a question (e.g.
Has he been drinking?), short answers (e.g.
Yes, he has.) and
tag questions (
has he?). A further complication is that the dummy auxiliary verb
do/
does/
did is added to fulfil these functions in the simple present and simple past, but not to replace the verb
to be (
He drinks too much./
Does he? but
He is an addict/
Is he?). •
Modal verbs – English has several
modal auxiliary verbs, each with a number of uses. These verbs convey a special sense or mood such as obligation, necessity, ability, probability, permission, possibility, prohibition, or intention. These include "must", "can", "have to", "need to", "will", "shall", "ought to", "will have to", "may", and "might". :For example, the opposite of "You must be here at 8" (obligation) is usually "You don't have to be here at 8" (lack of obligation, choice). "Must" in "You must not drink the water" (prohibition) has a different meaning from "must" in "You must have eaten the chocolate" (deduction). This complexity takes considerable work for most English language learners to master. :All these modal verbs or "modals" take the first form of the verb after them. These modals (most of them) do not have past or future inflection, i.e. they do not have past or future tense (exceptions being
have to and
need to). •
Idiomatic usage – English is reputed to have a relatively high degree of
idiomatic usage. For example, the use of different main verb forms in such apparently parallel constructions as "try to learn", "help learn", and "avoid learning" poses difficulty for learners. Another example is the idiomatic distinction between "make" and "do": "make a mistake", not "do a mistake"; and "do a favor", not "make a favor". •
Articles – English has two forms of
article:
the (the
definite article) and
a and
an (the
indefinite article). In addition, at times English nouns can or indeed must be used without an article; this is called the
zero article. Some of the differences between definite, indefinite, and zero articles are fairly easy to learn, but others are not, particularly since a learner's native language may lack articles, have only one form, or use them differently from English. Although the information conveyed by articles is rarely essential for communication, English uses them frequently (several times in the average sentence) so that they require some effort from the learner.
Vocabulary •
Phrasal verbs –
Phrasal verbs (also known as multiple-word verbs) in English can cause difficulties for many learners because of their syntactic pattern and because they often have several meanings. There are also a number of phrasal verb differences between American and British English. •
Prepositions – As with many other languages, the correct use of
prepositions in the English language is difficult to learn, and it can turn out to be quite a frustrating learning experience for ESL/EFL learners. For example, the prepositions
on (rely on, fall on),
of (think of, because of, in the vicinity of), and
at (turn at, meet at, start at) are used in so many different ways and contexts, it is very difficult to remember the exact meaning for each one. Furthermore, the same words are often used as adverbs (come in, press on, listen in, step in) as part of a compound verb (make up, give up, get up, give in, turn in, put on), or in more than one way with different functions and meanings (look up, look on, give in) (
He looked up her skirt/
He looked up the spelling/
Things are looking up/''When you're in town, look me up!
; He gave in his homework
/First he refused but then he gave in
; He got up at 6 o'clock
/He got up the hill
/He got up a nativity play
). Also, for some languages, such as Spanish, there is/are one/some prepositions that can mean multiple English prepositions (i.e. en'' in Spanish can mean on, in, or at). When translating back to the ESL learners' respective L1, a particular preposition's translation may be correct in one instance, but when using the preposition in another sense, the meaning is sometimes quite different. "One
of my friends" translates to (transliterated) ''wahed
min isdiqa'i
in Arabic. Min
is the Arabic word for "from", so it means one "from" my friends. "I am on page 5" translates to ich bin
auf Seite 5
in German just fine, but in Arabic it is Ana
fee safha raqm 5'' (I am "in" page 5). •
Word formation –
Word formation in English requires much
rote learning. For example, an adjective can be negated by using the
prefixes un- (e.g.
unable),
in- (e.g.
inappropriate),
dis- (e.g.
dishonest),
non- (non-standard) or
a- (e.g.
amoral), as well as several rarer prefixes. •
Size of lexicon – The
history of English has resulted in a very large vocabulary, including one stream from
Old English and one from the
Norman infusion of
Latin-derived terms. (Schmitt & Marsden claim that English has one of the largest vocabularies of any known language.) One estimate of the lexicon puts English at around 250,000 unique words. This requires more work for a learner to master the language. •
Collocations –
Collocation in English is the tendency for words to occur together with others. For example, nouns and verbs that go together ("ride a bike" or "drive a car"). Native speakers tend to use chunks of collocations and ESL learners make mistakes with collocations. •
Slang and colloquialisms – In most native English-speaking countries, many slang and colloquial terms are used in everyday speech. Many learners may find that classroom based English is significantly different from how English is usually spoken in practice. This can often be difficult and confusing for learners with little experience of using English in Anglophone countries. Also, slang terms differ greatly between different regions and can change quickly in response to popular culture. Some phrases can become unintentionally rude if misused. •
Silent letters - Within English, almost every letter has the 'opportunity' to be silent in a word, except
F, J, Q, R, V, and
Y. The most common is
e, usually at the end of the word and used to elongate the previous vowel(s). The common usage of silent letters can throw off how ESL learners interpret the language (especially those who are fluent in another Germanic language), since a common step to learning words in most languages is to pronounce them phonetically. Words such as
queue,
Colonel,
knight and
Wednesday tend to throw off the learner, since they contain large amounts of silent letters.
First-language literacy Learners who have had less than eight years of formal education in their first language are sometimes called
adult ESL literacy learners. Usually, these learners have had their first-language education interrupted. Many of these learners require a different level of support, teaching approaches and strategies, and a different curriculum from mainstream adult ESL learners. For example, these learners may lack study skills and transferable language skills, and these learners may avoid reading or writing. Often these learners do not start classroom tasks immediately, do not ask for help, and often assume the novice role when working with peers. Generally, these learners may lack self-confidence. For some, prior schooling is equated with status, cultured, civilized, high class, and they may experience shame among peers in their new ESL classes.
Second-language literacy Learners who have not had extensive exposure to reading and writing in a second language, despite having acceptable spoken proficiency, may have difficulties with the reading and writing in their L2. Joann Crandall (1993) has pointed out that most teacher training programs for TESOL instructors do not include sufficient, in most cases "no", training for the instruction in literacy. This is a gap that many scholars feel needs to be addressed.
Importance of reading in ESL instruction According to some English professionals, reading for pleasure is an important component in the teaching of both native and foreign languages: Reading bilingual or code-switched texts can be valuable in ESL instruction. Scholars such as Lourdes Torres argue that texts incorporating code-switching like authors such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, or Junot Díaz, who are known for blending English and Spanish in their work, help reflect the linguistic realities of bilingual individuals. Their findings highlight how code-switching is used as a literary and cultural strategy that validates bilingual identity and engages readers who navigate between languages.
Differences between spoken and written English As with most languages, written language tends to use a more formal
register than
spoken language. •
Spelling and pronunciation: probably the biggest difficulty for non-native speakers, since the relation between English
spelling and pronunciation does not follow the
alphabetic principle consistently. Because of the many changes in pronunciation which have occurred since a written standard developed, the retention of many historical idiosyncrasies in spelling, and the large influx of foreign words (mainly from
Norman French,
Classical Latin and
Greek) with different and overlapping spelling patterns, English spelling and pronunciation are difficult even for native speakers to master. This difficulty is shown in such activities as
spelling bees. The generalizations that exist are quite complex and there are many exceptions, leading to a considerable amount of
rote learning. The spelling and pronunciation system causes problems in both directions: a learner may know a word by sound but be unable to write it correctly (or indeed find it in a dictionary) or they may see a word written but not know how to pronounce it or mislearn the pronunciation. However, despite the variety of spelling patterns in English, there are dozens of rules that are 75% or more reliable. There is also debate about "meaning-focused" learning and "correction-focused" learning. Supporters for the former think that using speech as the way to explain
meaning is more important. However, supporters of the latter do not agree with that and instead think that grammar and correct habit is more important.
Technology • Technology plays an integral part in our lives and has become a major instrument in the field of education.
Educational technologies make learning and teaching of English language more convenient and enable new opportunities. The video talks about the history of technology in education and its current integration in learning. Computers have made an entry into education in the past decades and have brought significant benefits to teachers and students alike. Computers help learners by making them more responsible for their own learning. Studies have shown that one of the best ways of improving one's learning ability is to use a computer where all the information one might need can be found. In today's
developed world, a computer is one of a number of systems that help learners to improve their language.
Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is a system which aids learners to improve and practice language skills. It provides a stress-free environment for learners and makes them more responsible. Computers can provide help to ESL learners in many different ways such as teaching students to learn a new language. The computer can be used to test students about the language they already learn. It can assist them in practicing certain tasks. The computer permits students to communicate easily with other students in different places. In recent years the increasing use of mobile technology, such as smartphones and tablet computers, has led to a growing usage application created to facilitate language learning, such as The Phrasal Verbs Machine from Cambridge. In terms of online materials, there are many forms of online materials such as blogs, wikis,
webquests. For instance, blogs can allow English learners to voice their opinions, sharpen their writing skills, and build their confidence. However, some who are introverted may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas on the blog. Class wikis can be used to promote collaborative learning through sharing and co-constructing knowledge. On-line materials are still just materials and thus need to be subject to the same scrutiny of evaluation as any other language material or source. •
Augmented reality (AR) is another emerging technology that has an important place in language education. It allows for merging of the virtual objects into the real world, as if they co-exist in the same time and place. The research has shown 8 benefits of AR in the educational setting: 1. Collaboration; 2. Connectivity; 3. Student centred; 4.Community; 5. Exploration; 6. Shared knowledge; 7. Multisensory experience; 8. Authenticity. Learners have mentioned that AR increased classroom engagement and student motivation. Videos, memes and chats are all sources of authentic language that are easily accessible via mobile devices or computers. ==Social challenges and benefits==