My experience of learning second language By Candy

Second language learning is becoming a more wide discussed issue in the world since the world is being globalize. You may think that having to know you own language is more than enough, but is this really? How about when you are going for travel somewhere that your mother language is not being spoken? Because of globalization, second language acquisition is in demand than ever before. It seems to be obvious that being bilingual are more beneficial than people who are monolingual (people who can only speak their mother language), but in what ways is that being true? In this entry, I would like to tell you all about the advantages of being bilingual and hopefully reading after all my blog entries, you can convinced by me that learning a second language is a great thing.

Instead of saying that obvious benefits which you can just search on internet and everyone already knows, I am going to illustrate some of the benefits by giving my own experience. My mother language is Cantonese, which I learned once I was born. I started learning my first and second "second language" was when I was in kindergarten, which is Mandarin and English. Learning English and Mandarin are basically the "must learn" languages in Hong Kong. Having the basic skills of both English and Mandarin leaded me to enter a good primary and also secondary school. I transferred to Australia for my high school and because of the English skills I have, it wasn't that difficult for me to communicate with others, having classes in English and it had made my life so much easier. When I was in high school, I started my third "second language" and that is Japanese. It is a very difficult language for me, as the pronunciation and characters are very different from what I used to know. However, compared to other local Australians, I realized it is a little bit easier for us Asians to learn. I think one of the reasons of this is because we have the experience of how to learn second language, while the Australians have only been learning their own mother language English throughout their lives.

While I am learning languages other than my own mother language, I realized I am becoming more open-minded and my horizon has been broaden. I am not only learning the language itself, but also understanding the culture and things about the language's country. I become more interested to know more about what is happening in the world. I also understand more about different cultures in different countries. For example, Japanese people are very polite when they speak and act, they always use 敬語 (polite wording) and bow, which I did not know before I started learning Japanese.

This might be just some of a few of the benefits that are being raised most of the time, but they are the benefits that I actually realized by myself. You and I might find more advantages while continue discovering our second language. I hope in the future of all of us lives, we will discover many more great things of learning a second language.

 

In-country experience and second langauge learning By Candy

In-country experience and second langauge learning

In the last blog entry, I was talking about the benefits of learning a second language. In today’s blog entry, I will talk about the relationship between in-country experience and languages by using my own experience.

There is always a statement in the debate of second language learning, “Is in-country experience essential while learning a second language?” Some people say no but some people say yes. In my points of view, I surely think that in-country experience is very important to every second language learner.

I have been studying Japanese for nearly two years. I started studying Japanese while I was in Australia taking it as one of my high school subject. The teacher was Australian and there was only one Japanese exchange student in our school each year. Most of the time in the Japanese class was spoken in English as well. Therefore, I could not really get many chances to speak Japanese or to make use of the skills I learn from classes to practice in daily life. Even I have been studying for two years, I could not speak fluent Japanese.

After I came to Japan, there is an obvious change in my Japanese skills. I could not really communicate with Japanese before I came here. But in here, I am forced to use Japanese every day and this help to improve my skills. Since the Japanese classes are all teaching in Japanese and the teachers could not really understand English, Japanese become the only language we use in classes. Also, in here, I hear and see Japanese almost most of the time, which help me to consolidate what I have learned in class every day. I am quite surprised that I can actually communicate with Japanese now, even though sometimes I still do not understand. I think this is all because of immerging in the country of the language.

Another advantage of in-country experience is I can also understand and learn the culture of the language better. While I was studying Japanese in Australia, we were asked to do a research homework based on one of the traditional martial arts of Japan. I chose tea ceremony as my topic. However, internet and book is the only method I can use to get information at that time. What I have learnt about tea ceremony was just what is written in there. I did not know much about it at the end. Now that I am in Japan, I was asked to do another presentation on tea ceremony again few weeks ago. However, what I have learnt this time was so much more than last time. I did not know there were so many types of tea and sweets for tea ceremony. I did not know wearing a kimono is also part of tea ceremony. But because I am in Japan, I am exposed to all these information everyday and it is so much easier to get access to tea ceremony, it helps better understanding. Also, while I was researching the information from my friends, or on the internet, it is also helping me to learn more Japanese words. Therefore, in-country experience is a very special way of learning a new language.

The example of myself having an in-country experience while learning a second language is to show you this in-country experience is an important part of learning a new language. What you can get back from there is something you cannot imagine. Being in the language’s country not only helping you to consolidate your language skills, but also to understand the language and its culture better. Thus, in-country experience is essential for second language learning.

Benefits of learning a second language By Candy

Why should we learn a second language?

In the last entry, I talked about the basic idea of second language acquisition and gave all of you a brief image of how second languages look like in our world. However, you might wonder, why do I need to learn a second language while I am fluent in my own language? Or when you can already speak the well known international language, English?  

The answer to this is very simple and straightforward, because learning a second language can give you a very different viewpoint on life that you might have never thought of.

Therefore, in today’s blog entry, I would like to illustrate some of the benefits of learning a second language which hopefully can convince you to start thinking about learning a new language.

There are enormous benefits in studying a second language. First of all, having the skills of understanding a foreign language can help an individual to become a considerate, eloquent and a successful international citizen.[1] Besides, it can increase people’s intellectual and social abilities which help them across all subjects and other parts of their life, but not only languages. Furthermore, when people are studying a second language, it gives them a better understanding of different cultures[2]. Therefore they will appreciate and be aware of the world more compared to people who are monolingual[3]. They also have greater confidence to experience something that is foreign, such as participating in traditional cultural ceremonies. It can also enhance career opportunities and university entrances. Plus, travelling in other countries can be more feasible and pleasurable[4]. While learning a second language, people also learn a lot about their own language and culture. As they started to have interest in languages, they would want to find out this in more detail and how language is used between people throughout the world. Also, learning a second language would help her to interact with people from different cultures and backgrounds. While learning a second language, people are discovering the world more deeply by gaining cultural knowledge. In addition, it helps to build better communities but not just benefit individuals.

As a second language learner, I can say I am definitely gaining all the benefits I mentioned above. So, how about you? Change your language and change your thoughts now.” Karl Albrecht, a German entrepreneur[6]

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[1] Mueller, F 2011, 'Lifted By Languages', Adelaide's Child, February, p.12 (a language teacher at Australian National University)

[2] We You Me - Language is the key 2008, motion picture, Government of SA Department of Education and Children Service, South Australia

[3] Why learn languages? 2011, World Languages and Culture, accessed 12 Nov 2012, <http://www.vistawide.com/languages/why_languages.htm>

[4] Ibid

[6] Language Quotes n.d., ThinkExist.com Quotation, accessed 12 Nov 2012, http://thinkexist.com/quotations/language/

Second Language Aquisition By Candy

S.L= M.L+L₁

How many languages can you speak? Before I start going into my topic, I would like to briefly explain about the definition of the word “second language” first. We can see from the title of this blog entry, the definition of “second language” can be broken down into an equation like that. S.L= M.L+L₁, basically means that second language (S.L) is the language that we learn (L₁) after our mother tongue (M.L).

So, everyone learns their first language which is their mother tongue from birth while some people choose to learn a second or third language to be exposed to in education or other experiences throughout life. However, the debate about learning a second language continually exists and never comes to a conclusion: Why should we learn a second language? Which language should we learn and why? How does learning a second language benefit us? In this semester, I will be explaining all the questions I raised above and in the last blog entry, I will be concluding it with a statement, we all should learn a second language.

In today’s blog entry, I am going to give you some backgrounds on how second language has been developed in the world at this current period. You might be surprised with all these facts: in Toronto, 31% of the population speaks a language other than English or French at home; in United States, 21% of school-age children (between ages 5-17) speak a language other than English at home[1]; in the world, there are 6900 languages existing[2]; only 5.6% of the world population speak English as a mother tongue but this number doubles when English is a second language[3]; there are as many bilingual children as there are monolingual children[4]. From the above data, we can clearly see that there are quite a lot of people in the world who have the knowledge of a language other than their first language. However, is the acquisition of second language actually developed this well in our world and society today? Globalization increases, but second language learning does not seems to have the same demand. Taking Australia as an example, the number of people learning a second language is on the downside and there is only 13% of year 12 students study a second language in 2011[5]. Even in Japan, the majority of people in Japan do not start learning English until they are 10 years old or when they enter Junior High school[6]. So, why is second language not developing so well in our world today? When globalization increases, use of languages should also be in demand as well. For me, the main reason that second language is not developing well is because people always forgot the benefits of learning a second language; whereas they think that having a skill to understand another language is only for their own future, they forgot how great languages can be benefit to us.

Therefore, in order to promote the greatness of learning a second language to everyone, I will be talking about the benefits of second language acquisition in my next blog’s entry.

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[1] Lowry, L. (). Bilingualism in Young Children: Separating Fact from Fiction. Available: http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Bilingualism-in-Young-Children--Separating-Fact-fr.aspx. Last accessed 25th Oct 2012.

[2] Clyne & Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The Australian, 1 December, accessed 25th Oct 2012, www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476

[3] Why learn languages? 2011, World Languages and Culture, accessed 25th Oct 2012, http://www.vistawide.com/languages/why_languages.htm

[4] Lowry, L. (). Bilingualism in Young Children: Separating Fact from Fiction. Available: http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Bilingualism-in-Young-Children--Separating-Fact-fr.aspx. Last accessed 25th Oct 2012.

[5] Clyne & Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The Australian, 1 December, accessed 25th Oct 2012, www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476

[6] Abe, N. (n.d.). English language education in japan. Retrieved from http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesecultur1/a/070100.htm

Second Language Aquisition in Australia By Candy

After talking about second language in Japan and Hong Kong, this time I would love to share my thoughts on second language acquisition in a place where I used to study at, Australia.

Imagine you are at a place like this: You can smell the just-fried spring rolls; people holding bubble milk tea on their hands; you can hear people speaking in different languages, but mostly Chinese; you look around and everything is in Chinese, you are not in any Asian countries, but indeed you are in Australia, the China Town in Australia. In Australia, there are lots of people from overseas especially from Asian countries. Some immigrated to Australia, some come here for study and some is for work. Even though many people have different background in Australia, Australian second language acquisition is not very strong. When you walk on the street, English is usually the language you hear people speak most.

Let me give you some information that you might be surprised at: There are 6900 languages existing throughout our planet[1] and 231 languages are spoken by people in Australia[2]. Globalization increases, but second language learning does not have the same demand. In Australia, the number of people learning a second language is on the downside and there are only 13% of year 12 students studied a second language in 2011[3]. However, when we are looking at the world’s population, there are only 5.6% speak English as a mother tongue but this number doubles when English is a second language[4]. On the other hand, the number of people who are bilingual is much more than monolingual people.

Second language education does not seem very important in Australia. Even though Australian education system offers a wide range of language courses in high school, most of the students do not choose to learn a second language as one of their study subjects. They would think that subjects like Mathematics, Science are much more essential than a second language. Students from year 1 to year 9, they need to choose a second language that offer at their school to learn, mostly French or German. Once they enter year 10, it becomes their own choice to choose to continue to learn or not. 

When I was studying in Australia, I was glad to meet an organization called “LCF Club” (Language Can Be Fun) which aims to promote to parents and children that second language is important in this 21^st century and learning languages can be fun. One of the managers of this club was my English and Japanese teacher therefore I was lucky enough to experience how this club conduct a language course by sitting-in one lesson. By sitting-in one lesson, I realised that there is no certain way to learn a language and it can be so much fun! There is no certain text book but by doing fun activities like singing, cooking, role playing etc, children can easily consolidate what they have learnt. Even though second language acquisition does not seem to be developing very well in Australia nowadays, I believe that by having this kind of organisations can help developing second language learning in Australia.

As to conclude, Australia is an English speaking country but its second language acquisition still need to be developed. Globalisation increases, demand for second language should be the same as well. There was a research done in 1996[5] discovered that in the 21^st century, because of the increasing of globalization, the acquisition of a foreign language will be a critical skill, like mathematics or science. Therefore, second language is important and Australia should develop second language learning better.

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[1] Clyne & Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The Australian, 1 December, accessed 20 July 2012, <www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476 >

[2] We YouMe - Language is the key 2008, motion picture, Government of SA Department of Education and Children Service, South Australia

[3] Clyne & Sussex, M & R 2010, '2020 - Languages', The Australian, 1 December, accessed 20 July 2012, <www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/languages/story-e6frg8nf-1225961567476 >

[4] Why learn languages? 2011, World Languages and Culture, accessed 20 July 2012, <http://www.vistawide.com/languages/why_languages.htm>

[5] Peckham, R 11/9/98, Why Study a FL, University of Tennessee at Martin, accessed 22 July 2012, <http://www.utm.edu/staff/bobp/french/flsat.html>.

Second Language Acquisition in Japan By Candy

In my last blog entry, I talked about the second language acquisition in my home country, Hong Kong, and this week I am going to focus on Japan, where most of my classmates are from.

In Japan, Japanese is the first language and most of the people’s second language is English. The majority of people in Japan do not start learning English until they are 10 years old or when they enter Junior High school.[1] However, the English education in Japan does not seem very successful. Even though children start learning English once they start junior high school and last for until the third year of high school, it is clear that most of the students still could not use English properly. Also, compare to other Asian countries, Japan always rank the lowest in IELTS and TOFEL exams.[2]

So why is this happen especially in Japan? One of the reasons is because the educators mostly focus on the skill of reading and writing, and always neglect the importance of listening and speaking English. Also, there are not many chances for Japanese to apply their English skills very often.[3]

Same as other countries, the reason for Japanese to learn English is globalization. Because of globalization, the demand of English skills has been increased. English is already the global lingua franca and it is essential to be able to understand English. So why does Japanese interested in learning another foreign language? Is that because of globalization again? Well, in order for me to understand more about this topic, I have asked some of my Japanese classmates. Most of them started to learn their third or fourth language because they are interested in the language’s culture and tradition or they have influenced by something like friends or the events of the language’s country[4].

It is clear that most of us here learn English because we need to. We heard from the society that without the skills of understanding English, it is harder to get a job or a better future. We are forced to learn. However, in Japan, this does not seem to apply for language other than English. Japanese think that learning a foreign language other than English can help them broaden their horizons and also understand more about their own language. Learning a second language is not only learning about the language itself, but also the culture, history and traditions of the language’s country.[5]  

 Federico Fellini, an Italian film director, stated that “A different language is a different vision of life.”[6] On the other hand, learning another language may provide you a different perspective that you might never have come across. I am sure everyone here would realise the true meaning of this quotes as we are all learning a foreign language other than English. You just don’t simply learn a language but you must have discovered something that has impacted you while you are learning the language.

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[1] Abe, N. (n.d.). English language education in japan. Retrieved from http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesecultur1/a/070100.htm

[2] Hashimoto, S. (2004, June). Foreign language education in japan:. Policy forum: global approaches to plurilingual education, Strasbourg.

[3] Abe, N

[4] Interview with Shunya, Shoko, Yukako and Miyu

[5] Ibid

[6] Why learn languages? 2011, World Languages and Culture, accessed 12July 2012, http://www.vistawide.com/languages/why_languages.htm (a quote from an Italian film director)

Second language acquisition in Hong Kong By Candy

In the following weeks, I will talk about how second language develop in different country/ region. This week, I will be talking about how second language develop in my home country, Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, it is clear that people who are bilingual are more than the number of people who are monolingual. Most people in Hong Kong, especially the 80’s and 90’s, can speak at least 3 languages, English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Cantonese is the mother language of Hong Kong and everyone in Hong Kong learn it since they were born. Before 1997, Hong Kong was still British’s colony and therefore, English was mostly spoken by people in many different areas, but especially in the business area.[1] Thus, after China took back Hong Kong, English and Mandarin Chinese become the second and third language that people learn in Hong Kong.

Although not everyone in Hong Kong want to learn a second language, or they would like to learn a different language instead of English and Mandarin, they still learn it. Some people may wonder why learning English and Mandarin are so important in Hong Kong. The main reason is that because the ability to understand English and Mandarin Chinese in Hong Kong are essential. On the other hand, without these skills, getting a good paid job and a better future is hard.

As the Government of Hong Kong adopted the “biliterate and trilingual” policy, it became a must to learn English and Mandarin in Hong Kong.[2] Every school in Hong Kong must offer both English and Mandarin class from primary school (year 1) until the first 3 years of secondary school (year 10). Some kindergartens also offer English and Mandarin class for children to help them learn the language better later in primary school[3].

Without having the ability to speak, write and read English and Mandarin, the possibility of getting a job is very low. As Hong Kong is an international city, many tourists come to Hong Kong for travel every year. In 2011, there were more than 42 million visitors from all over the world.[4] Mainland China had the most visitors coming to Hong Kong again like it was before. For the long-haul market, United States has continued to become the largest visitor source.[5] These data reveal that tourism is a big part of Hong Kong and people in Hong Kong should at least have the basic skills of both languages so that they could communicate with the tourists. It is also obvious that many jobs apart from the tourists industry in Hong Kong actually need to use English or Mandarin to communicate.[6] Therefore, it is hard to get a job if people only know Cantonese.

To sum up, Hong Kong is a bilingual city that most people can speak at least 3 languages, Cantonese, English and Mandarin. As the society has become more globalised than before, it seems to be a must to learn all these languages. No matter how much a person does not want to learn, because of the Hong Kong Government policy, most of us have at least the basic skills of these languages. Also in order to achieve a better future, the ability to understand and speak these languages is required.

In the next blog entry, I will be talking about second language acquisition in Japan, where most of my classmates are from.

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[1] Boland, R. (n.d). Do People in Hong Kong Speak English. Available: http://gohongkong.about.com/od/travelplanner/a/englishinhk.htm. Last accessed 8th June 2012.

[2] The Hong Kong education and schooling system explained. Available: http://www.tuition.com.hk/education-system.htm. Last accessed 8th June 2012.

[3] ibid

[4] The Governemnt of HKSAR. (2012). Tourism Performance in 2011. Available: http://www.tourism.gov.hk/english/statistics/statistics_perform.html. Last accessed 8th June 2012.
[5] ibid

[6] Chen, TP. (2012). mandarin overtakes english as hong kong's second language. Available: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/02/24/mandarin-overtakes-english-as-hong-kongs-second-language/. Last accessed 9th June 2012.