Difficulties in Sla

1. Introduction

For many people, learning a second language is one of the most important and demanding tasks they will need to accomplish. Once we have acquired a first language system and many of us go on to learn a second language. What problems do we encounter in the process of second language acquisition?

This paper will attempt to first identified the general difficulties during the second language learning process. Futher I will examine different factors which affect and cause difficulties in SLA: age, intelligence and aptitude, in addition an individuals personality which also plays a role.

2. General difficulties in SLA

Learning a second language is a very difficult task for many people. Each language contains its own system of rules for how sounds may be combined into meaningful speech patterns. This means that words must be combined in a specific order to yield a meaningful sentence that will be understood by all people who speak that language. It also means that meaningful patterns of word order may vary across different languages. For example, the standard word order in English is Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O), while it may be S-O-V in another language.

Word order rules are often troublesome for students learning a second language. If they are to avoid mistakes when speaking or writing the second language, students must be aware that rule systems are not the same for all languages.

Students learning a second language also have difficulty with pronunciation. The way letter combinations are pronounced varies not only across languages, but also within the same language. This is why students learning English have a particularly difficult time with pronunciation. Regional variations in the pronunciation of certain letter combinations are very confusing for ESL students. An additional pronunciation difficulty results from the large number of silent letters in English.

When children learn their first language, there is no...