Language learners sometimes encounter problems during their second and third language learning that they have no knowledge or experience about. Sometimes even language learners are hesitant in choosing the language learning method. You may have been familiar with many methods for learning or teaching a foreign language (second, third, etc.). Methods like the grammar-translation method, Direct method, silent way, and Audio-Lingual method” When you examine all these methods from the point of view of linguistics, you realize that the ultimate goal of all these methods is communication. It has been observed that when students learn a new language, they are able to produce sentences in that language, but they cannot use those sentences and structures properly outside of the real-world education environment in dealing with native people.

“Being able to communicate required more than linguistic competence; it required communicative competence (Hymes 1971)—knowing when and how to say what to whom.”

Sometimes language learners have difficulty learning a new language with a completely different structure from the structure of their first language.

All these problems led to the creation of a new method in the late 1970s, which has been called Communicative Language Learning or CLL or CLT for teachers for short.

When we start learning a foreign language, all of us face all kinds of problems that make the learning path difficult or even impossible. Now let me start with a common problem that every learner faces with learning a language with a different structure, one thing that gets pretty much everybody worried is when a language has a different structure pattern.

If you’re learning a language, it certainly isn’t just to say the word “bathroom”, “money” or “tired” on their own. This means the first thing to approach when learning a language is how sentences are structured.

But there is a problem in language learning that few people understand, and that is that learning a language with a completely different structure from the first language is difficult for the learner and sometimes not even possible; For example, learning Chinese, Arabic or Farsi is very difficult for a European learner. And these languages are hard because the words have no similarity to English and most European languages.

In the past years, according to a survey among Europeans aged 15-30, it was found that almost 80 percent of them can read or write at least one foreign language, but in recent years this number has reached less than 30 percent, this is not just because all European young people speak English.

• One of the biggest problems that Europeans face in learning languages ​​like French, Spanish, Italian, and German is inanimate objects such as chairs and beds or anything else, for instance masculine (he), feminine (she), or sometimes neuter (it).

It is like that milk is masculine in French, Italian, and Portuguese, but feminine in Spanish and German.

• The next problem arises when the learner has noticed the inanimate objects and wants to use it in a sentence; At this time, the learner should know what kind of article he or she should use, or change the article according to the gender of the word or object, or even use singular or plural. Of course, there were similar problems in the English language, but they were completely forgotten over time.
• The next problem is one of the most difficult problems that a learner faces and it is called track of cases. That is, while the German language has der/die/des/dem/den/das, only the is used in English, which is very difficult for an English learner to learn.
• This case is one of the most difficult problems, Verbal inflection. In English, we use four main forms of verbs with some minor changes (jump/jumps/jumping/jumped), while in a language like Spanish, the number in this list reaches 51, because verbs in Spanish change depending on tense but also depending on aspect and so on.

All in all, it’s hard because it challenges both your mind (your brain has to construct new cognitive frameworks) and time (it requires sustained, consistent practice).

This is the reason that learning a second language with an alphabet close to the first language/mother tongue is much more difficult than learning a language completely different from the first language, just as learning a language like Arabic is much more difficult for Farsi speakers than learning a language like English because All letters and words do not exist in the same mind, and therefore it is easier to remember, but it is not impossible.

It is completely normal that sometimes you feel that you cannot finish the language you have started to learn. In the first step, you must be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. You must believe in your abilities and know that the difficulty of this issue is not only for you.

The next issue can be that you are embarrassed to speak that language in front of others, which is a big problem because mastering a language primarily depends on constant practice and repetition.

When you feel your motivation sliding, it’s always a good idea to go back to the purpose of undertaking this project. Even if you’ve decided to learn a new language simply because you think it will be a fun way to exercise your mind, this could be good motivation to keep marching forward toward your goal.

Learning a foreign language always seems like an attractive challenge that tempts you to start learning. This path has many joys with all the problems you may face, so motivate yourself along the learning path by reminding yourself of your goals, finding an educational partner to learn, and even buying story books and study materials, and don’t forget that “it always seems difficult until you start it.”

Now let’s move on to the next subject, Initially, I make an example, assuming that in the classroom, the teacher distributes sheets among the students, which are copies of the football report of a sport’s recent newspaper. The teacher asked the students to specify the predictions of the World Cup in this report and discuss them in class; Then he divided the students into several groups and asked them to write their ideas about it. Then, using cards with pieces of pictures, he asked the students to guess what sport or team it was.

After the game, the students are asked to write their personal opinions about the game and prediction of win and loss to be examined.
Now, considering the hypothetical class that was proposed and the activities that students were asked to do, we will examine this method:

1. what was demonstrated is that the teacher asked the students to read the report section raise the reporter’s predictions about the World Cup and express their guesses. This case expresses the principle that students should be able to recognize the intention of the writer or reporter as part of the ability to communicate.
2. The teacher gives the students the directions for the activity in the target language, which shows the principle of the importance of the target language as a kind of vehicle for classroom communication, not just as an object to study.
3. The students try to state the reporter’s predictions in different words and it makes a principle that illustrates. One function can have many dissimilar linguistic forms although the emphasis is on the process of communication rather than just mastery of language forms.
4. The students play a language game and it is good to know that Games are important because they have certain features in common with real communicative events. Also, the speaker receives immediate feedback from the listener.
5. The students work with a partner or partners to predict what the next picture in the strip story will look like, and it makes a good opportunity to work on negotiating meaning for students.

If you ask about the teacher’s goal, to be exact, the teacher’s overall goal of this method (CLL) is to encourage students to use the second language to communicate. In order to implement this goal, the teacher must teach linguistic forms, meanings, and functions to the students. Students should learn how to make a variety of simple and functional sentences with different language forms. They must be able to choose from among these the most appropriate form, given the social context and the roles of the interlocutors. In addition, students should learn about their own learning, to take increasing responsibility for it, and to learn how to learn from one another.

Communication is a process; knowledge of the forms of language is insufficient. also “role-play” and “Small Group Tasks” are the best choices for improving our communicational ability.

Conclusion

There is no single best method. for individual teachers and their students, there may be a particular method, and the best and .most effective method of learning a language is you search a little about the methods and create a combination.

 BY: Yasaman Sodaie