Cultural Exposure Affects Second Language Learning

670 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Factors that affect second language learning

Cultural Exposure Affects Second Language Learning

Socio-cultural factors have an important effect on second language learning. In particular, cultural exposure plays a significant role in the language learning process. Cultural ignorance and prejudice may cause difficulties for language learners and the degree of exposure also determines how fast a second language learner can acquire a new language. In this mini research essay, I will first examine how people from China and Middle Eastern will be stereotyped. Next, I will discuss why people have similar cultural background with the native speakers learn a new language better. Moreover, I will show different learning strategies people used and finally, how these factors affect second language learning will be discussed.

Chinese and Middle Eastern are always stereotyped by native English speakers. Because of the influence of media and performance at school, “Contemporary public perceptions of Chinese and other Asian students are based on reports of these students' high test scores and academic success”, and native speakers assume that all people from China are “high achievers” who can adapt to a new environment fast and speak English well (Derderian-Aghajanian&wang, 2012, p.172). However, according to the researchers, many Chinese immigrants have no prior background in English and have various education levels (Derderian-Aghajanian&wang, 2012). For those people, the stereotyping is unfair, because they will not have enough support from the public,
2
which may have a negative impact on their language learning. Middle Eastern students, on the other hand, are stereotyped to terrorists(Derderian-Aghajanian&wang, 201...

... middle of paper ...

...anguage, Society and Culture Journal, 1(31), 81-89. Retrieved March 4, 2014, from http://www.aaref.com.au/en/publications/journal/journal-articles/issue-31-2010/

Derderian-Aghajanian, A., & Wang, C. C. (2012). How culture affects English language learners' (ELL's) outcomes, with Chinese and Middle Eastern immigrant students. International Journal of Business & Social Science, 3(5), 172-180. Retrieved March 4, 2014, from http://ijbssnet.com/journal/index/1091

Schumann, J. H. (1976). Social distance as a factor in second language acquisition. Language Learning, 26(1), 135-143. Retrieved March 4, 2014, from the Wiley Online Library database.

Schumann, J. H. (1986). Research on the acculturation model for second language acquisition. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 7(5), 379-392. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from the Taylor&Francis Online database.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Lisa Delpit's The Skin We Speak

    971 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lisa Delpit’s book, “The Skin We Speak”, talked about language and culture, and how it relates to the classroom. How we speak gives people hits as to where we are from and what culture we are a part of. Unfortunately there are also negative stereotypes that come with certain language variations. There is an “unfounded belief that the language of low income groups in rural or urban industrial areas is somehow structurally “impoverished” or “simpler” than Standard English” (Delpit 71). The United States is made of people from various cultures and speak many different variations of languages. As teachers we must be aware of some of the prejudices we may have about language and culture.

    Read More

  • Bilingual Education in Richard Rodriguez' Aria

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...

    Read More

  • Model Minorities and The Joy Luck Club

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    By 1980, the majority of immigrants in America came from Asia and Latin America, with over 30,000 immigrating from China (Tindall 1344). Many of these Chinese immigrants arrived to experience a democracy immediately following the Communist victory in 1949, while others simply came to seek higher education for subjects they could not pursue in a developing country, each reason fueled by a desire to achieve the American Dream (Liu). Despite the promise of the American Dream, children of Chinese immigrants suffer from many problems arising from the many stereotypes and their misrepresentation as a “model minority” by native-born Americans. Amy Tan exemplifies this discrepancy between Chinese and American views on Chinese American children in The Joy Luck Club.

    Read More

  • Summary and Critique of Johnson and Newport 1989

    1586 Words  | 4 Pages

    Johnson and Newport used 46 native Chinese or Korean second language learners of English who were students and faculty members at an American university. The subjects were presented together because of their native languages dissimilarity to English and lack of difference in the results of two groups. The subjects' ages differentiate between 3 and 39, when they first arrived in the US and they had lived in the target language culture for between the age of 3 and 26. According to their age of arrival in the US, t...

    Read More

  • Affirmative Action

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ese students also felt that their academic abilities were judged on the basis of ethnic stereotypes. (Crosby, p. 136)

    Read More

  • Asian Americans in the Classroom

    4681 Words  | 10 Pages

    Asians are one of fastest growing minority groups in America today. During this century, various factors at home and abroad have caused people from Asia to immigrate to the United States for better or for worse. Due to these factors, Americans and American teachers, in particular, need to educate themselves and become aware of the Asian American students’ needs in terms of success and happiness. Before beginning my research, I felt I had an easy subject: studying Asian Americans in relation to their education in public schools. How simple! Everyone knows they are smart, hard working, driven to succeed in spite of their nerdish, geeky, non-athletic, broken-English stereotype. Of course they are successful and happy! Why wouldn’t they be?

    Read More

  • Nicole Yu: International Third-Year Transfer Student By Nicole Lee

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prior to immigrating to America, Nicole attended a public school in China where all of her teachers were Chinese natives. At Nicole’s school in China, however, English is a required course of study taught mostly by emphasizing English vocabulary, completing short one-page writing assignments, and practicing spelling. Learning English pronunciations and engaging in realistic English conversation wasn’t the goal for educators in China. The goal in China was to prepare students to pass their post-high school exam, which was their ticket into attending a university. The exam is highly demanding for Chinese students because it requires knowledge of English reading, comprehension, spelling and writing. For Nicole, the most stressful part of this exam was that students taking it

    Read More

  • Learning A Second Language

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    Learning a language is quite possibly one of the most difficult and time- consuming endeavors a person could ever undertake. Therefore, it comes as no surprise, that a limited number of second languages are taught in schools across the western world, and languages are sometimes failed to be passed on to children growing up in a different country than their parents did. Even in Canada, an officially bilingual country, only 15% of Canadians speak English and one unofficial language (Statistics Canada 2008) and in America, only 21% of the population is versed in two languages (Logan, 2003). It has become apparent that there is a need for Canadians and Americans to learn a second language. For a country to survive, it needs to rely on other countries as there is no one country that can produce within it’s borders all the means to meet the needs of it’s people. Furthermore, with the threat of international terrorism, the economic crisis and environmental ruin looming above countries all over the world, governments and organizations need to work together to come up with solutions. These cross culture collaborations would not be possible without the ability of even a few people present to speak each other’s languages. Conversely, by remaining monolingual, skills and knowledge will become concentrated only in certain countries and as the transfer of knowledge will cease the rate of human advancement will slow. This report intends to discuss the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning a second language, and investigate different ways of learning. To accomplish this, I have conducted secondary research into the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning another language. These particular areas of research were cho...

    Read More

  • International Student Experience Essay

    1375 Words  | 3 Pages

    There is a far-flung disposition to comprehend international students as a homogenous group. This perception is flawed mainly because it falls short of treating them as individuals. For instance, it is a common notion that Asian students, Chinese students to be precise, bring with them cultural difference in style and methods of learning, and are thus deficiently prepared for analytical and critical thinking in the American learning institutions. Additionally, students from South East Asia are deemed as surface learners and passive non-participants in class or in study groups. Such cultural perceptions have the potential of obliterating the fundamental needs or requirements of most international students. Unimpeachably, language barrier is the greatest hurdle for most international students in their adaptation to life overseas. However, they can overcome this obstacle by apprehending the academic expectations, standards and conventions in the American schools.

    Read More

  • Incorporating Family Involvement with Culturally Responsive Pedagogy for Chinese Americans in Elementary Schools

    2264 Words  | 5 Pages

    The rapid growth in culture, linguistic, and ethnic diversity require family involvement in the modern education system. According to Turner-Vorbeck (2013), initiating a multicultural education system allows the inclusion of each family’s needs in the school setting, which contributes to a heightened sensitivity to cultural issues among teachers. The multicultural education system provides guidelines that teachers should follow to satisfy the diverse student population (Morrel & Duncan-Andrade, 2008). Generalization is a major challenge facing students with diverse cultures, as teachers fail to treat each of them as an individual and instead characterize them under the same cultural class. Chinese families entrust their lives with their children’s education because they believe that success in people’s...

    Read More

  • The United States As A Melting Pot Of Nations

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Language often serves as a barrier of people having to assimilate into the American culture. People of distinct cultures in the United States struggle to find the balance between fitting in with the culture of America yet still keeping their own heritage alive. Maxine Hong Kingston explicitly states that she had difficulty as a child expressing herself through the English language, primarily at school. She claims, “It was when I found out I had to talk that school became a misery, that the silence became a misery” (Kingston 239). While she had a hard time fitting in at “American school”, Kingston felt comfortable and much more in place at the after-school Chinese classes. She says that the once shy and afraid Chinese-American students were “reading together,...

    Read More

  • Cultural and Racial Stereotyping

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Stereotyping is a three-part process” (Floyd, 61). In the first stage, we identify a group to which we believe another person belongs. For example, if a man is wearing a turban, one might assume he is a Muslim. In the next stage, we recall a generalization others often make about the people in that group. For example, many people in the United States generalize all Muslims as terrorists or haters of America. The last stage in the process of stereotyping is applying the generalization to that person. “You are Muslim, therefore must be a terrorist.” Obviously, these assumptions are not accurate, but are examples in the process of stereotyping (Floyd, 61).

    Read More

  • Family Diversity Essay

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    In an increasingly diversified world, children bring a variety of cultural backgrounds to the classroom. Sometimes educators have preconceived ideas about cultures that can affect how they view students. For example, a recent article by Puchner and Markowitz (2015) examined the preconceived notion

    Read More

  • Culture and Gender Influences: Language Development

    1964 Words  | 4 Pages

    Culture and Gender Influences: Language Development. There are many facets of language development, including the brain, delayed speech, and expected milestones. Biological factors in newborns are—for the most part—the same across the world. However, once introduced into their culture the differences begin to emerge, and it appears that there are some biological factors that influence gender based language development.

    Read More

  • Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    Language has pioneered many interracial relationships and historical milestones. Language is a necessity for basic communication and cultural diversity. Being multilingual is a skill proven influential to a successful future. Due to rapid globalization, countries all over the world are stressing the importance of learning a second, or even third, language. With the exception of time and lack of resources, adults have very few widely applicable disadvantages to learning multiple languages. However, language learning as a child presents more complications. Some of those include not having enough funding at the elementary school level to introduce a program for secondary language, academic overload for the youth, stress for both the parent and student parties, and the mixing of languages. Not all of these complications are true in any or all situations, however, and the absence of them provides multitudes of opportunity for future career and academic success. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the parents or the education legislation to decide whether they encourage the learning of a secondary language at the young age necessary for retention. “The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency,” therefore the younger a child begins to learn, the more likely they are to benefit to the maximum potential (Robertson). Keeping the language learning in high school or beginning the process earlier is a greatly controversial discussion that is important to address because of the topic’s already lengthy suspension.

    Read More

More about Cultural Exposure Affects Second Language Learning

Open Document