Second Language Acquisition: Problems of Learning English as a Second Language: ESL Difficulties

Learning English as a second language or any other second language acquisition is always a challenge especially if you are from a place where people hardly use that second language in their regular life. Second language learners face several difficulties gaining good command over a foreign language. Even the level of difficulty raise higher when the targeted second language is learnt with the help of no professionals or institutes dedicated to teach the language. Such learners are brave and enthusiastic for sure but very often a native speaker of the second language will find lack of fine touch and desired intensity in their writings. The degree of efficiency a learner of a second language needs depends on the sector s/he is targeting to apply it. For instance, for a traveler the ability to transform their ideas and conveying their message to other is enough, for students whose medium of education is a second language need a good understanding of the language and freely writing ability, but for a freelance writer learning and using a second language is not only achieving the knowledge to use the language properly but also acquiring the power to write in a way that attracts people to read and feel what is been written rather than just conveying a message.

This hub is my personal experience on acquisition of English and my troubles with syntax and the ways I am searching to get out of my troubles. Here I have recommended some best English grammar books that are much helpful for learning English. Read the books on learning English and English grammar book buying online if you are serious about learning English.

Currently I am studying in a university of Bangladesh and my study medium is English though my first language in Bengali. In my school and college life I had to learn English as an International language that were just some introduction to the language, conventional grammar lessons, reading comprehension, fill in the blanks and so on which we used to memorize and throw up in the exam paper and forget the majority of those in no time. Lectures in the university are given in Bengali so there is no hardship understanding those though we have to write our answer script in English. Most of the quality books are also written in English but there are Bengali Books available too. Whatever here also we don’t face a great difficulty to cope with the exam question as it does not demand a very high quality of English grammar or usages of enriched vocabulary. So, just making the examiner understand what we wanted to say is just good enough to carry the desired number and grade. As a consequence, our English never go beyond a certain standard that is nothing near to be said quality English. In professional level the same story applicable. Be smart, be able to make people understand, be fluent and you will get success. No real command over English is ever demanded in any sector of a non English speaking country unless someone is planning to go abroad taking a scholarship or study purpose or engaging in a work which mainly focuses on the second language speakers. These circumstances can be applied for any second language learners as far as I have observed.

There are so many reasons that we can’t learn better English or a second language after being taught in our educational institutions. I have pointed out the reasons below:

• We learn the meanings of hundreds perhaps thousands of unrelated words but don’t really learn their application, therefore, can’t capitalize on them.
• We learn grammar but hardly get the challenge to apply them in a large extent.

  · Grammar books don’t helps a lot for sure.

• Whatever we learn could be handsome enough but we don’t get any opportunity to communicate with the native speakers or even we don’t communicate within ourselves that really don’t help us to even to preserve what we have learned. We miss the trick of communicative competence.
• The degree that our native language defers from a second language is very vital. For a German it’s easy to learn English or for a Bangladeshi it’s easy to learn Hindi as German and English or Bengali and Hindi are closely related language. So very often learners find it boring and difficult to learn a second language that is very much different from the native language.
• We hardly read or listen to English news, literature, article or anything that enhance the learner’s skill. We are missing out our listening and reading skill which is very important to acquire expertise of a second language.
  

Well, English is not a very complex language. But there are many confusing things in English. Also English is enriched with a great amount of word. It is very hard to get acquainted with these properly. Here is a list of the confusions I always face:

• Vocabulary and the diversity of the word-meaning: The great amount of vocabulary of English really makes me suffer when I read something written by a native speaker. I find a lot of words unknown and the most confusing point is even if I know the meaning I can’t really understand the meaning of the whole sentence it is because an English word gives different impressions in different situations. This makes things so confusing and I get confused about the meaning of the word until I know how the word acts differently in different situation.
• Sentence pattern: Sentence making in English is a nightmare for me. Especially when I make a long complex sentence I get frequently messed up. Simple sentences never always can express my thoughts so complex sentences are often needed but as I have said making complex sentence is not so easy particularly in terms of applying periods and the perfect periods in it.

• Usages of preposition: Prepositions are the most confusing part of the English language. Very hard to memorize and very wide to capture. A single word take different preposition and acts completely different even there are no fixed rules for most of them.
• Huge number of Exceptions: There are so many exceptions to rules in English language. Sometimes I can’t decide what to learn the exceptions or the rules.
• Perplexity with linking words: It’s another challenge to master the application of linking words like though, as, since, when, while, as if, nevertheless, such, and many more.
• Idiomatic expressions: I just become a fool and many a time misunderstood the writer when I come across an idiomatic expression.

Freelance writing is not something like writing in the exam script and expressing my thoughts. I need to make my reader engaged with the content otherwise I will lose my reader base. The truth is that the reader doesn’t read content when they don’t find it interesting and easy flowing no matter how informative it is. So engaging reader becomes very hard and no traffic means there is hardly any hope of revenue. Here are some problems that I face:

• I can understand what type of content readers want to read but I can’t write accordingly because of my poor skill of the second language. Thinking in a language and translating in other language is a real challenge and it’s almost impossible. A language is not only a language but also a culture and what makes us suffer most is we never realize the second culture until we can start thinking and writing in the same language.
• Less vocabulary means less diversity in a content that adds the boring tag with the writing from the readers’ point of view.
• We can’t assess the quality of the content ourselves until someone explains it to us. So we find no point of improvement and our writing never improves.
• Gradually we acquire more vocabulary, more knowledge of grammar and more command over the language but hardly we can realize the fine points of the language, the way to apply the language marvelously, artistically. Accurate use of a language doesn’t mean delightful, magnificent or attractive, engaging use of the language.
• The funniest thing is we can’t even understand or compare between two writings in the point of high-quality writing. A product review and an artistic description of a thought seem similar to us. Only when we don’t understand something we think it must be something of high quality which doesn’t necessarily reflects the reality.

Yes writing is not easy whether it is a product review or a poem no matter writing needs real efforts more or less depending on the type of writing. It’s comparatively easy to write informative things that need better research and good knowledge rather than good language skill. Writing on social or sensitive issue or creative sector is quite difficult without having better skill and knowledge about the culture of the language I am writing in. But does it mean we have to leave writing? Will we stop writing because we are not native and don’t have the quality to entertain with delightful writing? My answer is, “No.” The long we can write, the long our pen can anyhow express our thoughts we should carry on writing. Betterment will come. It’s a gradual process and we should keep trying.

There are is a great and helpful community in the online writing sector. They have opened a new horizon of potential in front of us. They are not only writing quality contents for readers but also helping the second language writers to develop their skill. And the wide range of writing platform that the internet offers us is truly amazing and a path to self help. There are social networking sites available as well where we can get involved and make friends who are the native speaker of a certain language. A regular communication with them not only enhances the experience of a person but also increases his/her skill on the language and greatly helps to understand the culture of than language speaking community. Here are some steps below that have helped me and still helping. Hopefully you can also get benefited.

• Read a lot: There are plenty of and numerous types of writing available over the internet. Whatever topic you like just get into them and start reading. It will help you to understand the way writers rope their content. Gradually you will subconsciously develop your writing skill. It will enhance your knowledge, your writing skill, your reading skill and for sure vocabulary and command over syntax. Add books and newspaper in your reading list also. It will give you perfection.
• Listen: Listen to English news and songs. Watch English movie, TV channels that is devoted for international audience and the commentary is in English. It will meet you recreational needs as well as your English quest. You will get better in listening and get acquainted with the application in different situation. Visual learning will help your understanding in a greater extent.
• Write yourself: Don’t be shy. Come out from the cocoon. Don’t bother about what people will think about you or how they will react. Don’t expect good feedback rather try to get the hardest criticism of the people that will add something in your bag. Remember you will learn only when you are stumbled. Capitalize on people’s criticisms and imprudent is sure to come. Never be unmotivated and never hope overnight improvement. Give the eggs time to be heated.
• Communicate: Communicate with people. Whenever you get an opportunity try to speak with a native English speaker or whatever second language you want to learn. It is a very well and perhaps the best way to learn. Communicative competence will improve your skill in earliest possible time and make you meet with the manners of that language. Make the full use of your facebook, twitter, msn etc.
  
• Ask for help: People don’t have all the time of the world to find out who are willing to learn. So speak out. Don’t try to hide your limitation. Seek for help and get every opportunity to learn. Remember nobody will ever come to teach but you can always go to learn. As long as you are humble and modest you will always get somebody to help you.

How are you doing? Are you happy with your progress?

I have to say I have improved. My reading skill and patience have been increased. I am writing poems currently and seems like I am getting better and better every day as I have seen some people coming back to my poems. I am now concentrating more on other topics. Hopefully more writing will increase the amount of mistakes and every mistake will make me learn something new.

Good job, do you want to thank someone for helping you?

In hubpages I can mention few names like sofs, klarawieck, John Holden, Nellieanna,and there are so many more who have always encouraged me and tried to correct my mistakes. They have been very kind and gained my utmost respect. I also thank all the people who have followed me, read my writings, encouraged me and showed me the right path.

If you have read this hub you already know how desperately I want to learn. So give me your feedback, suggestion and opinion on my writing. Any suggestion is highly appreciated. If you like this hub vote it up, Mark as useful, beautiful or awesome, share it in your facebook, twiteer account. You can bookmark it and link it with your hub as well. I would also love you to read my other hubs and finally pray for me. I wish your long and healthy life. Thank you.