The Influencing Factors of Language Development: Learners Developing Second and Foreign Languages (Published)
The aim and objective of this research is to find out the language learners’ factors, language learning factors, their influence on the whole process of language learning and finally to look for some possible solutions. It is worth mentioning that a particular factor can be a barrier to one learner, whereas it may facilitate the other. There is no denying the fact that developing a new language, for example a second/foreign language, is basically a complex and tiring job. According to Stephen D. Krashen, we have two widely known and well accepted means to develop language: ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’. Acquiring a language is a natural process, while learning a language is a training based activity. During the period of language development, students have a lot of issues such as: personal, social, biological, political, cultural, economic, academic and so on. Further researches show that after puberty, learners face some issues and there are facts that all individuals are different from one another. In the early 1960’s, there was an upsurge of interest in individual characteristics. All these issues that affect language learning can broadly be categorized as internal and external factors. To facilitate language learning, students’ initial errors in developing language should be allowed and corrected with a sympathy and tact. So, to discover a short-cut solution to removing and/or minimizing all the factors of language learners and language learning in order to develop the target language is not an effortless task.
Keywords: Acquisition, Learning, Puberty, Universal Grammar, learners’ factors, learning factors