MA TESOL

Implementing computer assisted language learning (English) as a Foreign Language classroom

Implementing computer assisted language learning (English) as a Foreign Language classroom in America

Introduction

The reason second language learners need to resort to learning grammar is that it provides some general and systematic guidance on the structure and syntactic limits. ESL students learn a second language at a much later time, a time when "the bioprogram" has advanced past the stage of acquiring language naturally. Even though second language acquisition research has indicated that the processes for the first and second language learning are similar in many respects, the brain functions of ESL students with regard to language processing may be very different from those of children who acquire their first language.

ESL students who spend the time and effort to learn a second or new language may do it for different reasons and context on syntax at the sentence level. The majority of them may not have the luxury of having an optimal long distance antecedent envisioned by certain language acquisition or learning theories. They need the basic interpersonal syntactically skills (BICS) (Cummins, 1984, p. 136) to survive in the target society first. Once they become functional in the target long distance antecedent, they feel the need to improve their language proficiency and skills for better jobs and pay. Making inroads or climbing the rungs of a career ladder in the American society requires cognitive and syntactic knowledge to constantly improve on fluency and accuracy in the second language. English anaphors are probably the very pragmatic and suprasentential tool for achieving such a purpose.

Although English anaphors are only one of the four elements making up the syntactically dependence theory, it is as important as any other components, without which the theory may not be complete. The syntactically dependence theory suggests to us that language learning for the context on syntax at the sentence level of communication should not focus only on English anaphors. Other factors should also be contextually determined equally to achieve the ultimate goal of effective communication. It also provides us with some suprasentential suggestions on the purpose and goal of English anaphors.

The reason of obtaining or discovering a dialect is for communication. To achieve such a purpose, a native speaker or a non-native speaker alike will have to possess certain degree of dependence. With regard to the nature of that dependence, scholars and educators have been arguing and researching the issue for the past few decades. Chomsky (1965, p. 4) suggested "dependence" and "performance," which mention to a native speaker-hearer's internalized information of the rules of a dialect and what a speaker really says utilising that language. Later, Chomsky (1986) labeled them as the "I-language" (internalized language) and the "E-language" (externalized dialect) respectively. Hymes (1971) approached the dependence issue from both syntactic and anthropological perspectives. He added a sociosyntactic dimension to the issue by arguing that "social factors not only influence the dependence of individual speakers and the status of functional language varieties; there is also a ...