Differences Among Learners

I started this weeks' readings with Lightbrown and Spada's chapter three. I expected to find a list of characteristics that successful L2 Learners have, but I found myself extremely disappointed as I read. I began to feel as though the whole chapter was saying that there isn't any formal list - it depends on the individual. While this is a fine conclusion, I still would have liked a list. When I got to the similar section in Saville-Troike's chapter, I began to feel a little better about it. Though she too took the basic stance of "it depends on the individual," I thought she had at last a better way of explaining it. At some points, she does say something like "the x group are better at y because of z."

I also found Saville-Troike's discussion on sex interesting. It made me think about my Japanese class. I took it with my husband because he didn't want to learn Spanish, and I didn't want to lean French. (The languages we started learning in high school.) Thus, Japanese was our compromise. I quickly realized that the course was much more difficult for me than it was for him. He didn't need to study or take notes in class. Meanwhile, I was frantically scribbling down everything the teacher said and would spend hours studying and making flash cards for all the words and characters/letters. We actually had a discussion about this once. He mentioned his experience with learning languages - computer programming languages. He mentioned that computer programming languages are languages that aren't as complex as English or Japanese are for example, but they do have their own version of grammar rules and structures. He explained how he managed to see Japanese in these terms. With very little knowledge of computer programming languages (and with no desire to learn them in addition to Japanese), I went on my merry way to make flash cards. While this may not have anything to do directly with sex, I think it does have something to do with the fields of study people go into.