Second Language Learning and Second Language Learners: Growth and Diversity

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) studies is characterized by two different traditions. One tradition is linguistic and focusses on the process by which learners build up their linguistic knowledge of the second language (L2). Here the focus is on learning. Human beings are credited with an innate capacity to learn language which explains why the process of learning manifests distinct structural regularities. Human beings also possess a common set of wants and needs, which they express through language; this, in tum, accounts for commonalities in the way the L2 is used. The other tradition is psychological; it focusses on the different ways in which learners cope with the task of learning and using an L2. Here the focus is on the learner. Human beings are individuals; they differ with regard to gender, age, motivation, personality, learning style, self-esteem etc. Each person has her own way of going about things with the result that there is immense diversity in both the way learners learn and in what they achieve. The teacher needs to take account of both of these traditions-she needs to consider how learners learn and she needs to consider how they differ. The two traditions may appear, at first sight, to be in conflict. How can we talk about the universal properties of SLA while at the same time admitting that learners are inherently different? There is no conflict, however. Seliger (1984) distinguishes strategies and tactics. The former involve subconscious mechanisms which govern how input becomes intake. They are not open to direct inspection. Instead, we have to infer what they consist of by studying the leamer's output. Learning strategies can be seen as part of the cognitive process in which learners form, test and revise hypotheses (Faerch and Kasper, 1980). Alternatively they can be explained with reference to the setting of parameters available to the learner as part of Universal Grammar (Flynn 1988). Irrespective of which kind of explanation is offered, the assumption is that all learners work on the input data available to them in the same way. Tactics, according to Seliger, are the devices a learner uses to obtain input and to help them make sense of it. They are conscious-or potentially conscious-and they are open to inspection, therefore. Learners use tactics to plan their learning, to monitor their progress, to tackle specific learning tasks and to