Learning a Second Language Through Practice
Language skills, like any other skills, can be acquired only through practice. In the case of the mother tongue, the child gets sufficient scope for this practice in his daily environment. He uses the language at home, in the playground, at school - everywhere. And he has so many teachers: his parents, other members of the family, friends, relatives - almost everyone with whom he comes in contact in his day to day life. He has also the strongest motivation or urge to learn the language, for if he cannot express himself in his mother tongue, some of the basic needs are likely to remain unfulfilled. And what is perhaps most remarkable, the child practices the language without being conscious of the fact that he is learning a highly complex code. Similarly, his ‘teachers’ - his parents, playmates and others - teach him the language without any deliberate effort: they consciously supply him with the models for imitation and examples for formulations of his ad hoc rules about the language.
In the case of a personal language, particularly when it happens to be a foreign language like English, these natural resources are not available to the learner. Unlike the mother tongue, a second language is learn t deliberately, usually in formal classroom teaching. Therefore, the classroom activities must provide sufficient motivation and scope for practicing the language. Further, the language material presented for practice is to be carefully selected to highlight the regularities of the language so that pupils can make their own ad hoc rules.