Language Learning Methodology for Adults: A Study of Linguistic Transfer

Abstract

The purpose of the present research is to bring together the evidence on transfer in adult L2 and L3 language acquisition and investigate the use and the relationship between languages in contact. The role of linguistic transfer (Odlin, 1989) i.e. the imposition of previously learned patterns onto a new learning situation, has a facilitation or inhibition effect on the learner's progress in mastering a new language (L2 or L3). Our findings reveal that the cross-linguistic influence occurs both from the direction of the L2 to the L3 and from the L3 to the L2 (Odlin, 2003; Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008). In the case of our participants, in the acquisition of L2 as the foreign language, the L3 is the language that they have more contact with its influence is higher than the interferences of their own mother tongues (Devís, 2013). Such a result has important consequences for language teaching; primarily because it informs us about the methods to be used with adult students. Finally, this study and others studies show that transfer can be used as an effective learning strategy in multiple language learning.