LANGUAGE LEARNING: THE MOTHER TONGUE MODEL

Abstract

Language and the ability to communicate are important because of the complexities of the human interaction. Language acquisition, especially of the mother tongue is a natural process so to speak. But when it comes to the acquisition of other languages many of the learners, both the adult and the young seems to be slow. But by using the very natural processes of the mother tongue acquisition one can overcome this difficulty. In order to understand the natural processes involved in the mother tongue learning, it is necessary to see what the four modes of language expressions are. The four skills or modes of language expressions are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Mother tongue acquisition at least in the initial years of a person is not directly related with reading or writing. It is confined to the first two of the LSRW set, i.e. Listening and Speaking. In the same manner an second language should also be taught. In the initial stages of the language teaching, the main focus should be on the listening and speaking skills of the learners. This applies not just to children, but also to those adult learners who are newly learning a second language. Such kind of a language learning, which follows the patterns of the mother tongue learning process, is called as “The mother tongue model of Language learning”.