English as a Second Language

English is the most studied subject in the world today. In a global society composed of numerous nations speaking different languages, having English as a common medium for communication has resulted in the need to educate hundreds of millions in the language skills needed for success in the spheres of education, business, academia, and the media. Aiding in the worldwide effort to bring English to everyone, the WhiteSmoke English writing software is an excellent tool for editing and proofreading your English texts.

There is a bewildering array of terms denoting English language study, with ESL and EFL being the most prominent. When a T is added to the acronyms, they refer to teachers, as in TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign language). English is the native language of the U.K, the U.S, Canada, South-Africa, Australia, and New-Zealand. It also holds a prominent status as second national language in India, some European countries, the Caribbean etc. A person learning English in these countries (usually immigrants and refugees) would be studying English as a second language, as the language is widely heard and seen in all walks of life, from street signs, printed and electronic media to major cultural events, and used by most people walking in the street.

In other countries, such as China, the Congo, Argentina, or Japan, a person studying the language would be referred to as studying English as a foreign language. This is because English is rarely visible publicly with most people using their own native tongue for all their needs. A continuum can therefore be made up, with ESL and EFL at its two extremes. There are unique challenges in learning English characteristic to either one of these learning situations, but generally speaking, having the language around you (ESL) makes it easier and faster to acquire by most learners.

When English is learned by native speakers at school, it usually encompasses both study of literature and intensive practice of both oral and written expression, at a proficiency that enables the exchange of more academic and abstract topics. Grammar is usually dealt with only in specific problem areas, such as subject-verb agreement, which are less in number than those challenging ESL learners.

When the language is learned as ESL/EFL, extra care is given to acquiring more basic vocabulary and the breaking down of numerous grammar rules to enable using the language in more practical, mundane contexts and intensively training the basic language skills (reading, listening, speaking, and writing) at rising levels of difficulty. The ideal goal is to attempt reaching native speaker proficiency, a process which is usually painstakingly achieved during years of study, if at all, leaving most learners at an advanced level under a hard-to-break-through glass ceiling.

Difficulties in Learning English as a Second Language

Grammar

Even though the English language is not complex structurally in comparison to other languages, there are still many language difficulties that ESL learners face. Having so many learners around the world creates unique challenges as different mother tongues come into contact with the new language learned. The more similar the first language is to English (German, Dutch, and other European languages), the easier it will be to learn it, and vice-versa. Many language transfer mistakes occur when learners try to translate directly form one language to the other. East-Asian languages, Turkish, and Russian, for example, do not use articles ( a, an, the), thereby producing sentences such as " Michael took book from library for mother." German, French, and Greek do not have progressive forms ( She is talking), resulting in either no use or overuse of these in English.

The relatively large number of frequently used English verb tenses and aspects (simple, progressive, perfect, and prefect-progressive) together with the extensive use of auxiliary verbs for negation and question formation demand the close language scrutiny of a grammar checker.

Vocabulary

While grammar usually stops being a problem for upper-intermediate to advanced learners of English, it is the remarkable immensity of English vocabulary, larger than that of any other language, which becomes the real challenge for ESL learners desiring to conquer it.

Other vocabulary mind benders are similar looking words in other languages which actually have very dissimilar meanings [English gift (=present) and German Gift (=poison)]. The WhiteSmoke online English dictionary, translating to and from 20 languages, coupled with the advanced English thesaurus and the text enrichment database are all excellent instruments to ease your way into the fascinating but mind-boggling universe of English vocabulary.

Spelling and Pronunciation

Difficulties also arise in speech and orthography, producing reading difficulties or true challenges in English pronunciation. Chinese, Japanese and Korean speakers find it difficult to differentiate between /l/ and /r/ and therefore pronounce election for erection, while the typically English /th/ sound tackles nearly all learners, as it exists almost exclusively in English ( thin Vs . tin).

English is a solid mixture between old German, French, and additions from Latin and ancient Greek with the sprinkling of words from just about any other language on earth. As a result, English has a huge variety of vowel and consonant sounds, many word stress patterns sentence intonations and rhythms, and off-course a spelling system notoriously known for being highly diversified and inconsistent. All these call for smart orthographic error detection and correction tools, such as WhiteSmoke, which is in high demand by even native speakers of English.

Learners of English as a second language can overcome learning challenges using various tools. The WhiteSmoke writing software is an excellent choice to improve your writing while brushing up on grammar, spelling, and punctuation.