Difficulties in Learning English As a Second Or Foreign Language

Anxiety 
Anxiety on the part of the learner can create a notable barrier to L2 acquisition.
Krashen, (1985a, 1985b, as cited in von Worde, 1998), one of the most recognized 
experts on SLA, held that “anxiety inhibits the learner’s ability to process incoming 
language and short-circuits the process of acquisition” (p. 31). According to MacIntyre 
and Gardner (1991, as cited in von Worde), language anxiety can interfere with the 

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acquisition, retention, and production of the new language while Crookall and Oxford 
(1991, as cited in von Worde) suggested that language anxiety may cause problems with 
self-esteem, self-confidence and risk-taking ability and “ultimately hampers proficiency 
in the second language” (p. 33). At least some of this language anxiety may be 
generated by instructors and teaching methods (Young, 1991, as cited in von Worde), 
which suggests that the teaching-style/learning-expectation mismatch mentioned above 
can create more than just a contradiction of preferences in classroom methods. 
Adult Disadvantage 
Since it is known that adults tend to bring a fear of failure and embarrassment to 
the classroom and learning, it should come as no surprise that many adult ESL learners 
struggle with the fear of the social shame of speaking poorly or incorrectly (Peirce, 
1995, as cited in Ellis, 1997) and might often, even in the classroom, avoid speaking and 
opportunities for practice unless they are critically motivated to participate in the 
communicative activity. Another quality of adult learners that bears qualification is 
cognitive ability. While adults require a slower instructional pace than children (Schaie 
& Willis, 1978, as cited in Lueers, 1983), this is because of a slowing in information 
processing capability which is likely related to depth of processing. In a 25 year 
longitudinal study, Schaie (1982, as cited in Lueers, 1983) established that there was no 
significant decline in performance over time of a number of different mental abilities. 
As for the popular belief that adults are at a relative disadvantage to children in 
second language or ESL study, there is support for both the positive and the negative 
viewpoints. However, the theory of a critical or sensitive period for optimal acquisition 
of a second language, as put forth by Johnson and Newport (1989, as cited in Bialystok 

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1997; Wang 1999), was effectively refuted by both Bialystok and Wang. The critical 
period theory might be more accurately defined as a belief that has become a generally 
accepted assumption; that children are more successful than adults in learning a second 
language and that children are better second language learners due to a critical period of 
language learning. This belief was proven false by Bialystok and Wang (1998, as cited 
in Wang). Both researchers confirmed that any advantage that might be enjoyed by 
younger L2 learners has more to do with the immigrant learner’s age of arrival, the 
nature of the learner’s mother language or dominant language, and the time spent in 
learning the target language.
Colombo (1982, as quoted in Bialystok, 1997) pointed out, “a problem frequently 
encountered in the critical period literature is the lax specification of what biobehavioral 
pattern, or portion thereof, is affected by the critical stimulation” (p. 120). Bialystok 
countered the popularly accepted belief with the hypothesis and conducted two studies to 
prove that, 
language learners will find it difficult to master a structure that was not a 
defining feature of the first language and relatively easy to master a structure 
shared across the two languages. These differences may be exacerbated for older 
learners, but there should be no age differences in the ability to learn structures 
that are shared across the two languages. (p. 126) 
While it may appear that children are more successful language learners than adults, the 
two Bialystok studies have helped to establish that it is not because of a critical period or 
maturational limits but because of stylistic differences in learning at different stages in 
life. Bialystok showed that age differences in second language acquisition ability to be 
inconsistent and sometimes to the advantage of older learners. More than youth alone, 

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first language acquisition experience and favorable (e.g., social, educational, 
experiential) conditions contribute to successful second language acquisition. 
Role of the First Language 
There are a wide variety of challenges that face the second language learner, 
even in the best of learning situations. The most basic of these is first language 
interference or negative transfer, the psycholinguistic tendency to rely on familiar forms 
of expression when the intent is to develop a new form, that of the second language. This 
was defined by Ellis (1997) as “the influence that the learner’s L1 (first language) exerts 
over the acquisition of an L2 (second language)” (p. 51).
Since FL learning is the learning of language, skills in the native language 
provide the foundation for FL learning (Ganschow, Sparks, & Javorsky, 1998).
Therefore, if a learner experiences relatively high difficulty in learning ESL, this 
difficulty is likely due to weaknesses in the learner’s native language learning 
experience. If a learner’s first language learning experience is incomplete, in that, it did 
not include the development of some or many of the skills necessary for effective 
language learning, it follows that the learner will have difficulty in learning a second or 
foreign language since the necessary skills are undeveloped or underdeveloped. These 
types of difficulties can be especially pronounced if the tools necessary for the learning 
of the second or FL are not necessary or do not exist in the learning of the first language.
The predictable challenge of interference is compounded when the ESL learner 
comes from a language background that does not use phonemic coding such as an 
alphabetic/spelling, or phonological/orthographic rule system that governs sounds and 
their representation by letters and letter sets or sequences in English words (Henry, 1988, 

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as cited in Ganschow et al., 1998). Krug, Shafer, Dardick, Magalis, and Parente (2002) 
supported the importance of phonological/orthographic skills in FL learning and found 
that students have difficulty learning a FL when they cannot learn word/sound paired 
associations quickly. The authors suggested that the difficulty students have in the 
formation of word/sound associations limited their ability to encode and decode 
word/sound pairs and pointed to a breakdown in the initial stages of FL learning. 
Learning English as a second language poses specific challenges for students 
whose first language bears little similarity to English in sound, appearance, and 
phonological/orthographic structure, and these learners might be at a disadvantage in 
their study of ESL. Since second language learning skills are closely related to the skills 
used in learning the first language, learners whose first language learning skills do not 
match those which would be useful in ESL learning can be expected to experience 
relative difficulty in learning English. More specifically, ESL learners whose first 
language is not alphabetical and who did not learn their first language in an 
alphabetically coded manner will have particular difficulty in learning English 
(Ganschow et al., 1998; Holm & Dodd, 1996; Krug et al., 2002). 
In learning ESL, learners draw on the skills they used to learn their first language 
(Coady, 1979, as cited in Holm & Dodd, 1996). English is an alphabetic language with 
phonological (i.e., letter/sound) and orthographic (i.e., letter/spelling) rules that do not 
exist in nonalphabetic languages, so ESL learners whose first language was 
nonalphabetic and who learned their native language without the need for phonological 
and orthographic rules might have a much lower phonological awareness than ESL 
learners who learned their first language with an alphabetic system or whose first 

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language is alphabetic. As cited in Holm and Dodd, Campbell and Butterworth (1985) 
established that phonological awareness is an important skill for the processing of 
unknown words in English. 
Other authors (Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Mann, 1986; Read, Zhang, Nie, & 
Ding, 1986; all cited in Holm & Dodd, 1996) have shown that phonological awareness is 
developed only through acquisition of an alphabetic orthography and that people with 
specific reading disability in English usually show deficits in phonological processing.
Since phonological awareness develops in relation to orthography, according to Huang 
and Hanley, (1995) and Read, et al. (1986; both cited in Holm & Dodd), it follows that 
phonological awareness that is derived from one orthography might affect the 
acquisition of a second language of a different orthography.