Acquisition of ESL: Reading writing listening and speaking skills of Learning English as a Second Language

Acquisition of English consists of 5 major ESL skills. It means there are 5 skills of learning English as a second language. If any one of these skills of English is not acquired the ESL acquisition won’t be successful. Indeed for learning any language one has to acquire good command over all these language skills. The skills of English are as following:

• Speaking

• Reading

• Writing

• Listening

• Thinking; it may sound peculiar to you but believe me it’s just another and a very important section that nobody mentions!

I will discuss all the skills in detail with tips for improving each skill very soon but this post is just an introduction to the most important thing that is essential for a beginner in second language acquisition. Let’s have a brief look on the importance of acquiring the skills of English as a second language varies.

Depending on the situation and person learning English as a second language the priority of acquiring a skill varies widely. The person who lives in an environment where most of the people use English as their native language learning to speak in English is the first priority followed by listening skill for him. Reading and writing are the major priorities for the students whose education medium is English. Again, for a businessman who deals with foreign buyer online; reading, writing and speaking skills are inevitable for him. For a person going to an English dominant environment for work must achieve speaking skill. For a freelance content writer writing and reading skills are most important. For people who opt to acquire complete command over English; reading, writing, speaking, listening and especially thinking skill all is of equal importance to them. Who want to learn English as a foreign language should also concentrate on all of these skills of English. Thus the priorities vary from person to person, situation to situation.

The first and foremost thing for an English second language learner is to determine his position and requirements first. If someone’s target is a complete acquisition of English one should concentrate on every section but for them who need English for their professional or other purpose they should determine their priority of learning section and level of expertise needed first. Arranging the priority of skills of English is the first step of learning English as a second language. Once the target is set it’s easy to make a plan and work on that for acquisition of English. Trying random things and finally ending up with huge frustration is the worst way to go.

ESL difficulties: Problems of Learning English as a Second Language

Learning proper English is difficult and learning English as a second language is even harder. Even the native English speakers face problems and difficulties in using English efficiently. The main problems of learning English as a second language are worth knowing as only after pointing out the English second language difficulties we can make an effective lesson plan for acquisition of English. The major obstacles of learning English as a second language are as following:

Huge vocabulary is one of the top difficulties of English language acquisition. The vocabulary of English is so rich that memorizing a decent amount of words to survive in an English user dominant environment is a pretty hard job. Again a word can express different meaning in different situation that is another hard part to master with. The diversity of meanings of the words has made English an even more difficult language.

He who has a moderate knowledge of English can somehow express his thoughts but gaining mastery in writing and listening can be nightmares. There are plenty of peculiar spellings in English that is very hard to memorize as there are no certain rules for these. Again there are plenty of words with same pronunciations but completely different meanings. Complexity of making long sentences is one of the other difficulties of learning English as well. Over speaking and writing, listening is the hardest section to be mastered. If someone know a doable amount of words and have the primary knowledge of grammar s/he can both speak and write understandably. But listening to a native speaker and understanding that to respond is an overwhelming task. In many a words there are letters that remain latent while pronouncing. Moreover a native English speaker is supposed to use a wide range of words in their speaking. Someone may know one word to express his feeling but if s/he doesn’t know the synonyms that the native speaker may use, s/he will completely miss the statement. All these ESL difficulties stand obstacles in the path of acquisition of English as a second language to a second language learner.

Usages of preposition in English are very difficult to learn and sustain. Usages of different preposition after a single word gives so many different meanings of the prepositional phrases that one may find oneself lost in that. Moreover, there is a wide range idiomatic expression in English which is also hard to understand and apply. The perplexity of linking words is another big problem in English as a second language. Finally, a great amount of exceptions in grammatical rules makes the learning of English harder and harder.

So, analyzing all the major problems of learning English it can be said that English is not one of the easiest languages to learn as a foreign or second language. But the matter of fact is that with dedication and huge amount of practice acquisition of English is more than possible. If someone is enthusiastic and hard worker one can cope with all the difficulties of learning English slowly but surely. I have been doing it successfully and anyone else reading this can do it as well.