I learn Arabic and I teach English. I have never focused so much thought on language. I fumble with sounds attempting to communicate information through Arabic. Every English lesson I teach leaves me surprised, realizing I can't always make sense of my own tongue. I feel the kids progress with their English and compare it to my level of Arabic. I'm dedicated to experiencing and understanding language acquisition, fueling a passion for language that seems to be fully surfacing for the first time in my life. This is great. I find passion hard to come by.
It's rewarding to intensely try to improve my Moroccan Arabic. Every little piece that brings me closer to fluency is precious to me, and applying those little pieces to effectively communicate is a rush. I have not taken extensive pauses from actively improving my Moroccan Arabic. Day to day I cannot feel a steady climb towards fluency, since the different tools building the language all receive sporadic practice, but from month to month, growth is almost traceable. So traceable, in fact, that I traced it. This is how I visualize my attempt to learn a language:
The 'Level of Mastery' does not begin at 'worthless,' the way it probably would with an infant. Information can be conveyed without any vocabulary, and simple phrases can be memorized in a day.
At first, second language acquisition gets off to a slow start. Everything is new, nothing feels related, and words are easily forgotten. Learning the language seems impossible.
Then, something begins to click. When enough vocabulary is built, it is easier to find relations that incorporate new grammar and vocabulary. Associations to new vocabulary allow words to stick easier. Patterns begin to feel natural with grammar. The knowledge of the language builds on itself, and the 'Level of Mastery' begins to accelerate over time. This is where I believe I am at with Moroccan Arabic and I don't expect my skills to taper off anytime soon.
Inevitably, the 'Level of Mastery' flattens. A child will continue towards 100% fluency, but an adult, almost always, will not. Linguists have proposed that a second language is an independent system that struggles to operate in the same fashion as a native language. It is more mechanical and less natural, and students are generally only able to approach the fluency of a native speaker. Learners struggle to let go of influences from their native language. Corrections are not made to awkward, yet understandable grammar. For some people complacency takes over and the rate of acquisition flattens. Sometimes people stop studying a language because their professional or personal life stops requiring it. Practically everyone who studies a new language will hit a ceiling, unable to achieve fluency. It can happen to beginner or advanced students coming from all sorts of internal and external blockages. Linguists refer to this phenomenon as fossilization. Its a sad ending to the trajectory, but at least it has a cool word to describe it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlanguage).
In practice, my graph would not be so smooth. If you could actually measure 'Level of Mastery,' there would be all sorts of ups and downs and plateaus. How cool would it be to see those curves and their strange patterns? How would my inconsistent French studies compare to my more consistent shorter term Arabic studies? My graph for learning English as a child would shoot towards fluency. That has got to be one of my life's greatest achievements: learning English without understanding what the hell was going on.
In practice, my graph would not be so smooth. If you could actually measure 'Level of Mastery,' there would be all sorts of ups and downs and plateaus. How cool would it be to see those curves and their strange patterns? How would my inconsistent French studies compare to my more consistent shorter term Arabic studies? My graph for learning English as a child would shoot towards fluency. That has got to be one of my life's greatest achievements: learning English without understanding what the hell was going on.
For other foreign language learners out there: What would your graph look like? Did you experience different rates of learning? At what 'Level of Mastery' did you experience fossilization, if at all? Why did you experience fossilization?
