Language

In my how-to-teach-ESL class we're learning about this theory of language learning called Interlanguage. This linguist Selinker developed Interlanguage in 1972 after noticing that a large percentage of the mistakes that second languages learners make have nothing to do with either their native language and sometimes not even with the language they are trying to learn. For example, if you're trying to teach Spanish to a Korean, a Russian and an American, some of the mistakes they make will be similar, and even the ones that aren't similar won't necessarily have to do with Korean, Russian, or English. So Interlanguage is the name for the continuum that you go through as you come closer and closer to mastering your target language.

Only 5% of second language learners achieve mastery, aka not being able to tell them apart from a native speaker. So a full 95% don't make it...I find that pretty depressing! And according to the theory of Interlanguage, what determines whether or not you are able to master a second language depends on whether you have not just a "latent psychological structure" but also a "latent language structure." What I think this means is that you could have a class of very advanced Spanish learners, for example, and some of your students would keep getting better but a lot of them would just reach a standstill. This "fossilization" happens because your brain just isn't able to move beyond your first language, and is always trying to transfer the structures of the first language over onto any new language you learn. So, some people "fossilize" and others don't, and I don't think there's a theory for why.

I wonder how well I'll ever speak Spanish...