At the heart of many SLA studies lies the intention to promote SLA. This is due to the many suggested advantages that multilingualism seems to pose for individuals. For the majority of this blog and in the studies we have chosen, we look at individual factors that affect SLA. However, we also aim to discuss whether or not SLA is truly relevant or beneficial to an individual, and whether it should be worth promoting at all.
The articles that we have selected for this review propose two kinds of factors that affect SLA – the first factor has to do with one’s cognitive abilities such as working memory or statistical learning ability. Working memory is sometimes referred to as short-term memory and it is the instantaneous processing and temporal storing of information in the brain. Statistical learning ability refers to the process of extracting structure and patterns from the world, like extracting grammatical rules/structures from a sequence. The second factor is concerned with external factors such as one’s personal experiences, his social environment and his level of education.
Each of the four studies aims to elucidate the importance of each factor and this review will attempt to synthesise the findings. Looking forward, these findings could be crafted into possible solutions for individuals who face difficulties in SLA, as well as for more specific groups of children who come from linguistically diverse backgrounds.
After all is said and done, the question remains if SLA is even necessary at all.
On one hand, multilingualism appears to complement the globalisation phenomenon, giving users of multiple languages a suggested advantage on international platforms that monolinguals may not enjoy. Furthermore, previous research on bilingualism have yielded results that suggest that bilingualism could delay the early onset of dementia and may even have positive effects on an individual’s creativity (Madhav, Anand, Swapna, & Sangeetha, 2012).
On the other hand, monolingualism seems to pave the way for the mastery of a single language, undisturbed by the interference of learning another language. Other research have also suggested that the acquisition of two or more languages could lead to the possibility of stuttering in one’s speech (Borson, Maes, & Foulon, 2001).
All in all, studying the individual factors that affect SLA bears not only theoretical import, but also practical implications for teaching, both at home and in the classroom setting. Greater insights into this field may be beneficial in helping teachers adjust their teaching methods and learning environments to better benefit individual learners in the acquisition of a new language.