Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

People historically from a particular community (re-)acquiring
its language as L2
The descendants of a particular cultural or ethnic group may want to learn its lan-
guage, for instance, to talk to their grandparents who were first-generation incom-
ers. Language maintenance classes take place in London ranging from Polish to
Greek. Some people are trying to find their roots through language. Others are
returning to their country of historical origin and need to reacquire the language,
or sometimes to acquire it for the first time. One example is Puerto Ricans return-
ing from the USA to Puerto Rico (Clachar, 1997), rejoining a community of L1
speakers as L2 users. Another group are the children of expats going back to the
country their family originally came from, say, Japanese children returning to
Japan (Kanno, 2000); these need to acquire the language of the homeland for
practical purposes as well as cultural identity, many finding it an extremely diffi-
cult task.
People speaking an L2 either as short-term visitors to another
country or to short-term visitors to their country
Some people are short-term visitors to another country, say, tourists. English for
tourism is no longer a matter of English-speaking tourists going to non-English-
speaking countries, or non-English-speaking tourists going to English-speaking
countries, as we have seen. Some tourists may nevertheless try to learn the lan-
guage of a country before visiting it – English people learning French to go to
France, Japanese learning Spanish to visit Spain. English for tourism is a theme in
most EFL coursebooks, Spanish for tourism a key attraction for evening classes in
England. Other short-term visitors to another country include: athletes going to
the Olympic Games, businessmen attending conferences, policemen investigat-
ing crimes, pilgrims, retirees visiting their villas in Spain – the list is endless.
Again, some may want to use the central language of the country, some a lan-
guage that will get them by, such as Latin or Klingon at conferences of their devo-
tees. The reverse is people using an L2 with visitors to their country, whether the
visitor’s L1 as with Japanese people in Tokyo using English with English-speaking
L1 visitors, or the visitor’s L2 as with Japanese using English with L1 German-
speaking visitors.