Reasons for learning languages

People who wish to learn a foreign language may have any one of a great number of different reasons for language study. If we take English as an example we can make a tentative list of these reasons. This list is not exhaustive but it will give an idea of the great variety of such reasons: school curriculum, advancement, target language community, culture, English for special purposes, miscellaneous.

a) School curriculum

Probably the greatest number of language students in the world does it because it is on the school curriculum. They study English only because they have to. English is part of the school curriculum because someone in authority has taken a decision that it should be so. For many of these students English is something that both they and their parents want to have taught. For others the study of languages is something they feel neutral or sometimes negative about.

b) Advancement

Some people want to study English because they think it offers, in some general way, a chance for advancement in their professional lives. It is possible that a good knowledge of a foreign language will help them get a better job than if they only know their mother tongue. English has a special position here since it has become the international language of communication.

c) Target language community

Students may find themselves living either temporarily or permanently in the target language community. A target language community (TLC) is one where the inhabitants speak the language, which the student is learning. For students of English an English-speaking country would be a TLC. The students will have to learn English to survive in that community.

d) Culture

Some students study a foreign language because they are attracted to the culture of one of the TLCs. They learn the language because they want to know more about the people who speak it, the places where it is spoken and, in some cases, the writings that it has produced.

e) English for special purposes

The term English for Special or Specific Purposes (ESP) has been applied to situations where students have some specific reasons for wanting to learn the language. E.g., an air traffic controller needs English primarily to guide aircraft through skies. He may not use the language at all apart from this. Business executives need English for international trade. The waiter may need English to serve his customers. These needs have often been referred to as English for Occupational Purposes (EOP).

Students who are going to study at a university in the English-speaking country may need English so that they can write reports or essays and function in a seminar situation. This is often called English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Students of medicine or nuclear physics or other scientific disciplines studying in their own countries need to be able to read articles and textbooks about those subjects in English. This is often referred to as English for Science and Technology (EST). We can summarise the differences in the following way:

ESP

EOP EAP EST

What is interesting about all these examples is that the type of English the students want to learn may be different. Waiters might want to speak and listen whereas scientists may want to read and write.

f) Miscellaneous

There are, of course, many other possible reasons for learning a language. Some people do it just for fun – because they like the activity of going to class. Some people do it because they want to be tourists in a country where that language is spoken. Some people do it because all their friends are learning the language. A student might well go to a class because he likes a particular person in the class or, in general, likes the atmosphere of the class: perhaps the student has simply heard that English classes at a certain school are enjoyable or prestigious, etc.

It will be clear from this list that there are many possible reasons for studying a language. What will also be clear is that not all the students mentioned above will necessarily be treated in the same way. The students who are only interested in one of the forms of ESP mentioned above could be taught very differently from the students who are learning English for fun. Students who study English because it is on the curriculum need to be handled in a different way from those who go to a language institute out of choice.

Most students who decide to go to a language school do so for a mixture of the reasons mentioned above. We will be focusing on them and we will also be dealing with students for whom English is part of the curriculum. We will not concentrate specifically on students of ESP although we will be mentioning them at various stages throughout the course.