Second Language Learning

Intricate process of second language learning with reference to Yorio’s classification of learned variables (1976) with a interview of Non English Speaking Background (NESB) student who has recently completed an ESL course will be presented in this paper. We will start our analysis with a detailed personal background of the student, in order to see the influence of important factors of from different areas in relation to Yorio’s Taxonomy. Analysis is going to be constructed on the some important factors such as age, affective variables, and educational history. Selection of only these three factors does not mean that they are enough to show the picture as a whole. There are many other separate factors that have strong relationship with the second language learning, but we will only consider these three factors.

Personal Background

Mete is a 21 years old Turkish male who is currently studying Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science and Economics at a University of Melbourne. He came to Melbourne at the age of 15, to study high school and then university. Main motivation for him to come all the way down here was to improve his English and be able to use the language fluently with writing, speaking and listening in all parts of life. Mete realized the importance of English as high school boy, when he was interested in world politics and Turkey’s relation with other developed countries. He also wanted to learn what was going on around the world but not from Turkish resource. For him being able to communicate with people from other cultures and background, English language was a key tool to learn.

Mete started to learn English at grade 6 when he was eleven years old in Turkey. He had only 3 contact hours per week, and the quality of teaching was so poor in the public school that he attended. He was with other 60 students in the same class with one teacher and 8 other subjects to study. The type of teaching was heavily based on grammar and some work