Research and statistics: language learning

Is English Easier than Other Languages?

The article “English: the Inescapable Language,” which appears in the latest issue of The American, a journal published by the American Enterprise Institute, has a somewhat different focus than you would expect from its title.

The article indeed does discuss how English has becomes the world’s common language of the workplace, including some interesting “did you know?” material such as the following—

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Global English: Teaching to the Need

As summarized in my last post, the numbers compiled in the recent “English Proficiency Index" from EF Education First provide overwhelming evidence of how the spread of  English as a common tongue worldwide has made the language a "basic," vital for individual and national success.
 
An unchanging reality, however, is that full fluency in a second language is not easy to achieve. In the best of all cases—when the language is learned as a child, in a full-immersion setting—it takes at least three to five years to attain native-level speaking skills, and five to seven to achieve full competency in academic English.
 
Governments worldwide are starting English instruction at earlier ages.
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Global English: By the Numbers

A recent “English Proficiency Index" from EF Education First, focusing on a cross-national comparison of English language capability, is as interesting to me for its survey of statistical studies from the past few years and its thoughtful discussion of changes in how English is learned and used worldwide as for its own original research. (That research, based on over two million adults completing four different, free online tests each covering grammar, vocabulary, reading, and listening skills, found that Norway had the highest average proficiency of the forty-four countries tested, with other Northern European nations close behind, and Turkey and Kazakhstan at the bottom.)
 
Here are a few statistics from the study, which includes an extensive list of sources at the end of its surprisingly compact twenty-one pages:
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Idioms: How Often Do They Pop Up?

Idioms are phrases that cannot be translated word-by-word but have meaning beyond their literal dictionary definitions. They are one of the hardest challenges for someone learning a language.
 
However, if you want to communicate with native speakers, knowing at least the most common idiomatic expressions is important. You’ll find that native speakers use them very, very frequently.
 
How frequently are idioms used in English? Trying to get solid facts, I came across the following two citations on Nada’s ESL Island, a tropical-looking, informative Web site established by Nada Salem Abisamra of George Washington University:
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Language Research Publication Opportunity

Involved in academic research on language teaching and/or learning? Interested in building your CV/publications portfolio?

The Academic Exchange Quarterly, an international independent, double-blind-peer-reviewed print journal, is accepting submissions for a special issue on "Expanding the Language Teaching and Learning Knowledge Base" through August 2011. Below is the description of types of articles desired from the publication's Web site.

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