Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning—evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children!

An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign language by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime.


Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults.
 
Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language.
 
Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.
1121759068
Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning—evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children!

An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign language by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime.


Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults.
 
Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language.
 
Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.
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Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language

Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language

by Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz
Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language

Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language

by Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz

eBook

$17.99 

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Overview

Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning—evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children!

An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign language by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime.


Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults.
 
Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language.
 
Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262330473
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 08/14/2015
Series: The MIT Press
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 248
File size: 751 KB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Richard Roberts is a Foreign Service Officer currently serving as the Public Affairs Officer at the US Consulate General in Okinawa, Japan. He is the coauthor (with Roger Kreuz) of of Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language and Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-Cultural Communication, both published by the MIT Press.

Roger Kreuz is Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of Memphis. He is the coauthor (with Richard Roberts) of Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language, Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-Cultural Communication, and Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging (all published by the MIT Press).

What People are Saying About This

Endorsement

This is a one-of-a-kind book that will give adult language learners the confidence they need to start or continue studying a foreign language. Engagingly written chapters draw on the authors' personal experiences and findings from cognitive science to illustrate why language learners experience problems and explain what they can do to overcome them.

Susan R. Fussell, Professor, Department of Communication and Department of Information Science, Cornell University, and editor of The Verbal Communication of Emotions

From the Publisher

There are many books about language learning in general, but it's great to finally see this scientifically sound account of second language acquisition. I was constantly nodding my head at things that I know to be true as an experienced language learner and coach to language learners, explained in a no-nonsense way drawing on many valid sources. Recommended for people who want to know the facts about adult foreign language acquisition.

Benny Lewis, international best-selling author of Fluent in 3 Months

Becoming Fluent is written by cognitive psychologists who lucidly demonstrate how adults can successfully learn a foreign language by utilizing strategies based on reliable cognitive science and educational psychology research. The reader will understand how and why he or she can master a new language—an insight unrealized in previous texts.

Timothy Jay, Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and author of The Psychology of Language and Why We Curse

This is a one-of-a-kind book that will give adult language learners the confidence they need to start or continue studying a foreign language. Engagingly written chapters draw on the authors' personal experiences and findings from cognitive science to illustrate why language learners experience problems and explain what they can do to overcome them.

Susan R. Fussell, Professor, Department of Communication and Department of Information Science, Cornell University, and editor of The Verbal Communication of Emotions

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