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

[Read by P. J. Ochlan] Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot do so as easily as children, or they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In Becoming Fluent, 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. Evidence shows that adults can actually learn new languages even more easily than children if they can overcome their self-defeating anxiety about the process. Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage various advantages adults have over children in learning a new language.