The Critical Moment: Language Socialization and the (Re)visioning of First and Second Language Learning

Abstract

A Japanese graduate student studying at an American university, Keiko struggled with the details of English grammar in writing academic papers. Despite 12 years of formal study in English and a Master’s degree in the UK, Keiko continued routinely to write phrases such as “....political shifts of the international aid towards ...” (Bronson, 2005). In fact, her most persistent problem was use of “the,” which seemed to randomly appear or be omitted in her sentences. She received volumes of teacher feedback on all drafts. Her professors tried nearly every strategy in the ESL repertoire to help Keiko achieve a more native-like proficiency in academic English. Improvement in her awareness of the problem and her ability to appropriately self-edit her drafts finally occurred when interventions based on Language Socialization (LS) assumptions were enacted.