Adult foreign language acquisition: Knowledge growth

Individuals learning a second language improve their cultural and social communications when coupling language skills with cultural awareness of a target area. Comprehensive foreign language structures combined with culture, traditions, and target-area experiences are contributing factors in transforming thoughts and ideas to equip students with the power of information and knowledge. The problem was the little evidence linking the learning of a foreign language with the knowledge of the target language country and the impact of that knowledge on a learner's ability to achieve near-native fluency. Quantitative methodology was used in the study to determine cause-and-effect relationships between two groups. Statistical methods were used to examine and analyze data. The focus of the study was on Arabic language students, both military and civilian, at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). One aim of the study was to define variables between two groups' pre-post tests. Then, to fulfill the parameters of the first research question, the question was addressed whether cultural awareness and general knowledge of a target area increased when students learned a second language. Finally, to answer research question 2, an analysis was performed to determine if demographic factors affected knowledge growth pertaining to foreign language acquisition and cultural understanding. The study indicated that DLIFLC has not yet stressed cultural and target language area study, nor general knowledge beyond language skills. This require improvement of foreign language programs, learner's expertise, and performance focusing on cultural and knowledge awareness of target languages to produce graduates with cultural knowledge and target area expertise meeting the DoD mission requirements of learning a foreign language.