On Developing The Second Language Ego

The thesis is devoted to the development of the second language ego. It first discusses Freud's concept of ego and other related concepts. It should be noted that ego is usually created in small children at about fifteen months of age. With the development of the ego, inhibition is developed in order to protect the fragile ego. Therefore different defense mechanisms are invoked in this process. Then this thesis describes the occurrence and development of the language ego. According to Guiora, the language ego is fully developed by the age of five. Closely related to the language ego are the concepts of language ego boundary and language ego permeability. It is generally believed that the thick ego boundary reduces the chance of permeability, while the thin ego boundary is more permeable and the permeable language ego may facilitate the second language learning. The issue of the second language ego is addressed here, the essence of which actually suggests one's new identity that one develops in the second language with outlines and boundaries of the second language. Without the protection of the mature native language ego, inhibition is developed in learners. In order to develop the second language ego, one has to fight against inhibition, and a teacher should try to lower the level of classroom inhibition and foster students' mature defense mechanisms. After that, the humanistic teaching based on the humanistic psychology is investigated. Furthermore, various humanistic techniques and exercises are presented, which may serve as marvelous tools for the teachers to help their students develop their second language ego. Besides, the problem of students' poor communicative competence is looked into, which consequently hinders the development of the second language ego. The solutions are provided from the students' perspective. On one hand, through contrastive cultural learning, experiential cultural learning and literal cultural learning, the second language classroom can be developed as a carrier of the second culture. On the other hand, the students' intercultural communicative skills should be fostered. A language teacher can purposefully help the students to develop a desirable second language ego with the help of the humanistic teachingand the development of their communicative skills. Still, this thesis presents the practice of developing the second language ego in college students. Questionnaires are answered by the students, which demonstrates the existence of the second language ego and the high inhibition level in the students. Various practical humanistic, cultural and communicative exercises are also presented and applied to the experimental classes. The answer from the students from experimental classes and non-experimental classes clearly show that the students in the experimental class, i.e. the students who have tried to develop their second language ego, achieve better results in their English learning.