Impact of Geography on Language and Learning

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THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION
by Your Name
Modern Educational Thought
(Name of Professor)
(Name of School/University)
(City or State of School)
(Date)
The Role of Language in Education
Introduction
Language is an integral part of the learning process. It is the medium with which learning is passed from the teacher to the students and vice versa. This is the main reason why to successfully learn the concepts taught in schools, learners’ understanding of the language used must be developed properly first.
According to Oller and Perkins (1978), and Coleman (2010), developing language properly can help a great deal in preparing students for a lot of things. These things primarily revolve around preparing students for assessments and tests. However, this does not mean that preparing for exams is the sole reason as to why language should be developed. It is also important that the learner’s oral and written communication skills using the chosen language is properly developed (Brown 2000). To develop these aspects, certain factors must be taken into consideration. In this regard, this study aims to examine the impact of factors like geography, culture, teacher usage, modern application, home language, and student perception affects the way students understand and use language, how this, in turn, affects the way they learn.
Impact of Geography on Language and Learning
The first factor that will be examined in this study is geography. Students who study in a foreign country often find problems in learning, not only because the place is new, but because the language is new as well. For instance, students from a non-English speaking country want to study at an American university. Unless the student, learns the language to the point of fluency, he or she may find it difficult to interact and participate in class, especially if the manner of speaking is colloquial. There is also a problem when the English that the student knows is different from the English the university uses. This is because according to Everett (2013), the geography in which a specific language or dialect originates may affect how it is spoken. For instance, the English spoken in the United Kingdom is different from the English spoken in America. A student who is used to American terminologies may find it confusing to study at a British university because although most of the terms are similar, there are terms that are innately British.
This is also true for students who are studying in the same country but in another province or island who speaks a certain dialect different from his or her own or using a different tonality. Take, for example, the Philippines. The Philippines is an archipelago located in South-East Asia. Because of the natural barriers between the areas of this country, there are at least a hundred different languages that are mutually unintelligible. There is a national language, Filipino, which is used throughout the Philippines, but it is not used very often in the areas where it is not the native language.
A problem arises with this situation: When a student moves to a place within the country that does not speak his/her native language or dialect, there is a language barrier that prevents furth...