Why Johnny Can't Acquire Spanish.

I used to think that all I had to do to get my students to learn better was to explain more clearly the structures of the target language. Then I read Paul Turner's 1974 article, "Why Johnny Doesn't Want to Learn a Foreign Language." It was one of the clearest attempts to identify and describe an obstacle to second language acquisition other than the language itself. Turner documented in a convincing way the cultural bias that many North Americans feel toward things foreign. He believed that xenophobia is a major reason why Americans encounter difficulty with formal foreign language study, and he thought that surmounting this obstacle in a second language classroom would be "a formidable but not impossible task" (1974: 196).1 It is likely that the structure of the target language and its differences from the structure of the learner's native language are among several factors that combine to help or hinder a learner in the task of second language acquisition. Turner identified a different kind of barrier. What others are there, and can any of them be surmounted, avoided, or otherwise dealt with by a foreign language teacher?