A comparison of L1 children’s curiosity and L2 adult learners’ willingness in language development: On the basis of the concepts of attachment and mediation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to observe how L2 adult learners get close to L1 children in their language development in terms of attachment, curiosity and mediation. Five high-intermediate English major college students were engaged and instructed to understand the concepts of attachment and mediation. After this, they were provided with seven types of English material, consisting of four different language-focused materials (dialogue, situation-based explanation, deep cultural words, and conventional words) and three different content-based materials (advice, humor, and impression). The participants were supposed to collect preferred language items in each type and write reasons spicking the items. They also reported their preference in order among the seven types of material. They were evaluated on whether their preferred language items would function as mediation or as a goal to learn English. The results showed that the humor type of language was the best to function as mediation, followed by the impression type. The dialogue type was the worst. However, the participants’ reports were the opposite. Most of them chose situationbased explanations as the best. The participants tended to show that content-based material was not appropriate for learning English. Mediation was not considered a key factor in learning a language.