The role of context and linguistic background in second language acquisition

This paper presents a study of the acquisition of Croatian in a taught.situation by adult English and Chinese Ll speakers. Twelve.subjects have been divided into tivo groups: control and test group. Each group consisted of three subjects; two linguists and one non-linguist whose LI was English and three.subjects; two linguists and one non-linguist whose L I ivas Croatian. This was the subjects'first encounter with Croatian. The roles of context as well as the learners' linguistic backgrounds in their- acquisition o' Croatian were investigated. Results.show that these factors combine to influence L2 acquisition, Some aspects oJ L2 acquisition which one should bear in mind and focus on in designing L2 teaching methodology have been pointed out.