© 2010 ACADEMY PUBLISHER On Some New Models of Instruction for Overcoming Fossilization in English Learning

Abstract—This paper expounds the implication and classification of fossilization and it focuses on presenting some new models of instruction for overcoming fossilization in the course of foreign language teaching so as to provide some guidance to college English teaching and learning. Index Terms — fossilization, foreign language teaching, model of instruction Fossilization has been one of the obstacles in the process foreign language teaching and learning. So it is necessary for language instructors and learners to lay emphasis on this issue. I. WHAT IS FOSSILIZATION? Fossilization, or the cessation of learning, which was coined by Selinker(1972), is recognized as a widespread phenomenon in second language acquisition for linguists and language learners have been aware that that it is extremely rare for the learner of a L2 to achieve full native-like competence. “Fossilizable linguistic phenomena are linguistic items, rules and subsystems which speakers of a particular native language will tend to keep in their interlanguage relative to a particular target language, no matter what the age of the learner or amount of explanation and instruction he receives in the target language ” (Selinker,1972). Later Selinker (1996) defined fossilization as “the process whereby the learner creates a cessation of interlanguage learning, thus stopping the interlanguage from developing, it is hypothesized, in a permanent way….