Investigating English Proficiency of a Kurdish and a German ESL Learner: A Case Study

This paper investigates the differences and similarities of two second language (L2, hereafter) learners from two different countries, Kurdistan and Germany. According to the data collection process for both of the learners, it could be noticed that each learner speaks different 'English' from the other. The learner from Germany’s language is closer to the British English, while the other speaks a mixture of Englishes, using both American and British accents interchangeably. From this, we can infer that each has learned English in a totally different way. Moreover, having a mixture of different accents of English could be due to that English language is flexible to its learners' creativity and the number of its native speakers is decreasing, while the number of its non-native speakers is increasing. This certainly affects the input that English learners receive, and the outcome is going to differ from native speakers’ usage. Keyword: English as a Second Language (ESL), English Proficiency, World Englishes, German ESL Learners, Kurdish ESL Learners