Page "Foreign language" Paragraph 20

So, the distinction between ' second language ' and ' foreign language ' is a geographical and environmental distinction.

We can mention ' second language situation ' and ' foreign language situation ' as two situations of learning, not two kinds of languages.

So a foreign language is not always a foreign language and a second language is not always a second language.

Since the distinction is geographical, the two situations ( learning second language and learning foreign language ) can be considered as a continuum.

At one extreme, we may find learners learning without external help and direction purely from exposure to the non-native language through living in the target language environment ( second language learning ) and at the other we find learners learning the non-native language exclusively in language teaching setting and classrooms ( foreign language learning ).