Second language learners are engaged in a self-directed learning program which is supported by regular interviews with their counsellor. Interviews with 15 persons were recorded during a 1-year period in order to get data for an analysis of the ways native and second language learning are similar to each other and so mutually helpful. The data indicated that the instruction these learners had received as children in and about their native language led to the unconscious development of certain ideas about language and language acquisition, and that these ideas influence their second language learning. Some of the characteristics seem to pertain to the nature of first language teaching, in this case French. They have to do with the timing of formal instruction in the native language, that is, after several years of communicating in the language, the importance given to analytical procedures and cultural aims. Other influences deal with undue emphasis on the written form of the language, the normative approach in teaching "le bon francais," and a theoretical and technological lag in methodology. In spite of these more or less negative influences, reflection on the first language facilitated learning the second language and indicated ways in which both first and second language learning could be mutually helpful. (Author/AMH)