Blog 4

As I reflect on the new found knowledge of second language acquisition I have gathered this semester, one of the main ideas that I will be taking away is that there are a “number of universal influences that help shape the nature, pace, route and finish line in the path towards learning a second language. Among these are age, mother tongue, environment and cognition” (Ortega, 2013, p. 9). In addition to these universal influences, I have also learned that motivation, orientations, self-esteem, identity, and the role of teachers significantly contribute to an individual learning or acquiring a second language. From personal experience growing up in a bilingual household, there were certain aspects discussed in this course that I had a brief understanding of. For instance, “the more language a child hears, the quicker she will develop language” (Rowland, 2014, p. 193).  Additionally, I had prior knowledge in regards to different orientations L2 learners have for learning a language, such as “getting a better job, pursuing a higher level of education in the L2, for fostering general friendship with members of the target language, and to facilitate travel to other countries” (Ortega, 2013, p. 173). 

Although, I never considered how such topics will impact the way I approach teaching my students, particularly, my English language learners. I have learned that students will put in different amounts of effort when learning English and the content; in my case it would be math. Some students will have a genuine interest in learning both the L2 and the content, and may thoroughly enjoy the learning process as a whole. I now understand that I have to take into consideration effort, investment, and enjoyment, so when I am designing lesson plans, I have to create and design activities and present content in a way that will motivate my students to learn the second language and math simultaneously. As I mentioned before, “the more language a child hears, the quicker she will develop language.” Depending on your school, the majority language spoken in the classroom will be English. Therefore I will do my best to incorporate and provide opportunities for my ELLs to actively participate within the classroom, and to use their voice in a way they will not feel embarrassed or frustrated when speaking. Likewise, this class has taught me that students will benefit from actually having practice speaking the language, instead of learning it through analysis and analogy. Providing informal opportunities within an English speaking environment can potentially boost their motivation to learn not only math but English. With that being said, as I will work to create a safe teaching environment that builds a sense of community, I believe the role of teacher’s on learners’ motivation and motivation itself, should be topics that receive more attention in the future of this course. Motivation is a crucial factor in driving learners to success, therefore it should be discussed at greater length. Likewise, being aware of what motivates students to learn will help shape teachers’ instructional plans and strategies.

The blog assignments have contributed to my learning of SLA because I was able to make real life connections between what I read and individuals’ different experiences with learning a second language or teaching students who are in the process of learning the L2. For instance, I was able to truly see how motivation is one of the several factors that relate to success in language acquisition. In fact, I was also able to see how my classmates, for those who learned a second language, were motivated or not motivated during their learning process. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading and hearing from different perspectives on certain topics discussed in this course. Everyone had a different take on how they found connections between the text and their own lives and the lives of the people they interviewed. With regard to my future practice, I hope to implement such discussion opportunities with peers, so that my students can learn and teach each other. 

Blog 3

Reflection

For this interview, I reached out to a 7^th grade Mathematics teacher, Mrs. Tapia, who has English Language Learners in her classroom.  I started off by asking questions that focused on the different types of motivation that is most common among her students. According to Mrs. Tapia, most of her students are extrinsically motivated to learn English and the content, which did not utterly surprise me because as Mrs. Tapia mentioned, most students around that age will do something if they get something out of it. In regards to this type of motivation, “learners who are extrinsically motivated may say, for example, that they are learning the L2… simply because it is expected of them” (Ortega, 2013, p. 176). For children around this age, Mrs. Tapia states that there are some students who receive social support that expect them to view learning as a positive thing. Furthermore, in the video, Stephen Krashen’s 5 Hypotheses of Second Language Acquisition, he claims that learners with high motivation, self-confidence and low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in SLA (14:43). After watching this video, I wanted to include a question that addressed this idea. In order to make success possible for her ELLs with low motivation, low self-esteem, and have a high level of anxiety, Mrs. Tapia does her best to create a safe environment in which students understand that it is acceptable to make mistakes in the content or when they speak. She encourages her ELLs to actively participate within the classroom, and creates opportunities for them to use their voice in a way they will not feel embarrassed or frustrated when speaking, thus boosting their motivation to learn not only math but English. Another important point that I would like to touch upon is the idea of memory capacity. According to Ortega (2013), “Memory capacity has also been related to differential achievement in L2 listening ability and overall L2 proficiency” (p. 155). Now while the text states that memory capacity is related to achievement, when I asked Mrs. Tapia if she agrees, she quickly responded with no. Mrs. Tapia states that people with higher memory capacities can retain more information and can possibly memorize things better, but that does not mean they truly understand what it is they are trying to learn. In regards to her students learning math, while some can easily memorize formulas and functions, they still might not be able to produce and show a complete understanding of the material. Lastly, I felt that it was important to address the final question. I asked Mrs. Tapia if she thinks her ELLs will be able to achieve ultimate success in learning English. The reason I asked this question is because as I was reading Chapter 7, I came across an interesting statement. Many SLA researchers “posit that adolescents and adults will rarely if ever attain complete success in learning an L2 because they try to learn the language via analysis and analogy (that is, explicitly) and in doing so they are using the ‘wrong’ route, as it were” (Ortega, 2013, p. 158). However, as it was heard in the video, Mrs. Tapia believes that even though it will take a long time, young children in the 7^th grade can in fact learn to speak perfect English if they continue to be in an English environment. I found this noteworthy to discuss because Mrs. Tapia did not say anything about learning English through “analysis and analogy,” but rather through informal opportunities within an English speaking environment.

Blog Entry 2: Interview

Reflection

This interview with a friend of mine who happens to be a second language learner was extremely eye opening for me. First of all, I went into the interview assuming she falls under the category of bilingual acquisition or multilingual acquisition, which refers to “the process of learning two or more languages relatively simultaneously during early childhood” (Ortega, 2013, p. 4). As soon as I asked my first question, the truth was revealed. The interviewee explained that she learned Spanish as soon as she was able to speak. Thus, making it her first language. Moreover, once she began Pre-school at the age of four, she then acquired her second language, English. I found that this concept of learning a second language at such a young age correlates to something Ortega states in Chapter 1. According to Ortega (2013), “The individuals learning an additional language are still young children when they start acquiring the L2, maybe as young as three or four years old” (p. 4). She considers this age period to have had a somewhat negative affect on her proficiency because she did not become as fluent in English until at least the fifth grade. She mentions that most instruction was given in Spanish, therefore she felt more confident and comfortable in her mother tongue. This idea of feeling more confident in the mother tongue is not surprising. Clearly both monolingual and bilingual children are affected by the amount of language that they hear. In other words, “the more language a child hears, the quicker she will develop language” (Rowland, 2014, p. 193).  

Inasmuch, my interviewee mentions a few times that she received more exposure to Spanish due to growing up in a monolingual household. Everyone around her mostly spoke Spanish, therefore she had no other choice but to embrace the language. Additionally, her main reason for learning English was because that was the majority language spoken in school. According to Ortega (2013), “Many others will be forced by life circumstances to learn enough of the additional language to fend for themselves in selected matters of daily survival” (p. 1). This idea directly leads into my question of asking whether she was a naturalistic or an instructed learner. I was surprised to find out that she is indeed both. Naturalistic learners learn the L2 through informal opportunities and instructed learners learn through formal study (Ortega, 2013, p. 6). From her responses I could infer that because she learned Spanish in a more natural setting, it is her go-to language in most scenarios, at least outside the school walls. Although, it must be noted that she is still confident in speaking and reading her second language even though she has some difficulties with her pronunciation of certain words.

Furthermore, I found it noteworthy to discuss that she did not acquire her second language in a similar way to her family and friends. I asked this question because the text mentions that “individuals vary greatly both in how fast and how far they will go in learning their second language” (Ortega, 2013, p. 9). I was curious to know if her learning experiences were completely different from those near to her. As mentioned in the video, her family members enrolled in English courses in order to assimilate into the American culture, and to simply fend for themselves especially in the workplace.

All in all, this interview with a second language learner has improved my understanding of the knowledge we have obtained thus far about learning an additional language. It turns out that there are several universal factors that help shape the nature and pace towards learning a second language (Ortega, 2013, p. 9). With respect to my interviewee, some of those factors are age, environment, and even the native language spoken mostly within the home. 

Entry 1: Introduction

Here you will find my first Blog post. Click the video below to watch.