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.
As in your previous entries, you make great points in this one. I really enjoyed reading the different ideas that you gave us in this entry entry. I wonder if you could cite specific examples of things that you learned thanks to your classmates and their blog entries. You could also tell us a little bit about what you mean by a discussion. From reading different blogs, I have noticed that students in this course and other courses I teach tend to just agree with what others say and there is not really a discussion per se. What is a discussion in academia for you?
ReplyDeleteWell one thing I learned by watching Stephanie's interview for Blog 2 was that when children, especially those who grow up in a monolingual household, are thrust into an environment where one dominant language is spoken, he/she may ultimately find themselves becoming more dominant in that language. Secondly, I was able to learn about the theory of fossilization from reading Devin's reflection for Blog 2. It is where no matter how much continuous exposure to the language input, motivation to improve, and the opportunity for practice, there will be a permanent lack of mastery. (Ortega, 2013, p. 134). In regards to my idea for incorporating discussions into my future classroom, these could be as simple as turn talks or think-pair-shares. Allowing students to bounce ideas off of each other, and to come to an agreement on the solution to a problem can help them retain the information better. If students do not readily agree with each other and have to constructively work together to come to a conclusion, that is what makes a discussion beneficial. It is not just one student telling the other student the answer, but both sharing their ideas and helping each other arrive at the solution together.
DeleteHello Maggie, I couldn’t agree with you anymore, the “universal influences” surely are big sections that help shape the SLA of individuals. As we learned from the course book, age and the environment are two from many big divisions that contribute to an individual’s SLA. Unlike you, I didn’t have prior knowledge of how individuals learn a language. However, you are a good example of one can still continue on the ongoing study of language acquisition and work to, “craft a personal understanding of the fascinating field of SLA” (Ortega, 2013).
ReplyDeleteThere are numerous variables that impact L2 acquisition, and as we are approaching the time where we are about to have our own classrooms, I hope that I can take this newly acquired knowledge and apply my understandings to real-world situations. The high degree of individual variation when it comes to SLA is quite daunting because when we think about our future classrooms, the students change yearly, but we are the one constant. Therefore, it is our responsibility to provide effective instruction to all of our students, especially so that progress can be made in various areas of the L2 for our English language learners.
DeleteHey, Maggie! Thank you for your insights. As a former ELL, I too was able to empathize with the stories we heard and the information we gained in the duration of this course. This class was able to make me think more about my own SLA journey and how it influenced the English speaker and person I am today. Similarly to you, I never realized how important the amount of exposure to English I received as a child impacted my present day fluency. After all, Ortega (2013) suggests in order to learn any language, an individual should be subjugated to five years of intense and quality exposure to said language (p. 17).
ReplyDeleteThank you Thanh for refreshing my memory of that statement. I went back to read that in the text and it also states that, "Age may exert universal influences on the learning of a second language, but context moderates these universal effects and needs to be considered carefully" (Ortega, 2013, p. 17). Throughout the course of this class, whenever I thought about age and its impact on L2 acquisition, I almost always forgot to consider the learning contexts in which the L2 was being learned. This is actually not surprising. If I wanted to learn an additional foreign language, I would want to be enthralled in an environment in which only that language is being used.
DeleteHi again, Maggie! I agree, I believe that any classroom should provide an environment in which the students are excited and willing to learn their target language. Speaking of age and contexts, I am reminded of my own parents who immigrated to the United States at a later age and their experience learning English. They speak broken English and have always spoke broken English. I am just wondering if one of the reasons why older L2 learners are less likely to speak like a native speaker is due to the circumstances they are in and the context in which they are learning English. They are not learning English in a classroom like children are and are not receiving the same rich, intense amount of exposure to English.
DeleteI have to whole heatedly agree with the saying "that the more a child hears the quicker they will learn". As children we like to imitate what we hear around us. The more English ESL students are exposed the easier and quicker it will be for them to pick it up. We have a new student from China at the school I am student teaching at and after just a few weeks I have definitely noticed how he has picked up on certain English words when he is interacting with the kids around them. He may not know a lot of English yet, but I can see progress. I also believe that creating a nurturing classroom can make all the difference. You need to understand each and every student. They will all have different personalities so you need to understand each student's comfort zone. You need to be aware of each student's anxiety level. According to Ortega, student with higher anxiety will freeze up when asked something in front of the whole class and blank on right answers (p.200).
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely am with you on being aware of your students' anxiety levels and comfort zones. Of course there will be times where you want to push your students to higher levels of achievement because you want them to know that you believe they can achieve something that is a little beyond their current understanding. However, what you do not want to do is lead that student to putting up an affective filter. According to Stephen Krashen, "We acquire language in one way, when we get comprehensible input in a low anxiety environment" (14:22). What would you do to create a low anxiety atmosphere?
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ReplyDeleteHi Maggie! I also found it interesting how much motivation, orientations, self-esteem, identity, and the role of teachers contributed to an individual learning or acquiring a second language. Before taking this course, I did not think about all of the components that go into learning another language. I too had some prior knowledge of the different orientations, reasons for learning an L2, but I think the more I learned from this course has helped me understand some of the many situations students may come from (Ortega, 2013, p.172). I like how you wrote about the effort students give when learning English and conject but especially in math. This is important because math is such a big part of our education and daily lives. Thank you for your reflection!
I especially did not consider effort, enjoyment, and investment as variables that play a role in how motivated an individual is to learn a second language. According to Gardner, a truly motivated individual scores high on all 3 dimensions: motivational intensity (effort), attitudes towards the L2 (enjoyment), and desire to learn (investment) (Ortega, 2013, p. 170). As a future educator, I plan to keep these components in mind when designing lesson plans and creating the overall feel of my classroom because it is important to me that my students feel excited to learn not only about math but to make progress in the L2.
DeleteYour motivation to strive and accommodate for L2 and English students is remarkable. While I do feel that it will be a challenge in the future, I am sure with enough grit and motivation, you can certainly do it! It is just a matter of getting the student intrinsically motivated to do the coursework!
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that it will be a challenge. I will have to work hard to get my students to be intrinsically motivated to want to learn math content along with the L2. What I want to avoid is hearing my students say they are amotivated. According to Ortega (2013), "Amotivation is when some students say they don’t know why they are studying the L2 or they express resentment at what feels like a waste of their time" (p. 177). How does one instill motivation within a person who simply does not see the benefits of learning the L2 and the content simultaneously?
DeleteI think the point that there are different factors that impact how a student learns a second language and that there are both factors that us as future educators can impact and factors that we can not. I think it is important to keep that in mind as we become teachers so we do not get overwhelmed with all the things that can hinder a student's education. learning the things that we can affect can really help us focus on the important things in a student's education rather than things we can not change.
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