VBlog Entry 2
Hello everyone! For this second blog, I interviewed my friend Alejandra who came to the United States from Monclova, Mexico as a toddler. Alejandra started learning English when she started pre-kindergarten. She was in bilingual classes for the rest of elementary school. As we went through the interview her answers to the questions I asked really started making connections to the scholars' opinions on the same topics. Overall, Alejandra did not struggle with English as one might think I bilingual would. Alejandra learned English in school but also had informal opportunities to learn by hanging out with friends. According to Ortega, "naturalistic learners learn the L2 through informal opportunities in multicultural neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces" while instructed learners "learn additional languages through formal study in a school" (2013, page 6).
Alejandra believes that English and Spanish are very different from each other, which made her struggle a little bit in the beginning when it came to separating the two languages. She is now happy to share that she is fluent in both English and Spanish and truly sees the benefits of being bilingual. Alejandra shared with me that she is glad that she learned English at a young age because she believes it would have been harder if she were older than four. According to Ortega, "they concluded that older is better initially, but that younger is better in the long run" (2013, page 16). Alejandra agrees due to the fact that she started learning English so young so she was learning as she was getting older and progressing over time just like a monolingual who speaks English, they progress over time as they get older as well. I applaud Alejandra and any other child who came to the United States and learned English in school. There can be many challenges but it can also be very rewarding to be bilingual. Thanks for reading!
Hello Marissa! From reading your blog and watching your video it sounds like Alejandra would be an early bilingual. According to Gass and Selinker an early bilingual is “someone who has acquired two languages in early childhood” (Gass and Selinker 2013, pg.27). As you explained she started learning English when she entered pre-kindergarten, which I would consider early childhood. Ortega discusses two areas of instruction for second language learners which he calls “formal and experimental approaches to learning” (Ortega 2013, pg.8). I think that Alejandra having the opportunity to learn English not just in the classroom, but having real world experiences helped her in learning English.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Gass, S., Selinker, L. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge.
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
I agree, Alejandra had a lot of experiences starting at a young age that allowed her to learn English and become proficient. According to Rowland, "in other families, the parents only speak one language, so the child only hears the second language outside the home. This is the case for many immigrant families" (2014, page 176). This applied to Alejandra when she was younger because while her parents understand English, they do not speak it. She does have a little brother who speaks both English and Spanish but they strictly speak Spanish at home out of respect for their parents.
DeleteRowland, Caroline. Understanding Child Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Great Video. Your friend provided a great interview. She stated that being bilingual is not only something she is proud of but is also something she knows will be beneficial in the future, especially for her career as a nurse in Texas. She mentioned that she feels fluent in both pretty much equally because of speaking Spanish predominately at home and perfecting her English at school and with friends. While, as educators, we cannot be that effective with what language is being learned at home we do have control of how they are learning languages while in school. In the YouTube video “Second Language Acquisition Theories” by CLILandthings, Matthew Johnson discusses Maslow’s hierarchy. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who created Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs that is represented as a pyramid where more basic needs are at the bottom with “Self-Actualization” at the top, which is the goal. (CLILandthings, 2016) Now in most schools the “physiological” and “safety” aspects of the bottom of the pyramid are taken care. Children are, essentially, safe in school with basic needs taken care of like food and water. The next two levels above those are “love/belonging” and “esteem”. This is where we, as educators need to really focus on.
ReplyDeleteBeing a Second Language Learner, I am sure is absolutely daunting in school. While they are in a safe environment and have food and water provided for them, they still have a significant amount of work to do before “Self-Actualization”. With one of my students from the United Arab Emirates, Muhammad, I spent time trying to establish a relationship with him because I knew that he was having a hard time following everything my mentor teacher was teaching. Now I am not the most affectionate person but I do make it a point to show my students that I care about their wellbeing and especially their education. With Muhammad I would periodically look at him from across the room and give him a thumbs up to non-verbally ask, “Are you following?” At first he would just always nod his head “yes” but after a while he became really comfortable calling me over to explain something. I could literally see by him knowing that I was there to help he became more confident in his abilities and ultimately he began to climb up Maslow’s pyramid.
CLILandthings. (2016, Sept. 22) Second Language Acquisition Theories. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMdseB-EB8Y&index=3&list=PL0OpNdLwNL6sKxAfgm5bDB8OowlMswWs_
That is exactly the support I want to provide to my future students! There is the caring aspect of teaching that not all educators have. Educators have to consider and be aware of the individual differences there are in language development. According to Rowland, "first, there are individual differences within the typically developing normal population. These are children who follow a typical timetable of development and are never diagnosed with any sort of impairment. All these children will reach adultlike competence in the normal way, but some of these children will be much slower than others (difference in rate) or will follow a different developmental pathway (difference in style). Second, there are children who find it difficult to develop language because of what we call physical barriers. These could be cause by a problem in the environment or a physical impairment such as deafness. Third, there are those who difficulties are caused by cognitive impairments such as specific language impairment" (2014, page 203). These three distinct types of individual differences are very important and from the way Alejandra spoke about her teachers, it seems like they were aware of them.
DeleteRowland, Caroline. Understanding Child Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Agreed. I even witnessed some teachers in my Student Teaching that clearly were not as enthusiatic about catering to ELLs as they were with their other students. From what I could gather the teacher I observed had made up her mind that the ELL students were low-performing and never wanted to engage when asked. I think it is critically important that instructors understand how much of an impact they have on their ELL students. Ortega (2011) states "knowing about the language benefits afforded by the enviornment is thus important for achieving a good understanding of how people learn additional languages". (Ortega, p. 55) If an instructor wants to really make a difference in an ELL students learning, understanding that they need to put in extra effort to learn about their student is critical for their success.
DeleteReference:
Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
It saddens me that there are teachers who assume that ELL students are low-performing. Educators need to treat all of their students with equal respect, whether they are learning English or not. ELLs need our support so they can succeed in learning English. Teachers need to be positive in the learning community. Ortega mentions, "other more positive features of interaction can provide learners with potential linguistic benefits as well" (2011, page 77). Teachers need to be positive in the classroom, especially in front of their students. ELLs need to have positive interactions with their classmates and teachers so they can stay motivated to keep learning and succeeding with their English language development.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa. Very informational reflection that you wrote. The person that I interview also came to America at a very young age and started to learn English. According to Ortega, "When in the 1970s several SLA researchers compared children and adults’ L2 learning rate in second language environments, the findings unexpectedly were suggestive of an advantage for adults over children (2013, pg. 16). When I interviewed my friend though, he had a different opinion as to what age can do when trying to learn a second language. He said that he is now fluent in English and speaks it very well. When his family came to America, his older brother was trying to learn English while in high school. To this day, he is still not completely fluent in English and has a much stronger accent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I asked Alejandra if she thought she benefitted more learning English at a young compared to if she learned it older she said yes. So I see where your friend is coming from. According to Ortega, "in terms of L2 ultimate attainment, most learners who begin acquiring the L2 before a certain age, typically before puberty, will develop levels of morphosyntactic and phonological competence that are very close to those of native speakers of that language" (2013, page 28). With that being said it makes sense that Alejandra and your friend consider themselves fluent in English especially since they started learning it at a young age.
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hey Marissa, I think it is great that she was able to learn to learn a second language at a young age. I believe that another language is best learned at a young age because you are able to retain more. It is great that she is now in Nursing School, especially With her being able to read, write, and speak both languages I believe that she is a productive bilingual which is defined as "someone who not only understands but also speaks and possibly writes in two or more languages" (Gass & Selinker, 27) It good that she is bilingual because it will give her advantage in the medical field and also help her connect with her patients who may not be able to speak English.
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point. She mentioned that the majority of the patients she has seen in her observations only speak Spanish so she is already realizing the benefits of being bilingual especially in her profession. Alejandra mentioned that she has been struggling with the bigger words in the vocabulary in the medical field since she does not really know or have a translation to Spanish for them. According to Ortega, "crosslinguistic influences can have positive as well as negative consequences for L2 learning" (2013, page 31). This applies to Alejandra because she had such a great experience learning English growing up but now as she is in school for nursing she is having trouble with the vocabulary.
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
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