VBlog Entry 3
Hello everyone! For this entry, I interviewed Mrs. Mack who has been teaching kindergarten at Oppe Elementary in Galveston ISD for over 25 years. One of the first questions I asked Mrs. Mack was how similar or different were her bilingual and monolingual students. Since Mrs. Mack teaches kindergarten, she shared that there are a lot of similarities when it comes to social skills, making friends, working with classmates on projects or activities, sharing supplies, as well as following school rules. Mrs. Mack also shared that her ELLs are more motivated to learn English in order to be like their peers. This reminded me of John Schuman's prediction that "the more acculturated a learner can become (that is, the closer to the target society and its members, socially, and psychologically), the more successful his or her eventual learning outcomes will be" (Ortega, 2011, page 59).
Mrs. Mack also mentioned that her ELLs can sometimes be timid or shy and their response time may be slower when speaking to teachers and peers. She shared with me that she encourages interaction among her students to help her ELLs become more comfortable speaking with her and her other students. When ELLs interact with their classmates it allows them to practice their skills by having more experiences involving conversation. According to Ortega, practice "helps proceduralization of new knowledge by allowing the establishment and strengthening of corresponding links in long-term memory. The more this knowledge is accessed via practice, the easier it will become to access it without effort and without the involvement of the central executive at a future time" (2011, page 85). Overtime Mrs. Mack's ELLs became less timid and more confident in their English skills, which should be the goal for teachers of ELL students. Thanks for reading!
Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa! It was eye opening watching your interview. I see the many similarities and differences between my interview with a high school teacher and your interview with an elementary teacher. The reason for this is because many of the ELLs in elementary are still learning English and figuring out the separation between English and Spanish. In high school, it is a bit different because of their age and their comprehension level. In both the interviews, I noticed that the academic vocabulary and sentence structure are the main difficulties for ELLs. As Gass and Selinker mentioned, “children go through the same developmental stages, although not necessarily at the same rate” (2013, p.37). Teachers must be able to guide their students through the difficulties within the developmental stages.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Gass, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. Routledge.
I didn't think that there would be a similarity between high school and elementary school but it does make sense that they have difficulty with academic vocabulary since academic vocabulary changes, as they get older. The high schoolers "enjoy an initial advantage over young children that may last over up to one year, some times up to three years, particularly if they are tested through tasks that demand cognitive maturity and involve metalinguistic skills. After five years, however, early starters catch up and are better than late starters in second language contexts" (Ortega, 2011, page 28). I personally think it would be harder for me to acquire a second language in high school compared to elementary school.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
I agree with you Marissa. I believe that it would be much harder to learn a second language the older that I get. When I interview a student, he mentioned that there was a major difference of how he and his older sibling learned English due to the age difference of trying to learn a new language. This just goes to show why researchers cannot decide on one answer on the difficulties or non-difficulties of learning a new language tie together with age. Ortega says, "Perhaps for this reason, understanding the relationship between age and L2 acquisition has been a central goal since the inception of the field of SLA (2011, pg. 12).
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Harlie, you mentioning the siblings learning English at different ages reminded me of Ortega stating, "children acquiring their first language complete the feat within a biological window of four to six years of age. By contrast, the ages at which different L2 learners may begin learning the new language range wildly" (2011, page 12). You and I might think that it would be hard for us to learn a second language at an older age but people like the siblings you interviewed want to learn English so badly that they will work hard enough to become proficient, no matter their age due to the fact that English is the official language of the United States.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa! You make a very good point in your reply. When I was interviewing my teacher, she kept mentioning how much effort and hard working her ELL students are. So, I would believe regardless of the age, coming into a new country where the primary language is English, adult or child, they will work hard to be able to communicate with the people they are surrounded by. After all, "language is a form of communication" (Gass and Selinker, 2013, pg. 31) and is very important in the United States.
DeleteGass, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge.
Hi Harlie! Your reply reminded me of my bilingual friends' parents who barely speak English even though they have been living in the United States just as long as their children. Ortega mentions, "in terms of L2 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. Post-pubertal learners, however, are not likely to perform in the native speaker range, and this holds true regardless of the number of years they have resided in the L2 environment" (2011, page 29). My friends' parents have worked hard to be able to communicate in English but they ultimately have less time to develop their English speaking skills compared to their children, due to working.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa! Funny how you mentioned how your teacher said that her ELL students just want to learn to be able to communicate with their peers. The teacher that I interviewed mentioned how her ELL children are always wanting to learn and they are very hard workers. Your teacher seems to believe that the interaction of the ELLs with their peers seems to increase and help their learning of English. According to Ortega, "Other SLA researchers emphasize general socio-educational and motivational factors in connection to age effects on L2 learning" (2011, pg. 24). I feel as if your teacher would be able to agree with Ortega's statement. From what I saw in the interview, I believe that the statement of Ortega is true and socio-educational and motivation factors help the younger children learn English.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
I completely agree! I have seen how much her students like to socialize. Ortega mentions, "languages are almost always learned with and for others" (2011, page 55). This happens everyday in classrooms. Children are learning more English just by interacting with their peers. Ortega goes on to discuss that "optimal L2 learning must include opportunities for language use that is slightly beyond what the learner currently can handle in speaking or writing" (2011, page 63). I have seen this in Mrs. Mack's classroom. ELLs are interacting with monolinguals and are learning from them, which helps further the learner's current abilities.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa! Other people definitely learn languages from one another and one can help another learn the language. The more social people are, the more each can learn and become better at a new language. This is not only used every day in the classroom, but in any other environment daily. Ortega states, " Knowing about the language benefits afforded by the environment is thus important for achieving a good understanding of how people learn additional languages" (2011, pg. 55).
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
This is very true and it reminded me of motivation. Ortega mentions the three dimensions of integrativeness, one being "endorsement of reasons for learning the L2 related to interaction with L2 members or, in Gardner's terms, an integrative orientation ('studying French is important to me because it will allow me to meet and converse with more and varied people')" (2011, page 171). Children are motivated to learn English so they can speak to and interact with their classmates in their native language.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hello Marissa,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your interview video with Mrs. Mack. After watching the interview, I have noticed Mrs. Mack mentioned that her ESL kindergarteners tend to learn conversational English faster by being social with their peers than learning academic English. I also believe young children or even older children learn new language quickly by interaction among their peers. At young age, children want to learn the new language quickly to be able to communicate with their friends and others. This encourages them to speak up and listen to others to pick up the new language. This is similar to what I have read from Gas sans Selinker’s textbook, they stated that “The interaction approach accounts for learning through input (exposure to language), production of language (output), and feedback that comes as a result of interaction (see summary by Gass and Mackey, 2006). Gass (2003) puts it this way: interaction research “takes as its starting point the assumption that language learning is stimulated by communicative pressure and examines the relationship between communication and acquisition and the mechanisms (e.g., noticing, attention) that mediate between them (p. 224) (2013, p. 317).” In the future, I would love to create many class activities that involve small groups of four or two students for them to be social and interact with each other to encourage the ESL students’ English linguistic skills while working with their peers. I believe children feel more comfortale talking with their peers and the ESL students also learn English and improve their language skills much faster than learning English from the teacher only. Teachers can encourage their English - speaking students to help the ESL students, because at the same age, children can feel the connection much easier than the teachers. Therefore, teachers can ask the students to be involved to assist ESL students in their language learning process.
Reference:
Gass, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge.
Hi Trinh! I also plan on having many small group activities as well as pair work to allow students to interact with each other as much as possible. Ortega mentions, "much in the linguistic environment, particularly in naturalistic settings, but also in today's communicative classrooms, comes to learners in the midst of oral interaction with one or more interlocutors, rather than exposure to monologic spoken or written discourse" (2011, page 60). I find this to be very true. Many teachers I have observed have really made the effort to have hands-on activities that allow students to work with each other.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Hi Marissa,
DeleteThank you for your reply. I believe children do not only communicate with each other during the interaction, but they also learn new things from each other. I learned English a lot through my friends and my cousin besides my teachers, when I communicate with them inside and outside of the classrooms. Friendship has the encouragement for the ESL students to learn the new language to be able to communicate and interaction with others. Similar to what Ortega stated that one of the orientations that second language learners have for learning a second language is friendship (2013, p. 173). Letting students work collaboratively in small groups definitely is one of the most effective strategies to used to help ESL students become successful.
References:
Ortega, L. (2011). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Routledge.
Hi Marissa! I think it is great that students are able to pick up on conversational vocabulary fast, though academic is also important, we have to remember that conversation does help lead to faster language building. I feel that conversation is one of the best ways to learn a new language, because when you are conversing with someone who is fluent in the language you are trying to learn they are able to correct you when you may make a mistake. I believe that when it comes to younger students such as kindergartners you have to use intrinsic motivation, it is said that “this quality of motivation (intrinsic) is considered optimal because it has been experimentally shown to be consistently associated to higher levels of achievement” (Ortega, 176). I feel it would help actively engage students and ensure future success.
ReplyDeleteHi Marissa!
ReplyDeleteI love how you were able to interview a teacher who has experience with very young English Language Learners. What stood out to me from your interview with Mrs. Mack were the weaknesses and strengths of ELLs that she discussed. In the interview she spoke about her students struggling with academic vocabulary and sentence structure, or grammar, but that they were able to hold conversation more easily when talking with peers. I know that by speaking with others, we learn through imitation, but as Rowland states “…there is more to the process of learning syntax than just copying the sentences of others.” As ELL teachers, what kind of strategies do you think we should use to encourage both ways of learning (imitation and rules)?
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.