Entry 1: Self-Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Morgan Smith and I am studying teaching and learning at the University of Houston's main campus. I plan on graduating in the spring of 2019. I will be starting student teaching in the fall, and I am anxious to learn as much as I can about learning a second language before I am in the classroom full time.
Click here to watch my introductory video!
Click here to watch my introductory video!
Hello Morgan! Although I did not live in Houston, we both grew up from Texas raised families and only grew up knowing English. I also took 2 years of Spanish during high school. I think that it is to your advantage that you got to observe and work with a classroom full of English language learners. According to Ortega, "One way to investigate humans’ capacities for learning second languages is to inspect the oral and written records learners produce when people use the new language" (2013, pg. 6). Perhaps this could be a strategy to use when having a class of ELLs. I feel as if it is important that us as future educators should focus on learning the basics of other languages. We want to connect and understand our students as well as possible and I feel as if that is one solution.
ReplyDeleteObserving ELLs is definitely something that would be beneficial to practicing educators. Just from spending 5 weeks in an ESL classroom, I feel that I was able to learn a lot about how they learn and the accommodations that need to be made for them to learn. During lunch, I actually had a 5th grade ELL ask me "how many do you have?" when she asked my age. Because I know how to ask someones age in Spanish, I understand that this sentence was a translation error based on a literal translation made by the student. By learning the basics of the language, you begin to understand why it may be that these children are making these mistakes. So, by inspecting their oral and written languages, we become more capable educators (Ortega, 2013, p. 6).
DeleteWow that is quite the experience! Interesting that you made that connection though. When I was reading through our textbook, I noticed something that I was questionable about. Ortega said, "Despite this daunting linguistic variety, however, all languages, no matter how different from each other they may seem (Arabic from American Sign Language from Chinese from English from Spanish from Swahili), share fundamental commonalities, a universal core of very abstract properties (2013, pg. 2). From what you just said above, I believe that this statement has to relate with the difference of how we structure our sentences. There is not much of a difference between all of the languages, reasons why I believe you were able to understand what the student meant, even though we question it differently.
DeleteI think that a lot of understanding what a person is trying to say can be figured out through context. Based on the conversation and the things that other people were saying, it made it easier for me to know what the student was asking. That is also why authentic language opportunities are so important for ELLs. They benefit from learning the language in these natural settings (Ortega), and they are able to use context to uncover more of the language. As you said, many languages do share properties such as the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.). I have already interviewed a second language English learner and was able to talk to her about some of these similarities, and it is interesting to hear about how they are able to transition between the two languages because of these similarities (Ortega, 2013, p.2).
DeleteHey Morgan! I love that the reason you want to become a teacher is because you want to instill the importance of education in children. I want to become a teacher for a similar reason, I want to be able to spark something in students that they do not see in themselves and I want to give them the motivation to know that they are capable. I believe learning a second language is essential, but not for every. It is said that “learn additional languages from a mixture of both naturalistic and instructed experiences". (Ortega) I took a foreign language in high school as well, but I took I for 4 years, I still as though I did not retain enough for it to be useful for me in the future.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that a person cannot become entirely fluent in a second language without authentic interactions with native speakers. However, it does benefit children to have formal instruction time to ask questions and clarify things that might not have made sense to them in a general education classroom. So, Ortega's claim about learning languages in, "naturalistic and instructed experiences," is in fact the best way to go (Ortega, 2013). When I attempted to learn Spanish and Japanese, I was lacking the natural experiences. It makes me wonder how much students in our country would benefit from studying abroad when trying to learn a second language. If you wish to communicate with others, you have to learn the language, and you are constantly put in situations where you can practice with native speakers.
DeleteI totally agree with your points. As Ortega stated "Most people learn additional languages from a mixture of both naturalistic and instructed experiences (p.6)." I love to learn Spanish as well. However, it is difficult and struggling for me to retain the language without practice and using it with the native Spanish speakers on the regular basic as naturalistic experience besides learning it only in the classroom which is as instructed experience. I hope I can have a chance to continue learning the language when I finish my bachelor's degree and I also wish I could have more interaction in the real life to practice Spanish outside of the classroom in the future.
DeleteReferences:
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Morgan! I also grew up monolingual! According to Ortega, "for children who grow up monolingually, the bulk of language is acquired between 18 months and three to four years of age" (2013, page 3) which would apply to us. For someone who attempted to learn Japanese later on in life it makes sense since Ortega states "variability and choice are the most interesting and challenging linguistic phenomena to be explained at those later ages" (2013, page 4). While it might have been hard it might be worth getting back into. I was interested in learning Spanish when I was in high school but lost interest overtime. Just from reading the first chapter of our book it has sparked an interest in me again to work on my Spanish, which could help me in my future classroom!
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
I think that it would be important to learn Spanish as well for our future classrooms. There are many similarities between the English and Spanish languages including: sentence structure, the language script, and the roots of words. Because of this, I believe that Spanish would be the easiest language for us to learn. According to Ortega, language learning has a sensitive period, and this is likely the reason why we struggled with learning a second language later on in life (Ortega, 2013, p. 3). However, through working with ELLs, we could acquire more understanding of the language in time through analyzing the mistakes that our students are making (Ortega, 2013, p. 6).
DeleteLanguage is something that everyone shares, especially our future students and us. We will be speaking, writing, listening, and reading to them. "Human language manifests itself in spoken, signed and written systems across more than 6,500 languages documented to data. Despite this daunting linguistic variety, however, all languages, no matter how different from each other they may seem, share fundamental commonalities, a universal core of very abstract properties" (Ortega, 2013, page 2). With that being said, it is important for us as future educators to not be discouraged when it comes to working with students who speak more than one language or who are learning English. By working with these students we will be able to gain experience, which will help us become experts overtime!
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
I agree with you, and this experience will help us be able to better assist students in the future as we become more comfortable with working with ELLs. As future educators, it is also our job to help these students learn the language in the best way we see fit. According to Ortega, many parents and researchers are concerned with, "how fast progress can be made in various areas of the L2, and how long is long enough to learn an L2 (Ortega, 2013, p.8). While these concerns are reasonable to consider, we also know that this would be different for each child depending on their current level of English proficiency, culture (including L1), age, and many other factors.
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
I also noticed that Ortega mentions "language teachers across institutions all over the word hotly debate whether students in their classrooms need to be directly taught grammar and vocabulary in order to get the basic building blocks of a language first, or whether it is better to somehow approximate in their classroom the richness of natural language meaning-making process" (2013, page 8). There are different concerns and approaches when it comes to teaching ELLs. Ultimately I guess it is the teacher's decision to decide what will better prepare their students and if it is effective instruction. I believe that either would work but using both approaches would be most beneficial to the students.
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Ortega discusses natural and guided practices of teaching language, and the benefits of doing so for students (2013). However, I am interested in hearing your ideas on the consequences of such a teaching style.
ReplyDeleteAs we all know from our other classes, teaching styles have both benefits and costs, and when it comes to natural and instructed teaching, I see a few key points to bring up. Specifically, it limits the instruction to a select number of learning styles (it limits the teacher's ability to instruct the entire range of learners). This is due to the teaching style heavily relying on rigor and structure. Some students need a relaxed environment to learn languages, and some need a group discussion rather than the guided one-on-one time that seems to be most common in this teaching style.
Of course, you can always alter the basic style to fit your own teaching. How would you incorporate this style into your own? Is it compatible or more of an idea that you would take inspiration from rather than actual techniques?
I think that a lot of your teaching style needs to reflect what each individual student needs. While researchers provide best practice based on studies and in depth analysis, there is not one true answer for every situation. That is why there are so many theories on best practice. It is up to us as the educator to decide what is best for our own classroom. If we feel that a student is struggling and not benefiting from a large amount of group discussion, we can try to give them more of the guided one-on-one practice.
DeleteThere are many other concerns brought to the teachers attention concerning how to best approach the teaching of a second language. Ortega questions, "whether students in their classrooms need to be directly taught grammar and vocabulary in order to get the basic building blocks of a language first, or whether it is better to somehow approximate in their classroom the richness of natural language meaning-making process" (Ortega, 2013, p. 8). There are so many factors that affect the way that students learn, and this means that we as teachers are expected to make adjustments to our instruction whenever necessary.
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Morgan! Like you, I also grew up monolingual, even though my father speaks Hindi fluently. He never spoke it to my brother and I, but over the years I have heard him speak Hindi to friends, and sometimes family. I also took Spanish in high school, but I'm afraid I didn't take away from it as much as I could have. Maybe due to what you mentioned about not using it after the classes were over, or maybe even not being taught in an effective way that would help me to be able to learn to speak it fluently. Ortega speaks about Julie, an English-speaking woman who moves to Egypt to teach English as a foreign language. He describes that she learned to speak and understand the language "entirely naturalistically" (Ortega, 2013, pg. 14). This makes me think that in order to learn another language in the classroom (or anywhere), maybe it is more effective to learn in in an environment where that is the language that is primarily spoken. I don't know if this was the case for you, but my "Spanish" class actually didn't require much Spanish speaking at all. I think it would make all the difference.
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Morgan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching your video and getting to know you a little bit more. Many people in this class, I am recognizing, are also monolingual, which, according to Ortega, is a minority (2013). I have also noticed that the students who are monolingual are all English speakers. Maybe this has to do with what you said about other countries putting an emphasis on bilingualism more than America does. I also think that a major reason more students are monolingual is due to our generation, and the available technology out there for us to be able to translate language instantly, maybe this is a reason that we did not feel the need to continue practicing the Spanish we learned in high school?
Hi Morgan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy watching your video and reading your blog. I also grew up from monolingual country, Vietnam, where Vietnamese is the only language I use. As Ortega stated, “for children who grow up monolingually, the bulk of language is acquired between 18 months and three to four years of age (p.3).” During middle and high school in Vietnam, I learned English with only vocabulary words and grammars. I had no practice English speaking and listening skills both inside and outside of the classroom. After finishing 11th grade, I moved to the USA to continue my education. During the time in the USA, I had a chance to expose myself to learn more about English and to use English to communicate with others. It helps me become fluently in English. I took one Spanish course during college a couple years ago. Because I did not have time to continue learning the language and I do not practice and use the language regularly, I forgot most of what I learned. . I hope I will continue learning it in the future when I have more free time after I finish my bachelor’s degree.
References:
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.