Reflection

        Prior to taking Second Language Acquisition, I did not have formal understanding of how a language is learned. Although I have experience in learning other languages, I did not take the opportunity to reflect on my own learning process then. It is interesting now to reflect on my experiences in acquiring and learning another language. This distinction where acquisition requires meaningful interaction rather than learning formal processes was new to me, and  this helped shape my understanding of second language acquisition. Reflecting back on my own experiences, I can see that my formal education of languages in school taught me the foundation of languages, in other words where I learned language. But I had much more success acquiring language informally when interacting with my friends who could speak another language and trying to acquire meaning.
This class gave me insight on how language is learned so that allows me to better understand some obstacles that ELLs will have to face with just learning another language. One area in particular was the students’ linguistic environment. I have learned that optimal second language acquisition is stimulated by five environmental factors: acculturated attitudes, comprehensible input, negotiated interaction, pushed output, and attention to the language code. These are environmental factors I could control in the classroom for ELLs. Classroom culture should make it safe for ELLs to learn and practice acquiring another language. It is my responsibility to communicate in a manner appropriate for ELLs to comprehend my message and try my best to address misconceptions. Learning activities should also provide ELLs with the resources to comprehend content instruction and allow opportunity for students to apply their learning appropriate to their development. Understanding these components of the linguistic environment can help with practical second language acquisition in the classroom.
There have been many topics covered in this class. The topic of age seems kind of straight forward and could receive less focus in future classes. Although it is still important to better understand some of the intricacies involved. It just seems that a lot of the observations in the first interview task reflect the observations that younger students tend to have an easier time with second language acquisition. Other topics that may need more focus are social dimensions and crosslinguistic influences. Personally, I am just curious about cross linguistic influences as I am bilingual and these are influences I have experienced all my life. Understanding these as a teacher may help me better understand my ELLs based on their own culture. With social dimensions, this seems to be a natural extension of understanding the linguistic environment as communication is driven by interaction.
Evaluating the VBlog and its effect on my learning, I believe it has definitely supported my learning of second language acquisition. Having to connect theories to context and others’ writing better helped me understand the concepts than from reading books and watching videos alone. The interviews were also very insightful for learning. The interview with an ELL showed me their perspective as a student, while the interview with an ELL teacher gave me much insight on practical ELL motivation in the classroom. Overall, the VBlog was an effective tool for my learning to reflect on the concepts and make connections to the real world and my peers.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 19, 2018 at 3:40 PM

    Hi Franklin! I enjoyed reading your reflection of what you learned from this course. I thought it was interesting that you saw how as a future educator, you will be able to control your students’ linguistic environment in your classroom. Ortega (2013, p. 78) acknowledges that “what matters in the linguistic environment is not simply ‘what’s out there’ physically or even socially surrounding learners, but rather what learners make of it, how they process (or not) the linguistic data and how they live and experience that environment.” I admire that you see the factor of linguistic environment as something you could help with to ensure that your students can benefit from it.

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  2. Lam NguyenNovember 20, 2018 at 12:17 PM

    Hi Krystal. I think you’ve made an interesting point in how the linguistic environment. It reminds me of social dimension, because “the individual mind finds the source of learning in social communities; learning is available in historical and social processes and emerges among agents in a given context” (Ortega, 2013, p 217). The reason I pointed this out is because social dimension and linguistic environment go hand in hand. They both refer to the external factors that affect second language acquisition, and they both contain aspects of social interactions.
    Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

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  3. UnknownNovember 20, 2018 at 2:14 PM

    Hello Franklin, your reflection made great connections to the theories we have learned. I really like the point you made about your own past language learning experiences and that you felt like you learned more when you talked with your friends informally. In our text Ortega states, “She therefore suggests that conceptual L2 development will be fostered in naturalistic (i.e. experiential) learning contexts but might be limited in foreign language contexts,” (2013, pg. 89). This supports your own beliefs that you learned best in a naturalistic environment with friends.

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