Entry 4: Final Course Reflection

Final Course Reflection

I began this course with the assumption that it would be focused on how to best teach ELL students. When we had to make our first learning experience video in Spanish, a language that I do not know, I quickly figured out what the acquisition part of this course meant. I learned that with motivation, learning a second language is a bit easier. When I started thinking about how I could connect to my futures student’s families on a deeper level by learning their native language, or at least going through the process of trying to, I could have more meaningful conversations with them, and be able to relate to them in a way that I otherwise could not. This helped me while trying to learn the basic bits and pieces of Spanish. In the text I also learned how big of an impact age has on learning a second language. Beginning the language learning process during the sensitive periods is critical. Another section of the text that stuck out to me during this course was the comparing and contrasting of a naturalistic learning and rule memorization. “Language teachers across institutions all over the world 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 processes” (Ortega, 2013, p. 8). Students will naturally want to socialize with their peers so giving them time to do so during class time would be much more beneficial to the ELL’s than giving them index cards full of vocabulary words to memorize in their L2. One of the most important things I discovered about learning a second language is that you never stop learning no matter how old you are, the learning process lasts a lifetime.

This course will impact my professional practice by giving me the opportunity to walk in the shoes of my ELLs. Learning a new language is difficult and frustrating at times. Being able to experience that frustration for a brief period of time made me feel a lot more respect and appreciation for those who are bilingual. I now see how important wait time is and repetition when asking questions or giving instructions. I learned how much I can impact my ELLs learning of their second language by my attitude towards the learning process and the strategies I implement in my classroom. Visuals, repetition, and wait time are all musts for me since I now see how much those things helped me while trying to learn Spanish. This course will also impact my professional practice by getting the chance to interview an ELL teacher to hear the wisdom they had to share about observations they have made that their ELL students show each day in the classroom such as a desire to fit in with their peers. "The more individuals wish to learn a language because it is interesting and enjoyable, and because the activity has value to them personally, the more they are likely to learn the language because they wish to have interactions with members’ of the L2 community " (Ortega, 2013, p. 178). My interviewee almost mentioned the need for the teacher to relate the student’s new language to their old language. Making those connections for my students as often as I can is important.

The topics I found the most interesting in this course were how ELL students typically score higher than monolingual students on state exams. I always thought it would be the opposite. I learned this is the case because the ELL students have a much stronger intrinsic motivation to learn so they typically put forth more effort to succeed in school.

I took the Second Language Methodology class over the summer where I experienced creating a blog and submitting assignments through videos for the first time. I was excited when I saw this SLA class operated in a similar form where we would get to interact with one another through vlogs again. Having the opportunity to watch one another’s videos makes the learning more personal and engaging. Being able to watch and listen to interviews as opposed to reading about them helped me understand the speakers point of view better and was far more interesting to me than reading about it. I also enjoyed being able to go back and watch the first video I made and compare it to the most recent video I made to see how much I have grown in the way I communicate to others and present instructional content to others. The vlogs helped make an online course feel more like a community for me through the videos, comments, and replies. I liked getting to see how my peers could make text and world connections to my vlogs and even share some of their culture and personal experiences with me from parts of my blog being relatable to their personal lives.

Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

VBLOG 3 interview with ESL teacher

https://splice.gopro.com/v?id=DPeMxr

Mrs. Nossa, my interviewee is very unique because she has been an ESL teacher in both Columbia and America. In my interview with Mrs. Nossa, I found it interesting that in her experience most of her ELL students struggle the most with vocabulary in both academic and social situations. “Language teachers across institutions all over the world 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 processes” (Ortega, 2013, p. 8). Mrs. Nossa uses both methods because she teaches the students regularly and then pauses to teach them the new vocabulary words only when they ask. This shows that she takes both approaches to teaching the vocabulary because she does it in a natural setting by allowing them to just listen and learn, and also directly teaches new words when the students ask. I think using both methods is the most beneficial. When asked why her ELL students want to learn English, it sounded like she was describing intrinsic motivation. "The more individuals wish to learn a language because it is interesting and enjoyable, and because the activity has value to them personally, the more they are likely to learn the language because they wish to have interactions with members’ of the L2 community " (Ortega, 2013, p. 178). This shows to be true in Mrs. Nossa’s class because she says that her ELL students are motivated to learn English because they want to fit in with their peers and be able to communicate with them. She says she has not seen a motivation to want to succeed in school or communicate with the teacher until later on in the school year. She says their main motivation at this time of the year seems to just be to talk and connect with peers because that is a natural human instinct. This is why her students are succeeding, because they have a motivation that gives them persistence to keep trying despite the challenges they face throughout the day.

Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

VBLOG 2 Interview With ELL

Link to my video: https://youtu.be/XtrWewSE3Lw

I interviewed my boyfriend's mother Herminia Bello who was born and raised in Sonora, Mexico. She did not come to the United States or begin to learn English until she was 13 years old. Mrs. Bello mentions one of the biggest struggles she had while learning English, and something she still struggles with now, is the phonology and pronunciation of the English words. "Ironically, then, foreign accents may arise‘ not because one has lost the ability to learn to pronounce, but because one has learned to pronounce the L1 so well" (Ortega, 2013, p. 23).  While trying to pronounce words in English Mrs. Bello has a very strong accent that is very detectable in the vblog video. I think this is because she spoke only Spanish for 13 years before being introduced to English so she really knows "Spanish so well" after all of those years, as Ortega mentioned in the quote above. To prove this theory Ortega also mentions, "we have said that there is clear evidence that accents are likely to develop when the L2 is first learned later in life" (Ortega, 2013, p. 23).

Something that helped Herminia be successful in learning a new language as an adolescent, in a new country, away from her family were her teachers and peers. Herminia says that her peers included her in all of the activities they participated in. She said she would just listen to them speak orally to discover new vocabulary words and meaning to words in the English Language. " Learners obtain comprehensible input mostly through listening to oral messages that interlocutors direct to them and via reading written texts that surround them, such as street signs, personal letters, books and so on" (Ortega, 2013, p. 59). As Ortega mentioned in the quote above Herminia obtained comprehensible input through listening to her teachers and peers.

Herminia story inspired me to keep trying and to have perseverance while trying to learn a new language myself. She came to the United States all by herself to live with an American family who took her in as an exchange student and attended all regular classes in high school without knowing one word in English and succeeded at learning the language fluently in just 1 short year. She was a very motivating person to chose for my interview.

Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Entry 1: Course Introduction

Tori Tilghman's Blog

Blog entry video 1: https://youtu.be/TnqTTeO5e1U

As a monolingual, I sometimes fear how I will be able to best assist my ELL students in my classroom. An ELL (English Language Learner) is a student who is learning English as a new language. In other words, English is not their first language. “Human language manifests itself in spoken, signed and written systems across more than 6,500 languages documented to date” (Ortega, 2011, p.2). This number was shocking to me. Students can come to school speaking any one of these 6,500 languages, and it is our job as educators to assist them in learning academic content area language even though their L1 is not English. The great thing about this is although there are 6,500 different languages, acquisition of learning a new language can be taught in the same way regardless of what the child’s L1 language is. 
For me, as someone born and raised in the United States and who comes from a family of all English speakers, it is important for me to understand language on a deeper level to be able to relate to these ELL students. “A different approach to explaining language as a human faculty is to ask not what or how, but whence and why questions: Whence in the evolution of the human species did language originate and why?” (Ortega, 201, p.2). Focusing on the evolution of language first, will help me take steps in moving towards teaching a new language to students. By researching and reading more about the evolution of language I can start to make connections between English and the other languages my students may speak to compare the similarities and differences between the languages which will better prepare me to teach them.

Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.