Wow, this was a very challenging, yet, eye-opening course to take! I think that the underlying challenge was linked to the content. I was surprised to read that most children, except in the Western middle-class contexts, grow up speaking more than one language (Ortega, 2013, p.1). To be honest, I never really put a whole lot of thought into the variety of components and struggles that ELL's experience. This course has helped me open my eyes to factors like; the age one begins to learn the L2, the crosslinguistic influences, the effects of the linguistic environment, motivation, second language as a form of cognition, etc. Taking a closer look at these factors and grasping a more in-depth understanding of how they all interplay with each other will help me tremendously, not only as a teacher, but also as an individual interacting with society. In the classroom I will be more consciously aware of our ELL's vocabulary bank and their need to learn about 3,000 new words in order to minimally follow conversations in the L2 and about 9,000 new word families if they want to be able to read novels or newspapers, etc. (Ortega, 2013, p.88). This is important to know because Ortega states the United States is on the rise for implementing "sink-or-swim" educational policies. It is hard to stand up for what is right if we lack the knowledge of what is harmful for our ELL's and what is not. The insight I gained from age alone makes me feel like these children are struggling to "fit" in our schools. They are driven to learn but need a variety of components to assist them in being successful in their L2 learning. As teachers, we need to be aware of their background and understand that they will struggle with comprehension and lack vocabulary (they have not had the time and experiences to develop their L2 like their L1 peers). Thus why the sink-or-swim educational policy is crazy! How will that benefit these children? I feel like that is more like placing them in a strict survival mode and that can hurt these children. I do not know about you but I cannot live with that in my heart. I always placed a high value on getting to know each and every one of my students as an individual. Every student will bring something different to the classroom, which is just life. I really want to place an emphasis on creating a safe, positive classroom environment that portrays a little of all of our cultures! A community! The most interesting topic, besides the information I learned about L2 and age of onset, was motivation. It is important to have a growth mindset. More importantly, it is important to encourage and assist our students in having a growth mindset. I believe developing rapport with our ELL's and their families, learning about their culture, likes, and dislikes as an individual will help me in the future to implement strategies to encourage intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is considered optimal because it is shown to be consistently associated to higher levels of achievement (Ortega, 2013, p.177). Knowing that my ELL's will place such high value on me as an influential person in their life, makes me want to be the best teacher/person I can be who motivates them from the inside out. If I am determined, in turn I pray they are determined and together we can work through the challenges. As Gass states, how do people learn a second, third, or a fourth language? Well, with great difficulty (Gass & Selinker, 2013, p.1). All things are possible and together we got this!
Regarding my input on creating a VBLOG. Well, here is my honesty, I did not like it! However, reflecting on it, I am super-duper proud of myself for doing it! I would definitely consider myself technology impaired! In fact, a couple of years ago, Santa, brought a game system for my youngest child. My oldest, who is my tech savvy hero, was at his Fathers for Christmas. I tried and tried and tried to figure out how to connect the game system. Hours later I thought, who can I call on Christmas to help me with this? Well, my amazing neighbor's' teenage son came over. Apparently, all I had to do was push "input" on my remote. Silly me. By the way, that button on my remote is now my go to if I cannot figure out what to do on my television! We live and we learn. Needless to say, I have officially learned how to create a VBLOG, with much difficulty! I know how a feeling of self- accomplishment! I feel like our blogs brought us closer as a class. I have taken online courses before and it is more like you log on, do what you need to do and are done. There was no personalization into who was enrolled in the course with you. I feel that our blogs created an opportunity for us to grow together as not only a class, but also provided a variety of perspectives through the videos and blogs. We each brought our own story and shared others stories. This assist in contributing to gaining additional perspectives about second language acquisition. I do not think that the course contributed to my writing skills but the course has motivated me to learn more about SLA. During my interviews, I found myself asking additional questions, not because we had to for the course, but because I was interested in learning more! I appreciate everyone sharing their stories and I enjoyed reading everyone's blogs and watching your videos. To our professor, thank you for being patient with my trillion emails! I hope everyone has a blessed rest of your summer and enjoy it! The fall semester will be here before we know it!
Ortega, L. (2013). Understand second language
acquisition. London and New York: Routledge.
Gass,
S., & Selinker, L. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory
course. New York:
Routledge.
Hey Amanda! I loved reading your blog, I absolutely agree with you about the “sink or swim educational policies” (Ortega 2013, pg.28). I do not view that as teaching, even though the second language learner that I interviewed in my second blog post felt it was beneficial for her. I think sink or swim educational policies have the possibility of making the ELL students feel less than and not welcome in the classroom, which is awful because as a teacher I want all of my students to feel like the classroom is like a community. As a teacher if I saw any student struggling in my class, I would want to do what ever I could to help them. Learning a second language is hard enough, adding zero support from the teacher while learning the second language makes no sense to me.
ReplyDeleteReference:
Ortega, L. (2015). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hey Samanatha! Thank you for reading my blog! Girl, for my third blog I interviewed Connie. Connie told me that her cousin liked the sink-or-swim policy. However, the perception I received was that her cousin seemed more bitter and wanted others' to feel what she felt. I do not think that it was because she considered it, per se, beneficial. I agree with your statement regarding feel welcomed and part of a positive classroom community. Ortega states that an individual's communicative confidence in the L2 greatly contributes to our ELL's willingness to communicate (Ortega, 2013, p.202-203). Knowing this and learning about the importance of our ELL's anxiety and self-perceived competence in order to successfully learn a second-language, well, it all ties back to these sink-or-swim policies. I personally feel that if I was in their shoes, these policies would definitely increase my anxiety and make me feel less competent.
DeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understand second language acquisition. London and New York: Routledge.
Amanda, I cannot believe you disliked the focus on the blog in this class - you had an amazing one! I never caught on that you were not a fan of this type of discussion platform! Your blog was always so unique to me, and I loved seeing your input and personality through your personalized choices for the blog. I am absolutely in love with your views on Ortega's research concerning "sink-or-swim" policies, and the value of being aware of policy/research changes as teachers (2013). I am always advocating for being more knowledgeable about the current dynamics and discourse, so i am glad to hear someone else is too!
ReplyDeleteIla,
DeleteWell thank you for the compliment! I guess I hide my technology, or lack of technology skills, well. Well.... perhaps not that well. Behind the scenes I had to email the teacher several times when we were creating this blog. Regardless, I accomplished it and that is amazing in itself! Yes, the sink-or-swim policies are so absurd to me. I think that every individual has their unique personality and although some children may swim, will they swim and carry scars for the rest of their lives? Then what about those children that sink? It is awesome that you advocate to gain more perspective as well. It sounds like we are intrinsically motivated to do so! We are self-determined and find enjoyment and satisfaction for ourselves when we gain more knowledge about the current dynamics and discourse (Kaboody, 2013, p.47). To me, that is life and what living is all about!
Kaboody, M. (2013). Second language motivation; the role of teachers in learners’ motivation. Journal of Academic and Applied Studies, 3(4), 45-54.
Hi Amanda! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the course and what all you have learned. Everything you said about the importance of our roles as teachers and the effects that we will have on our ELL students resonated with me. Like you, I enjoyed the topic of motivation because I agree with Kaboody who says that teachers have a positive influence on motivation in their students (Kaboody, 2013). I was apprehensive about the VBlog because I tend to have trouble with technology also, but I got through it because I thought about how awesome it will be to add all of this content on my VBlog to my E-Portfolio that future employers can look at. Maybe you can do the same!
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