Blog Entry 2: Interview
For this interview, I chose to use my best friend Alexa, who is a bilingual college student. Alexa’s mother language is Spanish and her second learned language is English. This interview really opened my eyes as to the struggles of someone who has learned more than one language at a relatively young age. During the interview she talked about the certain struggles she had to overcome when learning English and how it affected her school career and her family. Alexa learned Spanish prior to moving to Texas, where she then learned English. Alexa talked about how learning two languages had both its advantages and disadvantages, in life and in school.
According to Alexa, learning her first language actually helped her learn her second one. This also helped her in school because she was able to connect her mother language vocabulary to the English language vocabulary. This connects to the theory that learning your first language crosslinguistic effects can help with the language two grammatical gender (Ortega, 2013, p.43). Alexa was an Instructed learner of English, she learned English in the classroom and through T.V shows like Dora the Explorer. Although all of her siblings now speak both English and Spanish her parents grasp of the English language is still very limited. So she speaks Spanish at home and then speaks English at school and at work. Although she has been exposed to English for a very long time and speaks it everyday she still does not fully have all the subtleties of English down. In my opinion, I would say that Alexa is also a naturalistic learner of English as well because in the video she talked about how she learned english on the playground at recess because she wanted to be able to play with the other students. This way she learned English in an environment that was not instructional, because she learned through her experiences on the playground and not in a classroom. According to Ortega naturalistic learners learn the L2 through informal opportunities in multicultural neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces, without ever receiving any organized instruction on the workings of the language they are learning (2013, pg. 6)
She mentioned in the interview that while she speaks both languages she feels like she won’t ever get to 100 percent of knowing English. This connects to the theory of fossilization where no matter how much continuous to the language input, motivation to improve, and the opportunity for practice, there will be a permanent lack of mastery. (Ortega, 2013, p. 134). Alexa still has problems with some everyday English colloquialisms, she sometimes feels very self conscious about how she sometimes doesn’t understand what is being said, even though she feels like she is fluent in the English language. She also says that even though she feels like she’ll never truly get English, she’s also losing some of her Spanish language as well. She says that she’ll forget certain words in Spanish or her mom will tell her that she’s pronouncing things wrong. Her siblings have an ever tougher time, where they can speak conversational Spanish, but because they learned English at an earlier language it impacted their Spanish speaking at home, but they agree that learning English at a younger age helped them in the long run (Ortega, 2013, p.16)
Hey Devin, I find it really interesting how your friend, Alexa, picked up English most effectively through cartoon shows such as, Dora the Explorer. Although the show may be targeted for little children and may seem to be kind of goofy, it is actually very effective of using both Spanish and English to learn both languages. The show also does an excellent job of utilizing images to help convey a clear message of what each word represents. I am sure bilingual classes use this strategy in their classroom, but I think general classes should use a heavy visual strategy, so students can associate words with images. Since Alexa learned Spanish prior to moving to the country and then started to learn English when she was four, she would be considered to be sequential multilingualism (Ortega, 2013, p. 192). She had already had an understanding of how grammar worked in her native language, so it may of been difficulty learning some of the funky grammar and phonics rules of English. According to the unitary language hypothesis, children become capable of distinguishing between the words of two languages, but still apply the same syntactic rules to both (Ortega, 2013, p. 194). I bet many students would struggle learning some of the words that have random silent letters since they may accustomed to the rules of their native language. Do you know of any strategies or how her teachers helped her understand this or do you think it was mainly repetition of drilling the idea that specific words have different sounds? I enjoyed the interview Devin!
ReplyDeleteCody, from what Alexa and I discussed it was mostly repetition and drilling that made the specific words stick. That and interactions from friends, like with words that are similar to island with silent letter sounds it was mostly her friends that caught the mistakes and told her how to pronounce them and why.
DeleteYeah that makes a lot of sense. As we grew up learning English, our teachers pointed out the special rules in pronouncing certain words. We grow accustomed to learning the sounds of the letters that we are able to identify special rules when we are told to pay attention to it. However, in Spanish, every letter has a sound, so this may be a difficult concept for students to understand at first.
DeleteHello Devin, I thought your video with Alexa was very interesting, especially the part where she mentioned that she used Spanish to help her learn English better. I had always assumed that trying to learn an additional language would be hard because a person would be so used to the structure and rules of their L1, but Alexa has disproved this assumption. I think Alexa learned English in the same way most children did, through authentic interactions. I think this further drives home Krashen's theory of Comprehensible Input. Ortega writes that 'learners process for meaning and which contains something to be learned... linguistic data slightly above their current level (Ortega, 2013 p.59)." When Alexa was at school and in the beginning stages of learning English, she was processing the language at a level that was sightly above hers, which allowed for her to learn the language in a comprehensible way.
ReplyDeleteLola, I completely agree with you. Although Alexa did have some issues and still has issues with some of the English language rules, they way school was set up definitely allowed her to learn English in a comprehensible way. It is still amazing to me to think about how much work goes into learning another language, even when you're young.
DeleteHi Devin, your interview with Alexa was very interesting. It stuck out to me that after coming to the US at a young age, Alexa was placed in a bilingual class where everything was in Spanish. In one of my observations I was placed in a bilingual classroom and that is also what I saw. I didn’t realize that that was so common. Alexa discusses having difficulties with pronouncing certain words in English, such as Island, because in Spanish words are pronounced just like they are read. You two also talk about how Alexa learned the L2 later and life and how this was beneficial for her. Oretga writes “when engaged in certain kinds of L2 syntactic processing, the bilingual brains of people who began learning their L2 later in life who clear different activation patterns: from those who are monolingual or learned the language earlier (Ortega, 2013, p.21) . Thank you for sharing your interview with us!
ReplyDeleteDaijah, I too was surprised by how bilingual classes are structured, it has made me interested in wanting to know why they are that way. I always used to think that learning a second language later on in life could have it's disadvantages. Alexa proved me wrong, it was interesting to hear why it helped her in high school.
DeleteHello Devin, I found you video intriguing and it was very fascinating about how the bilingual classes worked. It sounds very challenging for Alexa to go from a bilingual class where most thing that are learned, are taught in both languages, to entering a class where English is the only language that is taught. The Discussion about the way that things are pronounced was quite interesting. These interlingual identifications (Ortega 2013 p.32) are something that seem small and insignificant, but that can become challenging to deal with when it is not just a word, but grammar that changes. This was a fascinating interview and interesting to read you analysis on the Theory of Fossilization.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I agree that with interlingual identifications can be a bit tricky. Alexa often says when she makes mistakes it is because it is the closest thing she could think of that sounded correct. The theory of fossilization intrigues me, I had always assumed that once you became fluent then you mastered the languages that you learned.
DeleteHello Devin! I really enjoyed your interview and I think I can definitely relate to your friend Alexa. Thank you both for sharing with the class a little bit about her background. As Alexa mentioned, she learned English from hearing others speak it and from hearing it on T.V shows. Like Rowland mentions, “bilingual children are affected by the amount of language that they hear. The more language a child hears, the quicker she will develop the language.” (2014, P.193). Alexa was able to pick up some of her language from hearing other children such as the children in her school who weren’t in bilingual classrooms, speak the language. From what I remember, I also developed my English from hearing others. I can see how this facilitated the language for Alexa and how she was able to use her Spanish to learn the new language. This was a great interview and I liked how you related back to the theories in your reflection.
ReplyDeleteHello Devin, thank you for sharing your interview with Alexa with us! I found it interesting that she lived in a house where everyone spoke Spanish, and her only exposure to English was through television and interactions with her friends. Also she expressed difficulty when she was placed in an all English class in the fifth grade and she described doing vocabulary with the word island, but pronounced it in a Spanish dialect. I found it interesting that her bilingual class did not introduce English at all, and she was placed in a ELA class without being exposed to English. This interview touch on a topic that I was not aware of. which is the difficulties that bilinguals face. Alexa stated that by learning the second language and using it frequently, that the first language was lost to some extent. I connected this statement to the phrase "use it or lose it."
ReplyDeleteLaregilon, my friend Alexa helped me understand what she meant by when she learned a second language she started to lose some of her first language. The theory of fossilization actually describes what she was talking about. The theory talks about where no matter how much continuous to the language input, motivation to improve, and the opportunity for practice, there will be a permanent lack of mastery
DeleteIts so interesting to me that permanent mastery can never be achieved no matter how many opportunities are available to the learner an how much interaction is done with the language. The theory of fossilization goes against of earthing I personally believe when it comes to learning. I believe mastery can be achieved by something if there is a will (motivation) and plenty of opportunity. However, although someone can become proficient in a language, mastery is still something that is reserved for native learners. I wonder if this is due to the fact that language is constantly evolving.
DeleteI would agree with you on categorizing Alexa as a mixture of a naturalistic and instructed learner. I, personally, would go as far to say that as a child, Alexa seemed to be motivated to learn English, so that she could play alongside her native English speaking peers. There are different reasons for learning a second language. Even though Alexa was a child when she began learning English, I can infer from her responses that it was important to her, so that she could foster those friendships with members of the second language community. Moreover, I found your connection to the theory of fossilization to be extremely mind-opening. It is unfortunate that for some individuals, there might be a permanent lack of mastery of a second language, regardless of how much time, effort, and practice they put forth to learning that language.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, I agree with you that it is unfortunate that some individuals start to lose their first language and won't truly gain mastery in the second. I wonder if that has to do with our long term memory and/or our working memory. Is it that our brains pick and choose what we lose and what we gain based on how much we use a language?
DeleteHey Devin, I really enjoyed watching your interview! I think it's great that you mentioned how Alexa's mother tongue influenced her second language acquisition. According to Ortega (2013), knowledge of the L1 does indeed positively influence the rate of the L2 language (pg.42). This is a really important concept to keep in mind, especially when we encounter second language learners in our own classroom. It's interesting to see how second language learners sometimes get embarrassed because they are not understanding what is being said and this is true with Alexa too. According to Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, self-confidence and self-esteem are among the 4 most important factors favoring second language acquisition. I think her confidence in speaking her mother tongue language of Spanish and English will be influenced by her confidence. It's important to try and even if she is saying things wrong and her mom is telling her it's wrong, I think it's a critical process to become better in both languages. According to Krashen, learning is less important than acquisition and I agree. I wonder if Alexa claims she won't ever fully master English because she put that limitation on herself? Do you think that diminishes her motivation to truly acquire the English language?
ReplyDeleteFarah, I totally get what you are saying about her self-esteem and confidence when it comes to English. I think however it isn't really a confidence issue. I don't think that she beats herself up over not being perfect in English, because where she is right now is more than enough to get her through school and work. I think it's more of a way of looking at it realistically. Even I have trouble with the rules of English and Alexa realizes that she may not become 100% fluent in English and I think that she's come to terms with that.
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