Entry 4: Reflection

After this class, I feel like I have a better understanding and respect for language acquisition and second language learners. From taking this class, I have been able to make connections between what we have been learning and what I am seeing in the classroom.

            From taking this class, I think it will make me be more successful as a teacher and it will allow me to be more patient and understanding of ELL students. Right now, I have a whole ELL class. Just by being in that classroom, I feel like I have had the opportunity to see what it is like and what I can do to make sure second language learners are accomplishing what they need to accomplish in the classroom. I feel like from the text and being in the classroom I have seen many ways to help motivate my students to learn and to alter lessons if needed in my classroom.

            I think that all of the topics that we learned in this class need to receive the same amount of attention. Everything that we learned about in this course go together and I feel like none of the topics should receive less attention. All of the topics we covered in this course give an explanation and information about second language acquisition.

             I think the vlogs that we did helped out a lot in the learning process. The reason I think they helped is because to come up with the questions I had to read the readings assigned to us, so it helped me to be responsible in my own learning. The comments and interactions with my classmates also helped a lot because my classmates always came up with points that maybe I had missed or did not think about. I also think that because we had to include citations and text evidence it helped me to keep up with the reading which helped. The comments and interactions also helped me see points that I wanted to research more about or helped me notice more in my ELL classroom for student teaching. A lot of times in the interactions, my classmates would include examples from their student teaching classrooms which I liked because I was able to relate by seeing some of the same things in my own classroom.

            Overall, I think I learned a lot about second language acquisition. A lot of stuff I learned in this class I feel like I may have heard about or learned about in previous classes, but it was never as in depth like it is in this class. I think this class is a great class since there will always be children from different backgrounds in our classrooms. It is good to know about ELLs and the best way to teach them. From taking this class, I feel a lot more confident in teaching ELL students and being able to differentiate my teaching to better teach students who may be ELL learners. I hope second language methodology is as informational as this class.

Entry 3: Interview an ESL Teacher

Click here for my video

Reflection

During my interview with Mrs. Benavidez, I learned a lot about how important it is to be patient as an ESL teacher and also how critical it is for students to be motivated in their own learning. A lot of Mrs. Benavidez answers to my questions went back to motivation and how important it is for ESL students to be successful. Glasser says that “…being motivated nurtures more successful L2 learning, but, conversely, experiencing L2 learning success also boosts motivation to even higher levels, in a reinforcing cycle. Thus, motivation is indeed central in explaining L2 learning…(p. 189, 2009). If students are more motivated to learn their L2 language, then they are more likely to be successful. Mrs. Benavidez brought up the fact that a lot of times students may be afraid to speak up in class in fear that they may say something wrong or not know how to explain their thinking. Being in the classroom, I have been able to observe, and it is true. My homeroom students are ESL students and they do struggle with participating because they do not want to say something wrong. But as Mrs. Benavidez says, it is important to be patient and find ways to help these students, whether it’s by using more visuals, allowing them to have partners more often or even providing more audio work for them to work with. By talking to this ESL teacher, I felt like I learned a lot and she brought up some things that I hadn’t even thought about before the interview which is why I really appreciated this assignment.

Entry 2: Interview an ESL learner

Click Here for my entry 2 video

Reflection
For this entry video, I decided to interview one of my coworkers. Me and Ozzy have been working together for a few months or so now, and I have always had conversations with him. Although we speak often, being that we work together, I felt like after this experience I learned so much more about Ozzy and his background. All of which I did not know before this experience. I thought getting to interview him and getting to know about him and his experiences with learning English was awesome and interesting. One of the things Ozzy mentioned in his interview is how learning English from such a young age really beneficial in this journey to another language. He mentioned that if he had to learn English now it might not have been as easy as it was then. Ortega says “…learners who began acquiring the L2 before a certain age, which these studies locate to be around puberty, will tend to exhibit intuitions that are very close to those of native speakers of that language” (pg. 19,2013). Ozzy also spoke about how learning English was not very hard because he mostly heard English in the classroom and also the Spanish language and the English language are similar in many ways. Ortega states that “knowledge of the L1 can often have a positive impact on the rate of L2 learning” (pg. 42, 2013). Because he already knew his L1 language and it has similarities to his L2 language, Ozzy was able to pick up the language fairly quick. All in all, this interview helped me to see how difficult or easy learning a new language can be for some people. I felt like I understood more how SLA works by hearing Ozzy’s journey into learning his L2 language, and it also helped me to get to know him more.