Second Language Acquisition has been a very interesting course. I never thought that the dynamics of learning a second language could be so complex! The first thing I learned from this course that stuck with me throughout were the different ways that one acquires a second language, and how easy or challenging it may be depending on the individual. I have my own experience in learning a second language, and in my experience I learned the language from my parents and by going to the country of origin, which is Kenya. Through hearing people at home and on the streets speaking Kiswahili, I eventually caught on and acquired the language. The first time I went to Kenya I was very young, and that is when I knew Kiswahili most fluently. This made perfect sense to me when I found out that several theorists believe that children acquire a language more successfully than adults do. I learned that learning a second language effectively has a lot to d...
For this week's blog, I interviewed Mrs. King, a second grade bilingual teacher at Don Jeter Elementary. Click here to view it! Interviewing Mrs. King was very interesting. She is the type of instructor that always makes an effort to make her lessons relevant, hands on, and engaging for her students. As I was interviewing her, I learned that although her students all speak Spanish as their first language, they still come from many different contexts which affects their exposure to the English language. Some of Mrs. King’s students were born and raised in America but their parents only speak Spanish and therefore that is what they grew up hearing in their homes. Other students have just recently moved to the states and have had little to no exposure to English speaking individuals. In our textbook, Ortega talks about research conducted on school children that are learning a second language ...