As I read the first chapters of Saville-Troike, I found myself being reminded that language isn’t simply a verbal action. Language is compounded in a social and political atmosphere. L2’s are faced with social pressure to perform well among L1 peers in class or perform well for their parents as the students strive to grasp a second language. This scenario seems typical to me, yet I find the critical point to be that the home support from the families in my classroom is on a spectrum. I have students whose parents push and applaud their children for academic progress in language acquisition. At the opposite end of the spectrum, are students whose parents speak a first language, and are indifferent to their child attaining fluency and achievement as L2 learners. The students themselves straddle the home culture through traditional celebrations yet do not speak the home language or very little of it, while feeling very much outside of their home culture at school and outside their community because of a conformist atmosphere within the society.
In the end, even though language acquisition is hard-wired within us, second language is learned, not innate. So, as an educator, I need to remember that language, like Math, is a process that takes years of learning. Just because I can add and subtract does not mean that I will absorb algebraic expressions in a heartbeat. Language learning floats in a similar boat.
In Troike on page 10 when reasons for misrepresenting whether a second language was spoken at home were given I immediately thought of the first class I taught. I had many ELL refusals in my kindergarten class, whose parents had indicated only English was spoken at home on the registration forms. It was very apparent that their children definitely spoke another language because they would be using it in the classroom or in the hallways when talking to their siblings. The only reason I could think of for this denial of another language spoken at home was to prevent their child's placement in a bilingual classroom. Most of these parents were of Asian descent and there are not many classrooms in the district which offer bilingual education for children who speak languages other than Spanish. I did not prevent the children from using their native language in the classroom, in fact I would purposely pair a student with stronger English with a student who spoke their same native language to allow for some translation of my directions to occur if necessary. I was always very supportive and this is when the idea for the sharing of all the cultures in my classroom started. This was a very diverse class with very supportive parents.
Ellen, Your reference to the parents denial of no second language at home connects to the political atmosphere of school and society. School, no bilingual class as you referenced, but also the blending in to be accepted by mainstream America. The perception of "I'm just like you,"another generation being taught to straddle a cultural line in the sand.
How Languages are learned To start off with this book started with a very true statement that as educators as we learn new approaches to teachers we quickly abandoned what we were doing and started something new. Therefore this book has come to help to evaluate existing textbooks and materials but also adapt ways that are more consistent to how to better help our students understand how we learn language. The purpose of this chapter is to look at research and how to prepare for the second language acquisitions. First of all we need to help our students in many ways. We need to continue to let our students learn from being social, like BICS and that will help them have a higher level of knowledge and performance. I need to help my students develop and scaffold them as they develop our language. Like the behaviorist theorist (B.F. Skinner) sees language development. First is behaviorism, they see is as children imitate what is around them and respond to positive reinforcement. They will start with word to word repetition, and once they have a good grasp of the language he will stop imitating. Also Interactionist believe that is a mixture of innate and environment that helps a child develop based on their experiences. Either way students will learn and grow in their language. I know that if slow down when I speak and use simpler sentences they will pick up the language. I also see that as they continue through their development of learning the language they will work on grammatical morphemes and their order of acquisition. They will not follow in the set sequence since they do not develop at the same age and rate. This will be good to have so I can look deeper that their writing and know where to go next with them. As the student grows in their language they will develop more vocabulary due to being exposed to more people, and their social interaction. Then as student go to school and continue to learn to read they will be exposed to more words, and symbols. They will discover that words may have more than one meaning which is called metalinguistic awareness. I am seeing this in my class a lot when we are talking during reading group. Since taking linguist my students are looking more at words and the different meaning. It is great to see them so excited about words. Just the other day we looked at queer and molested from a book we are reading, and the way they know them is different from what the book was saying. By reading students will be exposed to new words and phrases and vocabulary. Most important for me is that having two languages will open the doors for my students, help create academic success in metalinguistic awareness. The part of the article that I still question is how to help my students is the fact that they are losing their first language. I feel bad, and I know that because they are not exposed as much or practice as much is part of problem. The article said that parents can work on the additive bilingualism and they should look the second language. I wonder if this is really true, and if so we should be telling our parents to do this. I will have to look deeper into this research.
After reading the two chapters in this book, I am realizing that SLA truly is a multidimensional process. The three perspectives; linguistic, psychological and social, each have a specific focus, yet complement one another when understanding SLA. I am interested in learning about each perspective, and hope to take away a deeper understanding of how my students are acquiring a second language. I am learning too that having an innate capacity to learn language is easier with a first language, and not necessarily true for older learners of a second langage. I can see the value of Dual Language classrooms. As stated in the first post above, learning a second language is a process that will take time. As a 6th grade teacher, I do see some of my students very comfortable with their second language. Yet now I wonder what struggles they are having. I have never asked a student individually about their second lanugage, something I am going to begin doing in my classroom.
May 17, 2013 In 2006, I took two ESL classes: C & I 320 and Eng. 341. Friday night I joined the cohort that had recently finished these two courses. My memory was jolted as academic ESL language and acronyms were discussed.
When my husband and I were dating, we discussed the idea of living outside the United States. Our motivation was simply “an interest in knowing more about people of another culture.” (Page 10 Second Language Acquisition) I had never seen this reason for learning another language articulated in print. A few years later, we went to a job fair for educators at the University of Northern Iowa. Before the weekend of interviews were over, he was offered a job to teach sixth grade at John F. Kennedy Schule (JFK) in Berlin, Germany. Little did I know back then, the impact it would have on my life.
My husband and I took Spanish in high school and college as a course requirement as opposed to true language acquisition. We had never spoken German before arriving in Berlin in August of 1990. We took a few German lessons from one of the JFK teachers. Otherwise, we just studied vocabulary and practiced speaking German with Germans everyday. One of the most fascinating experiences with simultaneous multilanguage acquisition he and I witnessed was a family whose children were learning three languages. The mother spoke only French, the father only spoke English and the children learned German from school and playing with neighborhood kids. This was successful because the parents knew all three languages.
On pages 19 and 20 in Second Language Acquisition, it describes the dynamic of transfer from L1 to L2. One example, given in the book is when an immigrant adult arrives in the USA, he or she already has the vocational knowledge and skills necessary for driving a car. The person only needs to learn the vocabulary needed for rules, regulations and passing the test. Having my second baby in Germany provided a personal example as I met with two female German teachers from JFK to learn vocabulary and discuss an event with which I was familiar. Our weekly language sessions helped ease my mind and prepare me for the birth of my son, which turned out to be a very positive experience with nurses and doctors.
I made a connection with the census question on p. 11. If somebody had asked me when I was 10 years old what my native language was, I would have had to reply, German and English. My mother, grandmother, and sister were born in Germany. My mother (Mutti) came to the US in 1963 with my grandmother following in 1965. I was born in 1966. My grandmother lived with us and pretty much raised me since my mother and father both worked long hours outside the home. In order to communicate with Mutti, I had to speak German. Therefore, I learned both English and German simultaneously, making both languages my native language (at that particular time). Unfortunately, since Mutti passed away, I have not spoken German and of course we all know the expression, “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. I am able to understand most words, but am unable to recall many words. After reading Chapter 2 in Troike, it is so clear and obvious that learning language is innate. How often do we hear students say words that they would not have heard before, like runned, or mouses, or goed. We even hear it in their reading when they mispronounce words and don’t even realize it.
After meeting this weekend and rereading the first two chapters of Saville-Trokie I have already learned/been reminded of so much. In the book the discussion of informal L2 learning (naturalistic context) and formal L2 learning (that which takes place in the classroom) reminded me of our discussion in C&I 320 about BICS and CALP. I feel that informal L2 learning and BICS tie in together, as well as formal L2 learning having a connection with CALP.
The second language vocabulary terms at the end of chapter 1 were also interesting. Some of the terms I had never heard of while others such as second language and foreign language, until working in the cohort, I thought were basically the same.
In chapter 2 I found the section on natural ability the most interesting. The fact that humans are born with the ability to learn language is amazing. Students of various languages learn basic operations around the same age regardless of the language they are speaking.
As I was reading the first chapter of the book, and while we were discussing in class I came to realize that I had never really thought of why people learn a second language outside of moving to another country. This was a little embarrassing to me but as I read on it began to make sense. Saville-Troike states that many English speaking countries do not see the need to learn a second language because we can get by in other countries, because those countries have learned English. I think this may have been the reason I had never really thought about why someone might learn a new language because as an English speaker I do not feel that I have to learn another language. ON page four of chapter one Saville-Troike makes a comment about how sequential bilingualism is far more common than simultaneous bilingualism, and I would have to strongly disagree. I feel that today, especially in U-46, we are continually getting more and more students that speak two languages (typically Spanish and English) and have been for as long as they remember. When I read chapter two my head was spinning! It is mind boggling to think of all the things the human brain is capable of. Here, once again, I had never really thought about how we learn language. To me it was just something that happened. I was fascinated to hear all the theories about how when we are born our brains are already hard wired for us to learn language. I also thought it was amazing how our brains work to filter in the sounds, or phonemes, that we need and tune out the ones we do not. It was really fascinating to read the theories of how and when the window for language acquisitions closes and how different people acquire different language skills. This part of the chapter made me wonder about people that are able to easily pick up multiple languages. Were these people exposed to a variety of languages when they were young? Are their brains wired differently? Did they retain more natural ability than everyone else which allows them to acclimate and learn languages with greater ease?
In the first two chapters of Saville-Troike it reminded me of my paper I just did for our linguistics class. SLA is a process and we have to look at it that way. We just can’t pick up a language right away but acquire it through the learning process. As we get older it becomes more difficult to acquire because I believe we have a tendency to constantly code-switch in our translation, but starting children right away in a second language they will acquire it just like if they were learning a signal language maybe a little slower, but after 7 to 8 years they will begin to apply the same strategies to both languages. I am in favor of the dual language program for our students. I only fear the funding and support from parents and district wont stays there which is sad.
After reading chapters 1 and 2 from Saville-Troike, the thought of how are brains are wired to develop a first language is incredible. I view our first language as a gift considering that acquiring most of our first language is completed prior to kindergarten. Thinking about this really makes me think about the importance of parents working with their children from the time they are born. When it comes to students of low-in-come and students of poverty, regardless of Spanish language or English, it is necessary for parents to read and have conversations with their children. Reading and having conversations really allows the mind to navigate through the sounds of speech and to develop their native language. Also if we do not provide opportunities for children to interact with language they will lack language and will fall behind. Preschool should become mandated and should not become an option.
After reading Chapters 1 & 2 in Saville-Troike, I was able to better sort out the difference of important terms that I often used to confuse. For example, I understand better that simultaneous bilingualism is acquiring two languages at once which aligns more to our dual language program that is coming up through our school district. Also, I never thought of L2 being not only the second language acquired, but any language acquired after L1. I found myself reflecting on my own initial thoughts on bilingualism (or multilingualism) and how I had never really considered it such a multidimensional process. Admittedly, I was pretty narrow minded considering that the goal of most previous bilingual programs that I am familiar with was to shift every student to English rather than continuing to grow in both languages. I am starting to understand better the psychological, linguist, and social components of second language acquisition. This answer the question that I wondered about as I read that was presented in the text about why some L2 learners are more successful than others. I believe without all these aspects being considered in addition to the child’s innate ability, degrees of success can be better determined.
Session I Blog: Nicole Tucker Saville-Troike, Chapter 1-2
It’s very easy to see in the classroom that Second Language Learners acquire English at different rates. Even our students that have exited the traditional bilingual program enter a monolingual classroom at very different stages. In the Saville-Troike text, we begin to how language is learned and what is learned depend on different situations, exposure, instruction, setting and a variety of other circumstances. More than just that, they are “influenced by social, cultural and economic factors too”. (Saville-Troike 5)
In the reading, I found that many theorists believe that as people we have an inate ability to learn language, meaning we are wired to learn language from the very beginning. I found it interesting that babies around the world, no matter what language, tend to acquire their L1 at a relatively same rate. An important part of the reading though, and for this class, is to look at how L1 and L2 languages are acquired and how to look at them together and separately.
Like I said before, in the initial state of L1 it is said that there is innate capacity to learn. However, in L2 theorists debate on whether there is innate capacity is still a factor when people begin to age. Personally, my four year old son is learning a second language right now. However, I would still considered that this is being sequentially learned. I do think that he has the innate capacity to learn Spanish as his second language and seems to be flourishing in his dual language program. I on the other hand, have struggled for years learning Spanish. I have taken Spanish “101” in highschool, college and then again when I started working for this district. I have struggled each time. Perhaps is was motivation to learn, or the time that you need to dedicate to learning it. I certainly don’t think acquiring an L2 is innate for me. I do think though, that I struggle with learning the language because of the method of delivery. We don’t expect 2-5years olds to learn 100 new vocabulary words and introduce syntax to them in one class period and hope that they retain it. Quite the contrary, we understand that there is a method to LA and we know that BICS/CALPS take time to develop. I learned more Spanish sharing a room with a colleague and listening to her provide intervention to five year old Spanish speaking students, then I did in several semesters of Spanish.
The chapter goes on to discuss intermediate states (basic, necessary, and facilitating). In both L1 and L2 input plays a big role in language acquisition. In L2, transferring from one language to the next is a step in reaching the final stage of language acquisition. I see that my students are at varying levels in the intermediate states. While some have positive transfers in their writing, others have difficulty in the syntactic delivery of their utterances and orthographic representations. I find it fascinating that each of them are at different levels and I have often wondered what factors have contributed to some having more positive transfers than others.
As I continue in my ESL classes and read the assigned books, it is getting easier to understand the difference between L1 and L2. L1 being refered to as first language, native language, primary language, and mother tongue is what you initially learn to speak. Anything after that will be your L2. However, you can learn 2 languages at the same time, simultaneous multilingualism. My children were learning 2 languages at the same time. My aunt, who was their caregiver while I was at work, only spoke Assyrian. Therefore, all of the words they heard from her while we were away were in Assyrian. When we would come back from work and my other children came home from school, English was spoken. The TV was also English. They truly learned both languages and would go between the two without even thinking about it. Code switching was done all day long. Now that I work ELL students I have to always be cautious to be sure that they are understanding the lessons taught. To be honest, up until now, when my studentsw would speak in Spanish, I would stop them right away and say, "We are in an English classroom and you will speak in English only." Now I have completly stopped that. As long as they are speaking academically, I let them. I will even chime in if I know the words. It is a process to learn a language which is what most of our students are doing and then to learn an academic language on top of that is difficult. I am now aware of that and have shifted my way of thinking and or speaking.
After reading Chapters 1 and 2 of Saville-Troike I am able to better understand how students acquire a second language. Funny thing is I find myself relating to many of the methods discussed in this chapter during my own journey of learning Spanish as an L2. Chapter 1 defined SLA (Second Language Acquisition) as “both the study of individuals and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and the process of learning that language” (Saville-Troike 2). I can attribute my success with learning Spanish as a second language to my formal education in high school, as well as, immersing myself in the culture for a summer in Mexico at age 7. It is due to both of these factors that I was able to successfully acquire this L2. I agree with Saville-Troike that some learners are more successful than other in acquiring an L2. The book mentions individual aptitude for L2 learning, personality factors, types of strength and motivation as well as different learning strategies can all attribute to differences in learning and learners from a psycholinguists perspective. I find it extremely interesting that in America we do NOT require our students to acquire a second language. Though we live in a global society and see how beneficial second language acquisition can be, we still don’t challenge or students to take charge in this area. Interestingly a underdeveloped country like Africa close to 100% of the speakers speak the national language and another language (Saville-Troike 9). It is very true that acquiring a second language as an adult is much more difficult and requires much greater motivation. I attribute my L2 success to cultural immersion at an early age of 7. I love the theory of innate capacity that states humans are born with a natural ability to learn language. As I watch my younger cousins grow it amazes me how easily they pick up Spanish from watching shows like Dora and Diego. Even more importantly I can prepare myself to instill a second language in my child at a young age. I plan on encouraging the idea of simultaneous multilingualism for my child as my Spanish- speaking grandmother (our child care provider) use Spanish and my husband use English. It amazes me to learn such a technical process of SLA while I found it to be very simple in my own experience. This brings truth to the critical period hypothesis and why learning and L2 at a young age is vital for success.
Saville and Troika Chapters 1 and 2 Before taking this class, I gave very little thought to the complexities of learning a second language. I am probably ethno-centric in this area. The idea that at least half the world’s population is multilingual is a real awakening for me. I also had no idea that there were so many factors in trying to compile meaningful Linguistic data to study. But I can see that even the parents of some of my students do not want to attract undue attention that may bring on questions about immigration status. Some do not even darken the door of the school or ride in cars because of this very real issue. While reading through the rest of the chapter, I came across the word “Transfer.” Several of my students were recently experiencing a negative transfer between the words major and mayor. We were doing our oral presentations of our state reports and I heard several students say, “The mayor rivers are…” Fortunately I have a rudimentary understanding of Spanish and realized they were confusing mayor and major. Mayor in Spanish does mean major, so it was tricky for them to pick up on the difference. But I was able to tell them that what they were doing was not a mistake, but called a transfer from their first language. Their faces lit up and I felt like I had a real breakthrough and connection with them!
Saville-Troike Chapters 1 & 2 in this book made me stop and think about a lot of issues related to second language acquisition. The only experience I had with acquiring a second language was in college when I took 4 years of French and 2 years of Spanish – but please don’t ask me to speak either one because I can’t! I had never really considered that SLA is a multidimensional process. Linguistic, psychological and social perspectives work together in this process. Each perspective has a specific set of components, and working together they are key to SLA. I further thought about our school district, and the move from their goal of exiting bilingual students into monolingual English classrooms to our new Dual Language classrooms. The students will now experience simultaneous bilingualism by using both English and Spanish 50/50 by the time they are 3rd grade and beyond. I understand that the students will be acquiring their 2nd language while preserving their 1st. But, I can’t help but wonder what will happen once they’re finished with 8th grade and unable to continue Dual Language into high school since the district has stated that it will not go into the high schools. Maybe that will change.
In the Chapters 1 and 2 of the Saville-Troike book, the first area that I found helped was the defining of vocabulary terms. For instance, all the different words to define languages, like the first, auxiliary, library and foreign, I never knew existed. So many of these terms are necessary to understand the reading and in that fact also class. I find myself trying to figure out what a certain acronym means or what a word that I am not familiar with actually means. As I type this, I wonder if that is how my students feel when they are faced with new words in the English language. I know I am constantly defining words to help them understand and sometimes I take words for granted that I think they know and actually don’t. Several things caught my interest in the chapters. First, in chapter 2, when they were talking about the languages of the world and how many people speak each language as a first or second language, I could not get over the actual numbers. It is truly amazing how many people in the world are bilingual. I hate to admit the fact that I am not. I truly wish I were, but after reading the chapter, I don’t know if I could pick up a second language. Maybe I would be able to pick up the social piece of a language or as an auxiliary language. I say this because the chapter also states that most of our language development occurs before we enter Kindergarten. This is why it is so important for children to be talked to and interacted with as young children. I think not only adult interaction is important for children to develop their language, but also interaction with peers. Is this why some only children or oldest children have a language that is more adult-like instead of child-like? Is it because they are around adults more and don’t have the interactions with other children the same age? I also found the stages of language acquisition for the first and second language to be engaging. I found it interesting that world knowledge plays such an important role in the initial stage of L2 acquisition. I guess this would come from the fact that if you know the meaning of a word in your first language, then it should be easier to understand in a second language. These chapters showed me how much I still need to learn, but the good news is I found it very intriguing.
Stacy, I agree that it is SOOOO critical to talk to and interact with your young children. A neighbor of mine has a son who had a baby with his girlfriend. These are people in their early 20's. Their beautiful daughter is about 2-1/2 years old and I have seen her once in a while. [There are no second languages in this house, BTW] The last time I was just playing with her and I said, "Where is your nose?" She just gave me a blank stare. I repeated it and touched my nose. She looked interested and touched her nose. I turned to my neighbor and asked her if her parents play body parts games with her and SHE gave me a blank stare! Within about five minutes, this little one was touching her nose, eyes, ears, mixing them up a little bit, but loving the learning. I was almost crying inside. Here is this perfectly healthy-brained child who is probably going to go into kindergarten with delays all because no one took the time to work with her! I got copies of the "Give Me Five" plan and am going to give it to them!
After reading the two chapters, I am amazed at how we acquire language. One thing that stuck with me are the different factors that contribute to the acquisition of a 2nd language. There are so many outside factors that affect the learning conditions of the 2nd language learner. It seems more unfair how we assess these students. Because of the many factors that can contribute to one students success compared to another's how can we fairly assess these students? It's hard to wrap my brain around everything discussed in the chapters, but I am thinking the dual language program may be best for students acquiring English, only however if they are sticking to the true model. I do wish our district were able to make this a true equal opportunity. Right now I feel our bilingual program is really only for learning English.
SLA is highly complex, and its success depends on a variety of factors. In Chapter 1, Saville-Troike lists three questions to ask in order to better understand the process. What does the L2 come to know, how is this knowledge acquired, and why are some more successful than others. I believe that the success of the SLL depends largely on motivation - why is the learner acquiring the language (second language, auxiliary, library, foreign, etc.)? When I look at the current language programs in our district, I see a subtractive transitional bilingual program that is slowly phasing itself out in favor of an additive dual language model. This brief chapter (1) reminded me why our district is moving to dual language. With English being the goal in Bilingual, a teacher may never really uncover a student's linguistic competence, because the focus is on production. In Dual Language, strategies such as bridging help to integrate and scaffold both linguistic competence and production.
Chapter 2 went deeper by providing some background related to the three schools of thought mentioned in the previous chapter. These perspectives are linguistic, psychological, and social. Within the linguistic perspective are two foci - internal and external - related to Skinner and Piaget/Vogotsky, respectively. Psychologically-speaking, the focus has been on understanding how SLA is affected by the brain and age. Emotional factors such as attitude and anxiety level, also play into this process.
I continue to notice that there is so much information that gen ed teachers need to know/would benefit from learning on this topic. I'm looking forward the day where they are included in such rigorous and relevant professional development.
After reading chapters 1&2 of Saville-Troike, and learning more about SLA, I can't get out of my head why we wait until high school to teach students a second language. With the critical period of language acquisition ending by the time children reach puberty, the fact that the brain 'weeds out' phonemes not used, and the ease with which children learn language when it is practiced, why don't we take advantage of all these incredible biological factors and teach our children two languages like the rest of the world? We wait until high school, or even adulthood, when people like me totally butcher the language and cannot roll an 'R' when speaking Spanish for anything. Dual language is a good start, but what about the parents who opt out? With all this research and information on the brain development and language acquisition,from the linguistice, psychological, and social perspective, wouldn't it make more sense to teach children a second language in elementary school?
Saville-Troike Blog #1
ReplyDeleteAs I read the first chapters of Saville-Troike, I found myself being reminded that language isn’t simply a verbal action. Language is compounded in a social and political atmosphere. L2’s are faced with social pressure to perform well among L1 peers in class or perform well for their parents as the students strive to grasp a second language. This scenario seems typical to me, yet I find the critical point to be that the home support from the families in my classroom is on a spectrum. I have students whose parents push and applaud their children for academic progress in language acquisition. At the opposite end of the spectrum, are students whose parents speak a first language, and are indifferent to their child attaining fluency and achievement as L2 learners. The students themselves straddle the home culture through traditional celebrations yet do not speak the home language or very little of it, while feeling very much outside of their home culture at school and outside their community because of a conformist atmosphere within the society.
In the end, even though language acquisition is hard-wired within us, second language is learned, not innate. So, as an educator, I need to remember that language, like Math, is a process that takes years of learning. Just because I can add and subtract does not mean that I will absorb algebraic expressions in a heartbeat. Language learning floats in a similar boat.
In Troike on page 10 when reasons for misrepresenting whether a second language was spoken at home were given I immediately thought of the first class I taught. I had many ELL refusals in my kindergarten class, whose parents had indicated only English was spoken at home on the registration forms. It was very apparent that their children definitely spoke another language because they would be using it in the classroom or in the hallways when talking to their siblings. The only reason I could think of for this denial of another language spoken at home was to prevent their child's placement in a bilingual classroom. Most of these parents were of Asian descent and there are not many classrooms in the district which offer bilingual education for children who speak languages other than Spanish. I did not prevent the children from using their native language in the classroom, in fact I would purposely pair a student with stronger English with a student who spoke their same native language to allow for some translation of my directions to occur if necessary. I was always very supportive and this is when the idea for the sharing of all the cultures in my classroom started. This was a very diverse class with very supportive parents.
ReplyDeleteEllen,
DeleteYour reference to the parents denial of no second language at home connects to the political atmosphere of school and society. School, no bilingual class as you referenced, but also the blending in to be accepted by mainstream America. The perception of "I'm just like you,"another generation being taught to straddle a cultural line in the sand.
How Languages are learned
ReplyDeleteTo start off with this book started with a very true statement that as
educators as we learn new approaches to teachers we quickly abandoned
what we were doing and started something new. Therefore this book has
come to help to evaluate existing textbooks and materials but also
adapt ways that are more consistent to how to better help our students
understand how we learn language. The purpose of this chapter is to
look at research and how to prepare for the second language
acquisitions. First of all we need to help our students in many ways.
We need to continue to let our students learn from being social, like
BICS and that will help them have a higher level of knowledge and
performance. I need to help my students develop and scaffold them as
they develop our language. Like the behaviorist theorist (B.F.
Skinner) sees language development. First is behaviorism, they see is
as children imitate what is around them and respond to positive
reinforcement. They will start with word to word repetition, and once
they have a good grasp of the language he will stop imitating. Also
Interactionist believe that is a mixture of innate and environment
that helps a child develop based on their experiences. Either way
students will learn and grow in their language. I know that if slow
down when I speak and use simpler sentences they will pick up the
language. I also see that as they continue through their development
of learning the language they will work on grammatical morphemes and
their order of acquisition. They will not follow in the set sequence
since they do not develop at the same age and rate. This will be good
to have so I can look deeper that their writing and know where to go
next with them. As the student grows in their language they will
develop more vocabulary due to being exposed to more people, and their
social interaction. Then as student go to school and continue to learn
to read they will be exposed to more words, and symbols. They will
discover that words may have more than one meaning which is called
metalinguistic awareness. I am seeing this in my class a lot when we
are talking during reading group. Since taking linguist my students
are looking more at words and the different meaning. It is great to
see them so excited about words. Just the other day we looked at queer
and molested from a book we are reading, and the way they know them is
different from what the book was saying. By reading students will be
exposed to new words and phrases and vocabulary. Most important for me
is that having two languages will open the doors for my students, help
create academic success in metalinguistic awareness.
The part of the article that I still question is how to help my
students is the fact that they are losing their first language. I feel
bad, and I know that because they are not exposed as much or practice
as much is part of problem. The article said that parents can work on
the additive bilingualism and they should look the second language. I
wonder if this is really true, and if so we should be telling our
parents to do this. I will have to look deeper into this research.
Saville-Troike
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the two chapters in this book, I am realizing that SLA truly is a multidimensional process. The three perspectives; linguistic, psychological and social, each have a specific focus, yet complement one another when understanding SLA. I am interested in learning about each perspective, and hope to take away a deeper understanding of how my students are acquiring a second language. I am learning too that having an innate capacity to learn language is easier with a first language, and not necessarily true for older learners of a second langage. I can see the value of Dual Language classrooms. As stated in the first post above, learning a second language is a process that will take time. As a 6th grade teacher, I do see some of my students very comfortable with their second language. Yet now I wonder what struggles they are having. I have never asked a student individually about their second lanugage, something I am going to begin doing in my classroom.
May 17, 2013
ReplyDeleteIn 2006, I took two ESL classes: C & I 320 and Eng. 341. Friday night I joined the cohort that had recently finished these two courses. My memory was jolted as academic ESL language and acronyms were discussed.
When my husband and I were dating, we discussed the idea of living outside the United States. Our motivation was simply “an interest in knowing more about people of another culture.” (Page 10 Second Language Acquisition) I had never seen this reason for learning another language articulated in print. A few years later, we went to a job fair for educators at the University of Northern Iowa. Before the weekend of interviews were over, he was offered a job to teach sixth grade at John F. Kennedy Schule (JFK) in Berlin, Germany. Little did I know back then, the impact it would have on my life.
My husband and I took Spanish in high school and college as a course requirement as opposed to true language acquisition. We had never spoken German before arriving in Berlin in August of 1990. We took a few German lessons from one of the JFK teachers. Otherwise, we just studied vocabulary and practiced speaking German with Germans everyday. One of the most fascinating experiences with simultaneous multilanguage acquisition he and I witnessed was a family whose children were learning three languages. The mother spoke only French, the father only spoke English and the children learned German from school and playing with neighborhood kids. This was successful because the parents knew all three languages.
On pages 19 and 20 in Second Language Acquisition, it describes the dynamic of transfer from L1 to L2. One example, given in the book is when an immigrant adult arrives in the USA, he or she already has the vocational knowledge and skills necessary for driving a car. The person only needs to learn the vocabulary needed for rules, regulations and passing the test. Having my second baby in Germany provided a personal example as I met with two female German teachers from JFK to learn vocabulary and discuss an event with which I was familiar. Our weekly language sessions helped ease my mind and prepare me for the birth of my son, which turned out to be a very positive experience with nurses and doctors.
I made a connection with the census question on p. 11. If somebody had asked me when I was 10 years old what my native language was, I would have had to reply, German and English. My mother, grandmother, and sister were born in Germany. My mother (Mutti) came to the US in 1963 with my grandmother following in 1965. I was born in 1966. My grandmother lived with us and pretty much raised me since my mother and father both worked long hours outside the home. In order to communicate with Mutti, I had to speak German. Therefore, I learned both English and German simultaneously, making both languages my native language (at that particular time). Unfortunately, since Mutti passed away, I have not spoken German and of course we all know the expression, “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. I am able to understand most words, but am unable to recall many words.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Chapter 2 in Troike, it is so clear and obvious that learning language is innate. How often do we hear students say words that they would not have heard before, like runned, or mouses, or goed. We even hear it in their reading when they mispronounce words and don’t even realize it.
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ReplyDeleteAfter meeting this weekend and rereading the first two chapters of Saville-Trokie I have already learned/been reminded of so much. In the book the discussion of informal L2 learning (naturalistic context) and formal L2 learning (that which takes place in the classroom) reminded me of our discussion in C&I 320 about BICS and CALP. I feel that informal L2 learning and BICS tie in together, as well as formal L2 learning having a connection with CALP.
ReplyDeleteThe second language vocabulary terms at the end of chapter 1 were also interesting. Some of the terms I had never heard of while others such as second language and foreign language, until working in the cohort, I thought were basically the same.
In chapter 2 I found the section on natural ability the most interesting. The fact that humans are born with the ability to learn language is amazing. Students of various languages learn basic operations around the same age regardless of the language they are speaking.
As I was reading the first chapter of the book, and while we were discussing in class I came to realize that I had never really thought of why people learn a second language outside of moving to another country. This was a little embarrassing to me but as I read on it began to make sense. Saville-Troike states that many English speaking countries do not see the need to learn a second language because we can get by in other countries, because those countries have learned English. I think this may have been the reason I had never really thought about why someone might learn a new language because as an English speaker I do not feel that I have to learn another language.
ReplyDeleteON page four of chapter one Saville-Troike makes a comment about how sequential bilingualism is far more common than simultaneous bilingualism, and I would have to strongly disagree. I feel that today, especially in U-46, we are continually getting more and more students that speak two languages (typically Spanish and English) and have been for as long as they remember.
When I read chapter two my head was spinning! It is mind boggling to think of all the things the human brain is capable of. Here, once again, I had never really thought about how we learn language. To me it was just something that happened. I was fascinated to hear all the theories about how when we are born our brains are already hard wired for us to learn language. I also thought it was amazing how our brains work to filter in the sounds, or phonemes, that we need and tune out the ones we do not. It was really fascinating to read the theories of how and when the window for language acquisitions closes and how different people acquire different language skills. This part of the chapter made me wonder about people that are able to easily pick up multiple languages. Were these people exposed to a variety of languages when they were young? Are their brains wired differently? Did they retain more natural ability than everyone else which allows them to acclimate and learn languages with greater ease?
In the first two chapters of Saville-Troike it reminded me of my paper I just did for our linguistics class. SLA is a process and we have to look at it that way. We just can’t pick up a language right away but acquire it through the learning process. As we get older it becomes more difficult to acquire because I believe we have a tendency to constantly code-switch in our translation, but starting children right away in a second language they will acquire it just like if they were learning a signal language maybe a little slower, but after 7 to 8 years they will begin to apply the same strategies to both languages. I am in favor of the dual language program for our students. I only fear the funding and support from parents and district wont stays there which is sad.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading chapters 1 and 2 from Saville-Troike, the thought of how are brains are wired to develop a first language is incredible. I view our first language as a gift considering that acquiring most of our first language is completed prior to kindergarten. Thinking about this really makes me think about the importance of parents working with their children from the time they are born. When it comes to students of low-in-come and students of poverty, regardless of Spanish language or English, it is necessary for parents to read and have conversations with their children. Reading and having conversations really allows the mind to navigate through the sounds of speech and to develop their native language. Also if we do not provide opportunities for children to interact with language they will lack language and will fall behind. Preschool should become mandated and should not become an option.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Chapters 1 & 2 in Saville-Troike, I was able to better sort out the difference of important terms that I often used to confuse. For example, I understand better that simultaneous bilingualism is acquiring two languages at once which aligns more to our dual language program that is coming up through our school district. Also, I never thought of L2 being not only the second language acquired, but any language acquired after L1. I found myself reflecting on my own initial thoughts on bilingualism (or multilingualism) and how I had never really considered it such a multidimensional process. Admittedly, I was pretty narrow minded considering that the goal of most previous bilingual programs that I am familiar with was to shift every student to English rather than continuing to grow in both languages. I am starting to understand better the psychological, linguist, and social components of second language acquisition. This answer the question that I wondered about as I read that was presented in the text about why some L2 learners are more successful than others. I believe without all these aspects being considered in addition to the child’s innate ability, degrees of success can be better determined.
ReplyDeleteSession I Blog: Nicole Tucker
ReplyDeleteSaville-Troike, Chapter 1-2
It’s very easy to see in the classroom that Second Language Learners acquire English at different rates. Even our students that have exited the traditional bilingual program enter a monolingual classroom at very different stages. In the Saville-Troike text, we begin to how language is learned and what is learned depend on different situations, exposure, instruction, setting and a variety of other circumstances. More than just that, they are “influenced by social, cultural and economic factors too”. (Saville-Troike 5)
In the reading, I found that many theorists believe that as people we have an inate ability to learn language, meaning we are wired to learn language from the very beginning. I found it interesting that babies around the world, no matter what language, tend to acquire their L1 at a relatively same rate. An important part of the reading though, and for this class, is to look at how L1 and L2 languages are acquired and how to look at them together and separately.
Like I said before, in the initial state of L1 it is said that there is innate capacity to learn. However, in L2 theorists debate on whether there is innate capacity is still a factor when people begin to age. Personally, my four year old son is learning a second language right now. However, I would still considered that this is being sequentially learned. I do think that he has the innate capacity to learn Spanish as his second language and seems to be flourishing in his dual language program. I on the other hand, have struggled for years learning Spanish. I have taken Spanish “101” in highschool, college and then again when I started working for this district. I have struggled each time. Perhaps is was motivation to learn, or the time that you need to dedicate to learning it. I certainly don’t think acquiring an L2 is innate for me. I do think though, that I struggle with learning the language because of the method of delivery. We don’t expect 2-5years olds to learn 100 new vocabulary words and introduce syntax to them in one class period and hope that they retain it. Quite the contrary, we understand that there is a method to LA and we know that BICS/CALPS take time to develop. I learned more Spanish sharing a room with a colleague and listening to her provide intervention to five year old Spanish speaking students, then I did in several semesters of Spanish.
The chapter goes on to discuss intermediate states (basic, necessary, and facilitating). In both L1 and L2 input plays a big role in language acquisition. In L2, transferring from one language to the next is a step in reaching the final stage of language acquisition. I see that my students are at varying levels in the intermediate states. While some have positive transfers in their writing, others have difficulty in the syntactic delivery of their utterances and orthographic representations. I find it fascinating that each of them are at different levels and I have often wondered what factors have contributed to some having more positive transfers than others.
As I continue in my ESL classes and read the assigned books, it is getting easier to understand the difference between L1 and L2. L1 being refered to as first language, native language, primary language, and mother tongue is what you initially learn to speak. Anything after that will be your L2. However, you can learn 2 languages at the same time, simultaneous multilingualism. My children were learning 2 languages at the same time. My aunt, who was their caregiver while I was at work, only spoke Assyrian. Therefore, all of the words they heard from her while we were away were in Assyrian. When we would come back from work and my other children came home from school, English was spoken. The TV was also English. They truly learned both languages and would go between the two without even thinking about it. Code switching was done all day long.
ReplyDeleteNow that I work ELL students I have to always be cautious to be sure that they are understanding the lessons taught. To be honest, up until now, when my studentsw would speak in Spanish, I would stop them right away and say, "We are in an English classroom and you will speak in English only." Now I have completly stopped that. As long as they are speaking academically, I let them. I will even chime in if I know the words. It is a process to learn a language which is what most of our students are doing and then to learn an academic language on top of that is difficult. I am now aware of that and have shifted my way of thinking and or speaking.
After reading Chapters 1 and 2 of Saville-Troike I am able to better understand how students acquire a second language. Funny thing is I find myself relating to many of the methods discussed in this chapter during my own journey of learning Spanish as an L2. Chapter 1 defined SLA (Second Language Acquisition) as “both the study of individuals and groups who are learning a language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and the process of learning that language” (Saville-Troike 2). I can attribute my success with learning Spanish as a second language to my formal education in high school, as well as, immersing myself in the culture for a summer in Mexico at age 7. It is due to both of these factors that I was able to successfully acquire this L2. I agree with Saville-Troike that some learners are more successful than other in acquiring an L2. The book mentions individual aptitude for L2 learning, personality factors, types of strength and motivation as well as different learning strategies can all attribute to differences in learning and learners from a psycholinguists perspective.
ReplyDeleteI find it extremely interesting that in America we do NOT require our students to acquire a second language. Though we live in a global society and see how beneficial second language acquisition can be, we still don’t challenge or students to take charge in this area. Interestingly a underdeveloped country like Africa close to 100% of the speakers speak the national language and another language (Saville-Troike 9). It is very true that acquiring a second language as an adult is much more difficult and requires much greater motivation. I attribute my L2 success to cultural immersion at an early age of 7. I love the theory of innate capacity that states humans are born with a natural ability to learn language. As I watch my younger cousins grow it amazes me how easily they pick up Spanish from watching shows like Dora and Diego. Even more importantly I can prepare myself to instill a second language in my child at a young age. I plan on encouraging the idea of simultaneous multilingualism for my child as my Spanish- speaking grandmother (our child care provider) use Spanish and my husband use English. It amazes me to learn such a technical process of SLA while I found it to be very simple in my own experience. This brings truth to the critical period hypothesis and why learning and L2 at a young age is vital for success.
Saville and Troika Chapters 1 and 2
ReplyDeleteBefore taking this class, I gave very little thought to the complexities of learning a second language. I am probably ethno-centric in this area. The idea that at least half the world’s population is multilingual is a real awakening for me. I also had no idea that there were so many factors in trying to compile meaningful Linguistic data to study. But I can see that even the parents of some of my students do not want to attract undue attention that may bring on questions about immigration status. Some do not even darken the door of the school or ride in cars because of this very real issue.
While reading through the rest of the chapter, I came across the word “Transfer.” Several of my students were recently experiencing a negative transfer between the words major and mayor. We were doing our oral presentations of our state reports and I heard several students say, “The mayor rivers are…” Fortunately I have a rudimentary understanding of Spanish and realized they were confusing mayor and major. Mayor in Spanish does mean major, so it was tricky for them to pick up on the difference. But I was able to tell them that what they were doing was not a mistake, but called a transfer from their first language. Their faces lit up and I felt like I had a real breakthrough and connection with them!
Saville-Troike
ReplyDeleteChapters 1 & 2 in this book made me stop and think about a lot of issues related to second language acquisition. The only experience I had with acquiring a second language was in college when I took 4 years of French and 2 years of Spanish – but please don’t ask me to speak either one because I can’t! I had never really considered that SLA is a multidimensional process. Linguistic, psychological and social perspectives work together in this process. Each perspective has a specific set of components, and working together they are key to SLA.
I further thought about our school district, and the move from their goal of exiting bilingual students into monolingual English classrooms to our new Dual Language classrooms. The students will now experience simultaneous bilingualism by using both English and Spanish 50/50 by the time they are 3rd grade and beyond. I understand that the students will be acquiring their 2nd language while preserving their 1st. But, I can’t help but wonder what will happen once they’re finished with 8th grade and unable to continue Dual Language into high school since the district has stated that it will not go into the high schools. Maybe that will change.
In the Chapters 1 and 2 of the Saville-Troike book, the first area that I found helped was the defining of vocabulary terms. For instance, all the different words to define languages, like the first, auxiliary, library and foreign, I never knew existed. So many of these terms are necessary to understand the reading and in that fact also class. I find myself trying to figure out what a certain acronym means or what a word that I am not familiar with actually means. As I type this, I wonder if that is how my students feel when they are faced with new words in the English language. I know I am constantly defining words to help them understand and sometimes I take words for granted that I think they know and actually don’t.
ReplyDeleteSeveral things caught my interest in the chapters. First, in chapter 2, when they were talking about the languages of the world and how many people speak each language as a first or second language, I could not get over the actual numbers. It is truly amazing how many people in the world are bilingual. I hate to admit the fact that I am not. I truly wish I were, but after reading the chapter, I don’t know if I could pick up a second language. Maybe I would be able to pick up the social piece of a language or as an auxiliary language.
I say this because the chapter also states that most of our language development occurs before we enter Kindergarten. This is why it is so important for children to be talked to and interacted with as young children. I think not only adult interaction is important for children to develop their language, but also interaction with peers. Is this why some only children or oldest children have a language that is more adult-like instead of child-like? Is it because they are around adults more and don’t have the interactions with other children the same age?
I also found the stages of language acquisition for the first and second language to be engaging. I found it interesting that world knowledge plays such an important role in the initial stage of L2 acquisition. I guess this would come from the fact that if you know the meaning of a word in your first language, then it should be easier to understand in a second language. These chapters showed me how much I still need to learn, but the good news is I found it very intriguing.
Stacy, I agree that it is SOOOO critical to talk to and interact with your young children. A neighbor of mine has a son who had a baby with his girlfriend. These are people in their early 20's. Their beautiful daughter is about 2-1/2 years old and I have seen her once in a while. [There are no second languages in this house, BTW] The last time I was just playing with her and I said, "Where is your nose?" She just gave me a blank stare. I repeated it and touched my nose. She looked interested and touched her nose. I turned to my neighbor and asked her if her parents play body parts games with her and SHE gave me a blank stare! Within about five minutes, this little one was touching her nose, eyes, ears, mixing them up a little bit, but loving the learning. I was almost crying inside. Here is this perfectly healthy-brained child who is probably going to go into kindergarten with delays all because no one took the time to work with her! I got copies of the "Give Me Five" plan and am going to give it to them!
DeleteSaville-Troike
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the two chapters, I am amazed at how we acquire language. One thing that stuck with me are the different factors that contribute to the acquisition of a 2nd language. There are so many outside factors that affect the learning conditions of the 2nd language learner. It seems more unfair how we assess these students. Because of the many factors that can contribute to one students success compared to another's how can we fairly assess these students? It's hard to wrap my brain around everything discussed in the chapters, but I am thinking the dual language program may be best for students acquiring English, only however if they are sticking to the true model. I do wish our district were able to make this a true equal opportunity. Right now I feel our bilingual program is really only for learning English.
SLA is highly complex, and its success depends on a variety of factors. In Chapter 1, Saville-Troike lists three questions to ask in order to better understand the process. What does the L2 come to know, how is this knowledge acquired, and why are some more successful than others. I believe that the success of the SLL depends largely on motivation - why is the learner acquiring the language (second language, auxiliary, library, foreign, etc.)? When I look at the current language programs in our district, I see a subtractive transitional bilingual program that is slowly phasing itself out in favor of an additive dual language model. This brief chapter (1) reminded me why our district is moving to dual language. With English being the goal in Bilingual, a teacher may never really uncover a student's linguistic competence, because the focus is on production. In Dual Language, strategies such as bridging help to integrate and scaffold both linguistic competence and production.
ReplyDeleteChapter 2 went deeper by providing some background related to the three schools of thought mentioned in the previous chapter. These perspectives are linguistic, psychological, and social. Within the linguistic perspective are two foci - internal and external - related to Skinner and Piaget/Vogotsky, respectively. Psychologically-speaking, the focus has been on understanding how SLA is affected by the brain and age. Emotional factors such as attitude and anxiety level, also play into this process.
I continue to notice that there is so much information that gen ed teachers need to know/would benefit from learning on this topic. I'm looking forward the day where they are included in such rigorous and relevant professional development.
After reading chapters 1&2 of Saville-Troike, and learning more about SLA, I can't get out of my head why we wait until high school to teach students a second language. With the critical period of language acquisition ending by the time children reach puberty, the fact that the brain 'weeds out' phonemes not used, and the ease with which children learn language when it is practiced, why don't we take advantage of all these incredible biological factors and teach our children two languages like the rest of the world? We wait until high school, or even adulthood, when people like me totally butcher the language and cannot roll an 'R' when speaking Spanish for anything. Dual language is a good start, but what about the parents who opt out? With all this research and information on the brain development and language acquisition,from the linguistice, psychological, and social perspective, wouldn't it make more sense to teach children a second language in elementary school?
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