First, I’d like to apologize my phone ran out of minutes and
cut him off at the end of his sentence. His last words were “I would have
learned more.…”. I loved this interview,
I got to interview one of my friends Evangelos Poulias. Evangelos lived in Mexico until he moved here
six years ago. He talked a lot about his education growing up in life and the
struggle it was. He said his biggest
struggle about learning English is the knowing which sound the letter makes in
that sentence. He said he thought the sentence structure was the easiest for him.
So, I thought it was great Evangelos said this was easiest for him because most
cases it is not. He did say at the end he really wish he paid more attention in
class. His mom spoke extremely little English and his father knew more than his
mom, but his father still would rather speak Spanish or Greek before English, Ortega
mentions how “for most, one language is dominant, and this is often the
community language rather than the home language” (Ortega, 2013). He said with all his normal classes and
sports and social life it was another 4 hour class to learn According to
Ortega, “second language socialization studies have further revealed that
learning outcomes can be greatly improved when L2 learners are not construed as
definitional novices and instead their invisible expertise is made visible
during socializing event” (Ortega, 2013) and he said he did not pay a lot of
attention as a child, Now as a twenty-two-year-old he wishes he would have
taken it more seriously as he is now.
Kate-lynn,
ReplyDeleteI gained a lot of knowledge from your interview about how it could have been for him as an ELL. I see how his experience with socialization was similar to what Ortega describes as an obstacle for ELL learners. Another thing Ortega (2013) mentions with socializing is that, teachers assume shared knowledge among students but is not actually shared knowledge for the ELL student (pg. 237). For example if people in his soccer classes were all talking about the famous soccer players assuming he would know what they are discussing, when in fact he does not. This can pose as an obstacle for ELL students. As educators I think it is important to not just assume that our ELL students know what we are talking about, even if it is something that seems like common knowledge. I have seen this in my own class with one of my ELL students. I commonly say different vocabulary words and have caught myself saying "well this is a word you guys already know" and my student will later come and ask me what that word means. This has made me more aware in class not to assume that the students automatically know.
Hey there Vanessa, thank you so much for your comment, yeah, I really do think Ortega says a lot about Socialization with other peers really helps with developing any language. And it is really hard to make sure you do not put down student from not knowing a word, or even making them feel isolated. I really hope if I do accidently do it my student is confident enough to come ask so I know he or she is needing the extra help.
DeleteHello Kate-lynn. I really enjoyed watching your video. It gave me a lot more insight to some of the things ELL's go through considering I am not an ELL myself. I found it very interesting that Evangelos stated that the structure of words was easiest for him when learning English. According to Rowland (2014),"even very young children can use the structure of a sentence to narrow down the meaning of new words" (p.70). This could have been a benefit for Evangelos when learning English. If he was good at sentence structure, he may have been able to use this skill to further help him in his English learning experience. Thank you for sharing your video!
ReplyDeleteRowland, C. (2014). Understanding child language acquisition. Routledge.
Hello Rachel, thank you for your comment. I was so shocked when he said that sentence structures was one of the easiest things. We had a huge conversation after the video talking about all of things about sentence structure. So, it was a really cool to Be able to pick at his brain and see how an ELL learned. Of course we all learn in different ways but I really like this lesson to get us to know more about our Ell students.
DeleteHello Kate-Lynn. I think that is great that you were able to further discuss his experiences after the video was finished. That is a great opportunity to get more insight from an ELL which you can later use in your future career. It is great that he mastered sentence structure easily. According to Rowland (2014), " children also take a while to learn complex sentence structures such as relative clauses (e.g. the dog that chased the cat was barking) and passives (the cat was chased by the dog)" (p.82). This goes to show that there are always diverse situations and no learning experience is the same for each ELL.
DeleteRowland, C. (2014). Understanding child language acquisition. Routledge.
Hey Kate-Lynn, I thought your video was really interesting. It sounds like Evangelous had many of his struggles with understanding the English phonemes, or the way we match a sound to our letters, which we all know can be very complicated with English. Gass and Selinker remind us that "among the earliest tasks that children face is figuring out the nature of the sounds they are hearing" (2008, p. 34). It's clear that this challenge can get very overwhelming transferring from an L1 to English as L2, because the way our language manipulates certain letters and letter combinations to match certain sounds can get frustrating for learners. I know I've always thought how impressive it is that people learn English as their L2 because there is so much to learn about the rules and the way we manipulate words and sounds within English, so it can get so confusing. On the other hand, he mentioned how sentence structure was an easier thing to grasp when learning English, so it sounds like he picked up the rules of syntax in the English language with much more ease than the sounds. When watching your video, I was thinking this could probably be due to some similarities between Spanish and English syntax, so he was making connections when learning. Rowland posed the questions "how do children learn the syntax of their language," with the possible answer" that children learn simply by imitating the speech they hear around them," so maybe Evangelos was gaining progress with syntax much easier through social interactions (2014, p. 82). I really learned a lot from your interview, thank you!
ReplyDeleteGass, S., & Selinker, L. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge.
Rowland, C. (2014). Understanding child language acquisition. Routledge.
Hey Megan, thank you so much for your comment , I was really shocked when he said that sentence structure was the most easiest thing for him to learn. I know every ELL student is different but normally it is a struggle for them to learn. I felt he gave me so much of an inside view of an ELL student but also reinforce everything Rowland and Ortega talked about in the readings. I feel I got a new out look for ELLS.
DeleteHey, Katelynn! I really enjoyed watching your video and getting to learn a little bit about Evangelos and his second language learning experience. It’s so interesting to hear about his struggles and how he overcame some of them. I thought the fact that he felt that sentence structure was the easiest for him was incredibly interesting because that is usually the part of learning English that is difficult for students. Its especially difficult when students already have developed a first language and ha ve already learned how to structure sentences in their native language. I’m not surprised that your friend overcame the challenges he face while learning English because "children who are exposed to two languages in childhood can achieve native-like competence in BOTH languages, even if they have not been exposed to both from birth" (Rowland, 2014, p.130) I think the reason why he learned how to structure his sentences and why it came naturally to him was because of the fact that children can achieve native like competencies in both languages, and sentence structure is apart of that.
ReplyDeleteHello Vivianne, thank you so much for your comment! Yeah like I told the last couple people I was really shocked when he said sentence structure was the easiest for him. So, me and him had a very huge conversation afterwards all about everything he learned as a child. And it is true like Rowland said it's easier for children to achieve but in both languages, And I love how he even overcame this with his parents not been extremely helpful.
DeleteHi Kate-lynn! Your video was really great, and I enjoyed hearing about his journey learning english. My interview with my mom's friend was a lot similar because we both interviewed older people whose parents knew close to no english to begin with. Learning a language at a later age is more difficult, and I did read in Ortega's book that the language will not be as mastered if learned at a later age. I think it is good for him to live and learn and realize that he probably should have paid more attention in school than he did. He can learn from this, and hopefully teach other's that learning a new language is important and to do it at a younger age. I found it fascinating that his easiest thing to learn was the structure of the language because even for me, an english speaker, it is challenging.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily,
DeleteI completely agree with your comment about “Learning a language at a later age is more difficult” but it’s not always age that plays a part (Ortega, 2013, p. 24). Ortega explains “it is possible to conclude that age-related differences exist in how a skill or ability is learned” which can play a role in your interviewees similarities to learning difficulties with age because of how they learned (paying attention in class) or possibly learning through different environments.
Ortega, L (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Rutledge.
Hello there Emily, thank you so much for your comment! I really appreciate it! Yeah I really liked how he said he wish he would have paid more attention as a child, because that just shows how much more you pick up as a child and I hope that has expressed this to Others and get that out there that you really need to pay attention as a child because like Ortega says you will learn more as a child run older adults
DeleteHi, Kate-Lynn! I really enjoyed watching your interview and I could tell that you enjoyed it as well. I found your interview interesting, as your friend only moved here from Mexico six years ago. My interview was with someone that moved here at a really young age, so I thought that was different! I can imagine that transitioning from Spanish to English was really hard for him since he spoke Spanish for so long. Ortega mentioned in the reading that “as children grow older and their life circumstances diversify, different adolescents and adults will embark on very different kinds of literacy practice and use language for widely differing needs…(2013, p. 4)”. This relates to your friend because you mentioned that his parents both spoke hardly (if any) English with him, and that had a huge impact on his ability to learn English. Thank you for sharing your story!
ReplyDeleteOrtega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London and New York: Routledge.