Entry 4: Final Course Reflection

When I first began this course, I had no idea what second language acquisition was, especially the "acquisition" part. I made some assumptions just based on the course name. I thought this course would be about how to teach ELL's and how to implement certain strategies into the classroom. After beginning the course, I quickly learned that it was not only going to be about that but much more about the theory and the many different factors that play as a role in learning a second language.

If you recall back to my entry 1 vblog, I stated that I was bilingual and throughout my elementary years, I was considered an ELL and was enrolled in ESL classes. As a previous ELL, I thought I had a good grasp of an understanding of the learning of a second language. To my surprise, there was so much I didn’t know. For starters, I had to first understand what SLA was and what it stood for. Ortega defined SLA as “…the scholarly field of inquiry that investigates the human capacity to learn languages other than the first, during late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, and once the first language or languages have been acquired” (Ortega, 2013, p.1-2). Ortega also stated that SLA also studies the “…wide variety of influences…when learning an additional language…” (Ortega, 2013, p. 2). Once I knew what SLA meant, I had realized that there were different roles that played into learning an additional language, such as motivation. Although in the beginning, I thought when we were learning about this topic, it was based on what the teacher did to motivate the students, but I was mistaken. I learned that there were different types of orientations under the motivation umbrella. Learning about motivation helped me understand that students in elementary school fall under the integrative orientation. Ortega defined this as “…related to identification with the target culture and a genuine desire to become more like members of the L2 group… (Ortega, 2013, p. 173). As I continued to learn more and more in this course, I also learned what bilingualism meant. Gass & Selinker state that “Bilingualism is a broad term and, like heritage language acquisition, has many forms and configurations” (Gass & Selinker, 2013, p. 24). After reading this, I understand why they meant “broad”. It had come to my understanding that there were so many different types of bilinguals. By coming across this, I was able to define myself as an early bilingual, “someone who has acquired two languages early in childhood” (Gass & Selinker, p. 27). My understanding of learning an additional language has changed completely from the beginning. As I stated before, I thought this course would be about the strategies you could implement in your classroom. After learning about motivation and bilingualism, I understand that there are different aspects that play a role in learning a second language. My understanding of SLA has changed from just speaking another language, to understanding what exactly it takes to learn a different language.

I believe that this course has impacted my preparation as a future professional in regards of understanding the learner’s perspective. As I reflect back on learning my L2 in my elementary days, it becomes harder to recall what exactly my mentality was and what my teachers did and the how the process went. Taking this course has really taught me to “do my research” before diving in and assuming. Although I was once an ESL student, it has been a while and now I am the teacher instead of the student going through the process therefore I must do research to not only remind myself of what I went through, but to also educate myself of what future students will go through and experience. Lastly, I feel that this course has prepared me and reminded me to stay up to date. As a future teacher, we sometimes get new students in our classroom and every year we receive a brand-new set of new students. This course has prepared me to understand that every year will be different, and that some years I might not have any ELL, and some years I may have a lot. Staying up to date will benefit me to become a better teacher in order to help my students.

One SLA topic that I found interesting would probably have to be the SLA and motivation topic. I found this to be interesting because whenever someone mentioned motivation, I would always think about what motivated me. Before taking this course, I also thought that there were only two types of motivation, such as extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. I found it to be interesting that there were different orientations under the motivation umbrella. By taking this course, I learned that students in elementary school fall under the integrative orientation. Ortega stated that integrative orientation was “…to become more like members of the L2 group” (Ortega, 2013, p. 173). I found this to be interesting because it helped me connect theory to  what I have seen in the field. I also found this topic to be interesting because it helped me identify which orientation I would fall under when I was learning french. I was able to learn more about myself while studying the SLA topic of motivation. The second SLA topic that I found to be interesting was in chapter nine, affect and other individual differences. The subtopic that I found interesting in chapter nine was the foreign language anxiety. I found this to be interesting because I was able to experience it when I was learning how to speak French. I worried about if I would say the wrong thing, I worried about what I didn’t know, and it also frustrated me that I wanted to say so much more, but I didn't know how. Reading about this topic and learning about foreign language anxiety really opened my eyes that anxiety can play a big role in learning a new language. It also helped me connect what I learned, to a certain student that I have seen in the field. It had me thinking about thinking about how he feels when he’s trying to speak a new language or write in a new language. Ortega stated that “…some individuals report experiencing intense feelings of apprehension, tension, and even fear, when they think of foreign languages” (Ortega, 2013, p. 200) After reading about foreign language anxiety, it really made me think about how I take speaking another language for granted. Now that I know how to speak English, I don’t think about it twice or about how the process went. The more and more I learn about SLA, I think about my mom who struggles speaking in English, or the student that I know where I student teach at who is having a really hard time communicating. Throughout the course, I think these two SLA topics were the most interesting to me and taught me a lot about what one person goes through learning a different language.

As for creating a Vblog, commenting on other’s vblogs, and replying to your own comments, it has definitely been one of the most time-consuming assignments that I have had as an education major. Although, the vblog assignments have been a good learning experience. Having the role of creating a Vblog has contributed  to my learning of the SLA content because of the different people we had to interview. I think it was very beneficial to not only just read the book, but to be able to go out and interview real people with real experiences, especially the teachers who have had many years in the teaching field. The information that I had gathered during the interviews helped me connect to what I had learned from reading the textbook and watching the YouTube videos. I also believe that it was very beneficial for me to be able to see other people’s vblog’s and what they had wrote. Being able to see their understanding of the content enabled me to tweak my reflections or find a better understanding to certain topics that I felt uncertain about. Knowing that I would be penalized for not writing well-thought out paragraphs with a topic and concluding sentences has helped me with my writing skills in the sense that I had to continuously check my writing in order to make sure my reflections made sense and that I had zero to minimal spelling and coherence issues. Having interactions with my classmates also contributed to my content learning because it allowed me to dig deeper into the textbook and see a different perspective.

In conclusion, I definitely feel that taking this course has changed the way I look at learning a second language. Although I was considered to be an ELL many years ago, taking this course and reflecting on what I have learned has really put into perspective what I went through as a child and what my future students will go through. With that being said, I am excited to take on what I learned in this course, into the methodology course and learn even more about second language.

References: Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Gass, S., & Selinker, L. (2013). Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge.