Language Learning Experiences I have had experience with learning two languages, Spanish and Arabic. The first time I was exposed to Spanish was when I was in kindergarten and I did not study it again until high school. I did not begin learning Arabic until my last year of high school and decided to major in Arabic once I got to college. The experiences I had learning these languages were completely different. I did notice learning Spanish at an early age helped me retain vocabulary over a long period of time. Even though I did not learn a large amount of vocabulary and grammar, what I did learn stuck with me for years. When I finally revisited Spanish in high school, I had to learn the basics all over again. The structure of the class did not make it easy for me to remember much vocabulary after the semesters, or even after a few class periods. I think there were a number of reasons why I never retained as much Spanish as I did in kindergarten compared to when I learned it in high …show more content…
Anytime I had to present in front of the class I would become anxious if I wasn’t extremely confident in my presentation because I become anxious in my classes that aren’t Arabic related. I would also feel anxious if I had to speak with a student who was more familiar with the language than me because I was afraid to mess up or not understand the words they were using. I still believe motivation is the most important aspect of language learning. Every year I studied Arabic, it seemed as if my motivation to learn decreased. I believe this is because the topics we learned about were less relatable than they were when we got to choose what we talked about, compared to the increased lessons on history and geography. Now that my time learning Arabic in college has ended, I have new motivation to learn because I will be looking for a job in the field, motivation I regret not having while I was learning it in
Nagy (2013) makes an attempt, through a case study and the use of previous studies, to test the theories of prominent researchers on the field such as Francois Grosjean (2011), Ellen Bilyastok (2010) and Jurgen Meisel (1994). Nagy (2013) notes in her case study that bilingual development is depending on environmental influence just as much as on the child’s individual aptitude and general intelligence.
We lived in a small town called Fort Hancock, Texas with my grandparents. Everyone just spoke Spanish in that town and for that reason, I learned to just speak Spanish first. When we moved to Oklahoma City I was five. I had to transition to English, which was hard. I got made fun of, but luckily improved later on my literacy journey.
However, in 9th grade, I began taking Spanish courses, and have done so more or less constantly for the past 4 years. Consistent with the view that adult language learning is very different (much more based in explicit memorization) than that of children, I am much more able to explicitly cite and explain rules of grammar, and to list memorized vocabulary and other words such as pronouns, than I am in French.
The main idea behind starting the second language learning process at a young age came after watching a high school class Spanish course. The kids were distracted and withdrawn. They weren’t interested in being at school much less learning a second language. There was a small population of dedicated students that excelled in school but still found it difficult to grasp the basic concept of learning this second ...
Do you know what it is like to have English as a second language, coming from a Palestinian-American family? Learning Arabic alone was a difficult task to achieve, but with the help of my parents and the Arabic classes my parents enrolled me into, I was able to master it in a reasonable period of time. My other task was to master English as I was enrolled in English- only schools. My parents pushed me through this process by putting me into multiple programs for foreign students, and they also pushed me into reading and writing at least one book and one essay a week, whether it was a paragraph, or more than one-page long. It required much patience and concentration, but it was a very attainable goal that required a satisfying amount of dedication.
As previously stated, “Second language acquisition is the study of how an additional language is developed within a child’s life” (Gass & Selinker, 2008). According to researchers David and Wei (2008) “evidence seems to suggest that bilingual children’s language development is by and large the same as that of monolingual children”(p.599), meaning these children go through the same process beginning with babbling, followed by one-word sentences and progressing towards a more develop multiword stage. They way in which a child develops his/her first language becomes a guide for the development of a second language. Children may use their language skills acquired during L1 (first language) learning to help them obtain foreign languages. Research has shown that “both L1 and L2 are tools that serve complementary and sometimes overlapping functions” (Kohnert, 2008). Whether to use first language verse second language m...
Primary schools that introduce language learning at an earlier phase may do so for a number of purposes, but it is because of the benefits of learning a language at a younger age that this paper has chosen Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) as its target scheme of work. For the purpose of this assignment the focus language will be French (but the strategies to be discussed will apply to any MFL). The ideas within the scheme of work will be critically discussed as part of university experience, school practice and relevant research.
This short amount of time with the language at the start of my learning career helped me when taking high school level Spanish. Most schools adopt Spanish as the language they teach because of the growing population of Spanish speaking people in America. (Perez) However, some people against teaching Spanish
When I was a child my dad, and my grandparents taught me how to speak Spanish before I could learn how to speak English. As I continued to learn more and more words, Spanish became my first language, I spoke it fluently, and English came second. When I was ready to start Pre-K, my dad taught me to write in English other than in Spanish. It was hard to learn how to write my letters without knowing them in English and only in Spanish. I would confuse my E’s
The U.S. government has acknowledged the demand for foreign languages, but managed to reduce funds that support language programs for K-12 grades. However, advocates have been emphasizing the importance of learning a foreign language at a younger age to promote the program. School districts have developed a plan to incorporate a foreign language curriculum in grade schools, which is designed to improve communicative competencies. Learning a language at adolescent years helps with the memory, creativity, and critical thinking. Also, students develop a positive attitude towards diversity and are receptive to learning about other cultures.
The benefits of learning a second language are vast and measurable in numerous ways. As Lynn Redmond, the executive secretary of the National Network for Early Language Learning and director of foreign language and associate professor of education at Wake Forest University, states, “Children should start learning a foreign language in kindergarten and continue through high school....
Second language learning is the process of learning a different language other than one’s mother tongue resulting in the ability of an individual to use one or more languages different from his first language. It can take place in a natural setting or through classroom instructions; however, the degree of proficiency differs (Gomleksiz, 2001).
Coming from a Spanish speaking household having to learn a new language can always be difficult. While, I was a child learning a second language was difficult. It was difficult for me to put words to use in the correct way. And use terms that make sense with one another term. It was difficult for me because some Spanish words sound the same as English words, and while learning I wanted to translate everything the way I say it in Spanish to English. For example, in Spanish “helo” means ice, but if you say it out loud it sounds like “yellow”. Little things like that will be a big issue to me. I have to put up with many looks from others and hear all sorts of criticism around me. Learning a new language at a young age was a struggle with reading
As time goes by and as the global community develops, the world grows more and more international, making second or third language acquisition become necessary to the majority. With the growing importance of multiple language ability, more and more parents think of bilingual or multilingual education, which means acquisitions of two or more languages, for their kids. In fact, we do have many reasons showing why multilingual education is important and beneficial, such as aspects of interpersonal relationship, employment, brain health, and so on.
All methods in language teaching are a pre-designed set of description of how the teacher should teach the learner and how the learner should learn obtain from a specific theory of language and a theory of language learning. These theories are attain from the parts of linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and are the origin of theory and applying in language teaching. Language teaching methods is divided into many methodologies. For example: The Direct Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Audio-Lingual Method, Total Physical Response, Audio-Lingual Method, The structural Method etc. Each method has its own rules, history, and different from one another. For example: The direct method was the reply to the disapproving with the