We discussed last week factors beyond the language domain in second language acquisition including personal and cultural factors. It was apparent from the discussion that we all experienced these factors to a certain degree while learning or teaching second language.
In your opinion, how did "affect", "aptitude", "motivations", "social distance", "personality and learning styles", and "learning strategies" impact second language acquisition.
We look forward to reading your comments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
A lot of people in School of Ed (in my experience at DePaul at least) will cite specific teachers in high school or middle school that motivated them to become teachers as well. I think this is a good starting point to understanding the role teachers can have in motivating or discouraging language acquisition. Personally, I had one very awful Spanish teacher early in high school, and another really awesome one later on who was my main inspiration to teach, both of whom impacted my learning – not because one was any better or worse at communicating the material they were teaching, but because of the connection they made with me and with others, the respect they demanded and rightfully earned (or… didn’t), and the atmosphere they created in their classrooms as an extension of their unique personalities. Looking back I can definitely see how certain walls, what Krashen calls the Affective Filter, were chipped away at by my own personal thoughts and feelings about Spanish class. It might go without saying that I excelled more with the teachers that I felt respected me and had a passion for the material, and when that support system wasn't there, my motivation to learn definitely decreased. Whether or not that had a quantitative affect on my error, for example, I don't know, but I definitely engaged more with the material when I felt comfortable in the classroom with an enthusiastic teacher.
my intense desire to become fluent in the spanish language happened drastically when i moved to honduras. i was alone in a town where everyone only spoke spanish. it was a fantastic feeling of having this glorious chance to speak the language i loved, but being in this kind of situation made me aware of the accent and regional vocabulary that i needed to quickly pick up. my motivation to learn the language was for three main reasons: i didn't want to sound un-honduran, i wanted to make friends with community members but they couldn't understand me unless i spoke like them, and i was teaching classes to students of all ages that needed to learn the spanish used in their region and not that used in my chicago high school spanish class. it took a total of ten days for my spanish to turn around and become that of my host community's... this motivation to speak like them has never left me. since my time in honduras 5 years ago i have never encountered a demotivation that has impacted my spanish language learning or usage.
-KRISTINA METROPULOS-
I think motivation and personality both play a huge role in acquiring a second language. When teaching others a second language it is crucial to create a classroom environment that is motivating, open, and comfortable for students. I think that could really be the deciding factor in whether or not a student can actually acquire the language. Learning language is stressful and hard because so many people are timid when trying to speak it because they fear they will say something wrong. This is where the teacher’s job comes in. They need to make the class feel like it is a safe space in which everyone should feel comfortable learning and speaking a new language in. Personality is also important in learning a language. I think that learners really have to have a personality that is willing to try new things and not be scared to speak a new language in order to truly acquire it. I think timid people can learn a language, grammatically, but you have to be a different kind of person to acquire the language in its entirety. There is a different between being a linguist and being someone who can communicate through the language. Personality and the environment the teacher creates greatly affect if and how a student can learn a language.
-KRISTINA METROPULOS-
My motivation for the language learning was simply because I wanted to know what people were talking about me. I knew I would be different and catch some attention just because I’m Asian especially where I lived, Maine. My husband would take me to a party and I could tell people were talking about me. I heard people were saying things like “Where is she from? Did she bring all of her family here? How old is she?” Some people were talking about me in a rude way. In my experience, people were not so friendly to me in Maine. I was even told that Mainers don’t care for Asian! I was taken aback by the fact this person even told me things like that. Although I don't believe all the Mainers are like that but I felt like I needed to keep my guard up. So I did not express myself much because of a fear of making a mistake and being perceived as a low-intelligent person. People were already treating me that way and I did not want to add anything to that. But one day I decided to surprise whoever treated me in a degrading way. Unfortunately people do talk about you boldly in front of you because they think you don’t understand their language. I had to show them I understood. I responded to their comment and the expression they had the moment they realized I understood what they were saying was priceless. It was unfortunate that my start-up experiences on English learning’s were negative, but these negative experiences helped me become fluent in English and ultimately brought me much positive experiences over the year.
I agree with all of the previous posts above. As Ellen stated, the wonderful Spanish teachers I have had in the past have definitely played a role in influencing me to become a Spanish teacher. I can also reflect on the bad Spanish teachers, which allows me to realize what I will not do as a Spanish teacher in my own classroom.
In agreement with the following post, living in a foreign country I believe is one of the best motivations to learn a language. After studying in Mexico, and living with a family who spoke absolutely no English, I was extremely motivated to learn the Spanish language. Because my motivation was so strong, I often times became frustrated that people could not understand my Spanish and sometimes I didn’t understand theirs. I was so eager to learn the language, but this intense desire often led to a feeling of failure. Overall, that experience in my opinion was the best way that I could ever learn and be motivated to learn the language.
I think that these "outside" factors can end up having more of an effect on the acquisition of a language than the actual linguistic side of things. Motivation, specifically, can be the greatest influence. When I was living in Spain I had to learn the language for obvious reasons, but I had plenty of English speaking friends that I could have just learned basic Spanish and gotten by, but what a waste that would have been! After the usual steps of culture shock, I really identified with the culture and having Spanish speaking friends and acquiring the language were key to me feeling like an even bigger part of that society and that gave me the motivation I needed. As far as "social distance", as I began to feel more comfortable and at home in the culture, that distance closed and I felt even more compelled to master the Spanish language. Affect and motivation had the biggest impact on my learning, certainly more so than personality, learning style and learning strategies because as long as the positive feelings are there along with motivation to learn, acquisition will be attainable no matter in which way you choose to learn or learn best.
I chose to study secondary spanish education for two reasons: the first, I wanted to be able to learn more about my culture and communicate with othe spanish speakers and second, I want to be able to teach others about my language and culture along with be a positive impact in many students' lives. I believed this stemmed from the way I was brought up. My mom made sure I knew how to speak Spaish and learned how to read and write. She taught me so many great values and traditions and it made me fall in love with my heritage. All these positive things helps me learn the language better because it is something I am passionate about. I do agree that your enviornment is a huge factor in your learning. If it is very negative, you will not have any desire to learn. But if it is positive, creative and motivational it will intrigue you and make you want to learn more. I did have aweful teachers in the past and there were also the ones that I just abslutely did not like. But my desire to succeed in Spanish and master it, allowed me to look past that. I will also say the teacher that I disliked the most out of all my years of schooling was the one I learned the most from. I do not know why it worked out that way, but she definitely brought out all my skills in the classroom and perhaps I just worked twice as hard to prove to her that I knew what I was doing. It works differently for every person, but enviornment does have an impact on how you learn and how well you can retain the information.
-Nadine
I have been fluent in both Spanish and English ever since I can remember. I started speaking Spanish at the age of 1, and probably started speaking English at the age of 3. I owe my spanish skills to my parents. Thanks to them I was able to read and write in Spanish at a very young age. In high school I did not take Spanish, because i thought it wasnt really going to teach me anything new, so I took Italian. Mr. Donahue was awesome. He was at the age to retire but his love for the students and his passion for teaching kept him at school. When he taught Italian you could feel and see his passion for the language and the culture. His class was stress free, and I learned a lot from him. He made everything look so simple. i think that everyone who is trying to learn a second language should find something that connects them to the language. Something that will motivate them to learn it. The pride that I have for my culture and my langauge is all thanks to my family. However, my passion for Spanish grew here at DePaul. I have been blessed with great teachers that have taught me so much about the language and the culture. What I have liked the most about them is also their passion for the language. As a student one can perceive these kinds of things. We can tell when a teacher really likes what she/he is doing or if they are just there to get paid. When a teacher shows up to class with passion, they transmit that to the students and at the same time motivate them as well. It is very important for the teachers to transmit that to the students. And students should find something that connects them in some way to the second language they are trying to acquire. If they do, things will become so much easier and less stressful.
I think that affect, motivation, and personality all play equal factors in the process of second language acquisition. I do, however think, that motivation is the factor we can control the most. In my own experience, I was very motivated to learn English because I knew my life would be better if I did. It would benefit me personally in social aspects. I now want to learn French as well, and I believe that my personality and motivation would help me greatly. I think when the social distance is smaller, we don't experience culture shock as much, and therefore it may be less difficult to adapt to the language. I think that the more we practice and the more we speak with others, the faster we will learn. Therefore, I don't feel embarrassed in front of others if i make mistakes. Most people know how difficult it is to learn a new language, and I think a lot of them embrace that and try to be helpful in the process.
These factors all certainly make a difference in language acquisition. As you all learned two weeks ago when I spilled my guts, language shock affects me at least a little bit in German classes. However, one factor that I am not sure if the book covered or not is the environment in which foreign language speaking is taking place. While I get nervous in class sometimes, I have spoken German in other environments and have not been so bothered--for instance, I recently ran into a German-speaking exchange student at a party and had a great time speaking broken German to him. I am not sure if this is true or not, but I felt like my German speaking was better than in class, even though (or perhaps specifically because) I was not thinking about it so much--it was certainly more fluid.
It would be interesting and probably beneficial for researchers to take this factor into account; those taking part in experiments likely feel the same anxiety that one might feel in class--the anxiety about being judged or graded for their performance. I think that in class we discussed an experiment in which the participants wore microphones that turned on and off randomly. I think that this is a good method to ensure that some of these external factors are playing the smallest role possible in the experiments.
Being as lazy as I was when I took Spanish classes the first time around, I didn't put any more effort other than the bare minimum that would get me the grade I wanted and as such I retained nothing. Now, after a trip to Mexico's border last year and after growing more interested in ESL and its issues, my interest in Latin American culture and history and in teaching/learning language have meant there is motivation now that was never there before, so creating a connection to the language has been very important to me acquisition. This connection, as I've just explained, triggered my motivation, but to establish the connection I had to close the social distance gap as best as I could in order to stir an interest in the language. All this is interesting because my continued struggle with acquisition has made me all but lose my faith in my own learning strategies, for the classroom still doesn't seem to work for me. I'm planning on participating in some immersion experience down the road that will force me into the language, since everyone in our class has convinced me that there's really no other way of going about it.
Being a bit late to the party I'm not sure if I can add anything to the conversation that hasn't already been covered. I agree with most of what has been said. Teachers make an astronomical difference for those of us who are learning in a foreign language setting, as they provide the majority of the input we receive. I can identify with Ellen in that I had an awesome Spanish teacher in HS and I also had one that was so bad that I dropped the class. She had no control over my immature classmates so almost no learning took place. Everyone was allowed to use English all the time- once we even watched a movie in English with Spanish subtitles! I think you can see why I dropped the class. Thankfully my experience with a good teacher helped renew my interest in the language.
As for Reina's comment, although I have never experienced such blatant discrimination and I never hope to, I think we are all in some small way motivated by the idea of being able to have a snappy comeback to rude comments made by unsuspecting L2 speakers. I know I am anyway.
I am so jealous of those are you that were raised with more than one language! Sometimes I get really frustrated and feel that I should just give up learning a second language, as I started so late in life (that is in SLA terms, after puberty). But my love for travel and language in general keep me motivated to keep trying. Not to mention that with my big mouth I can't stand the idea of not being able to express myself while abroad or in a group of L2 speakers! :)
Post a Comment