Hi Laura, I enjoyed watching your video. I found it interesting when you had said that you had started with speaking Spanish, but after learning English you forgot most of your Spanish and don’t speak it anymore. It made me think about how children whether born in the USA or not speaking a foreign language have to adopt English and often forget their first language. It slightly references what the text says about assimilation. When the text says, “assimilation is the ideology behind the great melting pot, a metaphor for the notion that immigrants to the United States willingly abandon their language and culture to become Americans” (Wright 2015, p. 19). I don’t believe fully with the text how one does so to fit in, but often times it happens out of convince with whichever culture is dominant and where you are living.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hi Caroline! Thanks for watching my video, I agree with your comment that most of the children born in the US that have a foreign language forget their first language. It's very sad when that happens and I'm regret not trying harder to keep my first language. I do agree with your evidence that the "U.S. is a giant melting pot"(Wright 2015, p. 19), so many people come from different parts of the world and they need to assimilate to the new culture and unfortunately the cost of that is leaving behind the old language.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
hey Laura, I really enjoyed watching your video because I love hearing about other peoples' experiences with learning English as their second language, because English is my first language and the only language I have ever known, so I found what you shared really interesting! I also found it interesting that in the process of picking up your fluency with English, the Spanish became less dominant for you and perhaps less useful in the school system. I wonder if other students still today are having those same experiences in elementary school. I, like you, have had the same experiences with taking Spanish in middle school and high school, where it's very formal, very focused on textbook usage and vocabulary, and heavy on the worksheets, which is not the way I learn best either. After reflecting on my personal experiences with learning a second language in school, and now having heard your experience, I can see that their is a need for adopting some better practices in the school system for teaching second languages, especially in courses dedicated to teaching specific languages. The same goes for ELL students trying to pick up English in the school system. If we, like you mentioned, immerse these students learning English into this new language in positive, effective, and beneficial ways, they can see that there is so much to embrace about having their background and first language but also learning something new. After all, Wright (2015) states that "encouraging ELLs to maintain and develop their home languages while they develop proficiency in English benefits the individual ELL and his or her family and community, as well as the nation overall" (p. 23). I believe your story you shared with us in your blog is evidence that many students still to this day must be taught second languages in ways that encourage them to continue developing proficiency in both their first language and language they're learning, and that it can be so helpful for students' futures that they embrace being bilingual!
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Thank you for watching my video, and yes when I learned English it became more prominent in my life and and Spanish was not as useful to me when I did school. Yes my parents do speak English but they prefer that I speak Spanish to them but it honestly sounds so broken that I don't try to speak it outside of my family. The school that I am in for student teaching has a bilingual program and the program is great. The teachers speak Spanish and English and the students know both languages fluently and it's amazing. Katy ISD has taken the positive approach and applied different teaching practices. "Schools that take the assimilationist approach fail to take into consideration the needs of the students as a whole and the needs of the student's family and community" (Wright, 2015, 22) Katy ISD has done the complete opposite of that quote, they have considered the needs of the students and have welcomed the different cultures into the school and the parents feel comfortable and have their needs met with this new practice.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hey Laura! It was great watching your Vblog because I never realized you could just lose one language by picking up another. I know it was probably a very proud moment to have learned a new language, but I wonder do your parents also speak English now? How did that transition go, from speaking to them in Spanish and then only speaking English a number of years later? Something I also liked about your video and this is something I plan to implement in my own classroom is you shouldn't be ashamed or feel bad because English isn't your first language. I want to bring their language and culture into my classroom, so that they could share and be proud of who they are. not only that, I think its a great learning experience for the other students. I would encourage you to pick up Spanish again, because I feel like it would help you so much, especially living in Houston! Great Vblog, nice to meet you. Have a great semester!
Thank you for watching my video, well speaking to my parents in Spanish is very hard and they do speak English but prefer me to speak in Spanish. The transition from speaking Spanish to Enlgish to my family happened gradually, it started by speaking in Spanish with a few words in English which eventually evolved into full English. I believe that this happened because at the school I went to "take the assimilationist approach fail to take into consideration the needs of the students as a whole and the needs of the student's family and community" (Wright, 2015, 22). They did not encourage me to speak in Spanish and at the time did not have any bilingual classes or services so I was forced to learn English as a necessity. However, at the school I'm student teaching at now is very different from that, they welcome bilingual students and let them speak Spanish so I'm confident times are changing.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hi, Laura! I found your video very interesting. If you do not mind sharing, I am curious as to how you forgot your L1 of Spanish. Wright (2015) affirms, “Subtractive bilingualism occurs when a new language replaces a student’s home language” (p. 21). I realize this theory may be a possibility, but I wonder more about the how than the why, which is expressed. I do not believe that I have heard from someone who was monolingual in Spanish until school age, acquired English over the course of some years, and lost seemingly all knowledge of Spanish. However, this may be somewhat common. You also mentioned that your parents only spoke Spanish. Did your parents gradually stop speaking to you in Spanish? Did they acquire English, as time progressed? According to Van de Walle (2013), “It takes as many as seven years to learn “academic language” (p. 116). I know you said that you accomplished this goal in four years and that most people can do it in two years. I think that is amazing, because I am unsure if I could acquire another language in four years’ time. You also shared that you avoid speaking Spanish, because you are “not good” at it. This thought may attribute to an affective filter that diminishes “the amount of comprehensible input that gets through” (Wright, 2015, p. 52). This is in reference to one of Krashen’s many hypotheses. I appreciated how you specified what methods of instruction you find most effective. You described hands-on, student-to-student activity based instruction with language-as-resource orientation, welcoming all students to communicate through any compilation of linguistics they prefer. I found that many of the tenants of your beliefs are grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory with a dynamic bilingual perspective, viewing translanguaging, or integrating languages into a language system, “as an integral part of the perfectly natural and normal ways bilinguals use their languages” (Wright, 2015, p. 59).
Van de Walle, J.A., Karp, K.M., and Bay-Williams, J. (2013). Elementary and middle school mathematics: Teaching developmentally, 9th edition.
Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.
Hell Laura I really enjoyed your video. I liked what you said that High School Spanish is not really helpful to learn the language, the Spanish they teach is very formal that people would not use on a every day basics. I feel the same way as you when speaking Spanish with my family, even though I am fluent in Spanish my family is always correcting my grammar. I completely understand your experience learning English, it also took me longer then most people. There was something that Ortega said that reminded me of our experience. According to Ortega (2013), " We all tend to think that children pick up languages speedily and effortlessly. Like many apparently undeniable truths (e.g. the earth does look very flat to our plain eyes, after all!), this assertion was questioned once it was submitted to systematic investigation" (Ortega, p. 16)
Hi Laura, I enjoyed watching your video. I found it interesting when you had said that you had started with speaking Spanish, but after learning English you forgot most of your Spanish and don’t speak it anymore. It made me think about how children whether born in the USA or not speaking a foreign language have to adopt English and often forget their first language. It slightly references what the text says about assimilation. When the text says, “assimilation is the ideology behind the great melting pot, a metaphor for the notion that immigrants to the United States willingly abandon their language and culture to become Americans” (Wright 2015, p. 19). I don’t believe fully with the text how one does so to fit in, but often times it happens out of convince with whichever culture is dominant and where you are living.
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hi Caroline!
DeleteThanks for watching my video, I agree with your comment that most of the children born in the US that have a foreign language forget their first language. It's very sad when that happens and I'm regret not trying harder to keep my first language. I do agree with your evidence that the "U.S. is a giant melting pot"(Wright 2015, p. 19), so many people come from different parts of the world and they need to assimilate to the new culture and unfortunately the cost of that is leaving behind the old language.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
hey Laura, I really enjoyed watching your video because I love hearing about other peoples' experiences with learning English as their second language, because English is my first language and the only language I have ever known, so I found what you shared really interesting! I also found it interesting that in the process of picking up your fluency with English, the Spanish became less dominant for you and perhaps less useful in the school system. I wonder if other students still today are having those same experiences in elementary school. I, like you, have had the same experiences with taking Spanish in middle school and high school, where it's very formal, very focused on textbook usage and vocabulary, and heavy on the worksheets, which is not the way I learn best either. After reflecting on my personal experiences with learning a second language in school, and now having heard your experience, I can see that their is a need for adopting some better practices in the school system for teaching second languages, especially in courses dedicated to teaching specific languages. The same goes for ELL students trying to pick up English in the school system. If we, like you mentioned, immerse these students learning English into this new language in positive, effective, and beneficial ways, they can see that there is so much to embrace about having their background and first language but also learning something new. After all, Wright (2015) states that "encouraging ELLs to maintain and develop their home languages while they develop proficiency in English benefits the individual ELL and his or her family and community, as well as the nation overall" (p. 23). I believe your story you shared with us in your blog is evidence that many students still to this day must be taught second languages in ways that encourage them to continue developing proficiency in both their first language and language they're learning, and that it can be so helpful for students' futures that they embrace being bilingual!
ReplyDeleteWright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hi Megan!
DeleteThank you for watching my video, and yes when I learned English it became more prominent in my life and and Spanish was not as useful to me when I did school. Yes my parents do speak English but they prefer that I speak Spanish to them but it honestly sounds so broken that I don't try to speak it outside of my family. The school that I am in for student teaching has a bilingual program and the program is great. The teachers speak Spanish and English and the students know both languages fluently and it's amazing. Katy ISD has taken the positive approach and applied different teaching practices. "Schools that take the assimilationist approach fail to take into consideration the needs of the students as a whole and the needs of the student's family and community" (Wright, 2015, 22) Katy ISD has done the complete opposite of that quote, they have considered the needs of the students and have welcomed the different cultures into the school and the parents feel comfortable and have their needs met with this new practice.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hey Laura! It was great watching your Vblog because I never realized you could just lose one language by picking up another. I know it was probably a very proud moment to have learned a new language, but I wonder do your parents also speak English now? How did that transition go, from speaking to them in Spanish and then only speaking English a number of years later? Something I also liked about your video and this is something I plan to implement in my own classroom is you shouldn't be ashamed or feel bad because English isn't your first language. I want to bring their language and culture into my classroom, so that they could share and be proud of who they are. not only that, I think its a great learning experience for the other students. I would encourage you to pick up Spanish again, because I feel like it would help you so much, especially living in Houston! Great Vblog, nice to meet you. Have a great semester!
ReplyDeleteHi Kristie!
DeleteThank you for watching my video, well speaking to my parents in Spanish is very hard and they do speak English but prefer me to speak in Spanish. The transition from speaking Spanish to Enlgish to my family happened gradually, it started by speaking in Spanish with a few words in English which eventually evolved into full English. I believe that this happened because at the school I went to "take the assimilationist approach fail to take into consideration the needs of the students as a whole and the needs of the student's family and community" (Wright, 2015, 22). They did not encourage me to speak in Spanish and at the time did not have any bilingual classes or services so I was forced to learn English as a necessity. However, at the school I'm student teaching at now is very different from that, they welcome bilingual students and let them speak Spanish so I'm confident times are changing.
Wright, Wayne. Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon, 2015. Print. Second Edition
Hi, Laura! I found your video very interesting. If you do not mind sharing, I am curious as to how you forgot your L1 of Spanish. Wright (2015) affirms, “Subtractive bilingualism occurs when a new language replaces a student’s home language” (p. 21). I realize this theory may be a possibility, but I wonder more about the how than the why, which is expressed. I do not believe that I have heard from someone who was monolingual in Spanish until school age, acquired English over the course of some years, and lost seemingly all knowledge of Spanish. However, this may be somewhat common. You also mentioned that your parents only spoke Spanish. Did your parents gradually stop speaking to you in Spanish? Did they acquire English, as time progressed? According to Van de Walle (2013), “It takes as many as seven years to learn “academic language” (p. 116). I know you said that you accomplished this goal in four years and that most people can do it in two years. I think that is amazing, because I am unsure if I could acquire another language in four years’ time. You also shared that you avoid speaking Spanish, because you are “not good” at it. This thought may attribute to an affective filter that diminishes “the amount of comprehensible input that gets through” (Wright, 2015, p. 52). This is in reference to one of Krashen’s many hypotheses. I appreciated how you specified what methods of instruction you find most effective. You described hands-on, student-to-student activity based instruction with language-as-resource orientation, welcoming all students to communicate through any compilation of linguistics they prefer. I found that many of the tenants of your beliefs are grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory with a dynamic bilingual perspective, viewing translanguaging, or integrating languages into a language system, “as an integral part of the perfectly natural and normal ways bilinguals use their languages” (Wright, 2015, p. 59).
ReplyDeleteVan de Walle, J.A., Karp, K.M., and Bay-Williams, J. (2013). Elementary and middle school mathematics: Teaching developmentally, 9th edition.
Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.
Hell Laura
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your video. I liked what you said that High School Spanish is not really helpful to learn the language, the Spanish they teach is very formal that people would not use on a every day basics. I feel the same way as you when speaking Spanish with my family, even though I am fluent in Spanish my family is always correcting my grammar. I completely understand your experience learning English, it also took me longer then most people. There was something that Ortega said that reminded me of our experience. According to Ortega (2013), " We all tend to think that children pick up languages speedily and effortlessly. Like many apparently undeniable truths (e.g. the earth does look very flat to our plain eyes, after all!), this assertion was questioned once it was submitted to systematic investigation" (Ortega, p. 16)