Wednesday, September 19, 2018
ENTRY 2
For my interview, I questioned a long-time friend of mine. He is not in school but works as a carpenter. I wanted to get his ideas and approaches to breaking down a language, without him thinking about the class or what he should or shouldn't say. The interview with my friend was very interesting. It seemed that most of the facts I read from Ortega and the information from the videos all aligned with what he was stating. Even though he did not come to America as early as I imagined, he still seemed to grasp the English language rather quickly. I tried my best to do the entire interview without any stops because I wanted it to be as authentic as possible.
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Hi Lawrence,
ReplyDeleteAfter watching your video interview with Mr. Rivera, I noticed he admits he avoids writing in English. According to our text, "underuse of certain L2 forms in spoken and written form" is how Mr. Rivera choose to adapt to in his lifestyle (Ortega, 2013, p. 41). He avoids writing in English because he just isn't comfortable enough with his skills. Somewhere in his learning rate he had a negative setback. What I am surprised about is he was in ESL classes and had a bilingual education. Maybe his program was not as rigorous as it could have been for him to advance in his writing. On a positive note, he speaks proficiently enough for his day to day needs.
Hi Thom,
DeleteI like that you made note of Mr. Rivera refraining from writing in English due to being uncomfortable. I feel like I can relate a bit to this. I grew up speaking both English and Spanish. As I got older, I stopped using Spanish often and I now have some difficulty. I’ve noticed that lately I have tried to avoid speaking it in public because I have a lot of anxiety. According to Ortega, “Anxiety feelings reach debilitating levels only when anxious [individuals] engage in self- deprecatory and negative thoughts that detract from concentration and disperse mental effort that should normally be invested in the foreign language learning task at hand” (Ortega, 2011, pg.202). Hopefully Mr. Rivera and I will work on being more confident to avoid not improving our skills.
Hello Lawrence,
ReplyDeleteAfter watching your video with Mr.Rivera, he seemed very confident in what he was saying about not struggling to learn English. and that he thought it was easy to learn it. Ortega states, "knowing that older children and adults can have an initial L2 learning
advantage for rate over early starters, and that this advantage may last for about five years in second language environments." For instance, in Mr.Riveras case because he moved to the United States at a later age (9) he was able to grasp english words easily.
Hi Lawrence,
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the video Mr. Rivera states that he has a hard time writing in English. Even though he struggles writing in English he still speaks English well…“nor convergence with the target grammar or even ultimate high levels of accurate use is a necessary outcome of L2 Development” (Ortega, 2013, pg. 121). I was surprised that he said that he passed his classes even though he didn’t know how to write in English. I would think that especially in English classes he had to write in English. Like him, I too had to learn English in school since in my household Spanish was the only language spoken.
Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print