Entry 4: Reflection

             Upon taking Second Language Acquisition, I thought learning a second language revolved around memorization. It wasn’t long into the course that I learned there were many aspects to learning a second language. I shortly realized that motivation, cognition, and social dimension played a huge role in SLA. Ortega (2013) states that, “Motivation is usually understood to refer to the desire to initiate L2 learning and the effort employed to sustain it, and in lay terms we all understand it to be a matter of quantity, as in the everyday observation that some learners are highly motivated and others have little or no motivation,” (p. 168) There are many forms of motivation, but  integrativeness is the form of motivation that many ELL students attain. Ortega (2013) mentions on page 170, that “Of all antecedents, integrativeness is the one that has played the most central role in the development of a theory of foreign language motivation. “…integrativeness is an attitude defined as ‘a genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the other language community” (p.170). I have learned that many ELL students develop this type of motivation because of their desire to learn and communicate with their peers. This is where the importance of social dimension comes into play.  “Second language socialization studies have further revealed that learning outcomes can be greatly improved when L2 learners are not construed as definitional novices and instead their invisible expertise is made visible during socializing events” (Ortega, 2013, p. 238). I believe socializing is important for any student whether they are ELL or not. Allowing turn-and-talks and group activities throughout the day is something I see in my current field placement every day. Students have the opportunity to learn from one another and build their socialization skills which is great for ELL students. Another thing I learned that plays a huge role in learning an L2 is cognition. “Cognition refers to how information is processed and learned by the human mind” (Ortega, 2013, p.82). The two forms of memory that Ortega mentions are working memory and long-term memory. According to Ortega (2013), working memory is where we store our information and long-term memory is how we process our learned information (p. 90). Cognition is what ties motivation and social dimension altogether, all three are needed to make the other do their job. In other words, motivation is important for one’s cognition and cognition is important for being social.

            I have had the challenging experience of learning a second language. I believe this experience has helped me to understand slightly what an ELL student goes through every day. Having the opportunity to be in the learner’s shoes has opened my eyes in a way all teachers should see. I have experienced he challenge, confusion and learning moments on an L2 learner. Because of this I will be able to include L2 learners in a more beneficial way and engage my students during lessons. I have learned first-hand that practicing, repletion and socializing were great techniques for me which are some techniques that I will someday incorporate in my own classroom.

            I found age and willingness to communicate to be the most interesting. I have always heard that you have to learn a second language at a young age in order to actually attain and understand it. In fact, according to Ortega (2013), “…contributed neurolinguistic data supporting a natural predisposition in the child’s brain for learning the first language, together with anecdotal observations that children were also adept foreign language learners, when compared to adults” (p. 12). This isn’t saying that it is impossible for adults to learn a second language, but that children’s brains simply attain a natural predisposition making learning the foreign language more accessible. I also found a person’s willingness to communicate to be quite interesting in the role of learning a foreign language. “Willingness to communicate (WTC) is defined as the self-reported likelihood for an L2 learner to want to initiate communication in the L2 when given the choice to engage in or to avoid such action” (Ortega, 2013, p.213). This was interesting to me because as a college student I have experienced moments where I want to communicate in lectors and times when I don’t. For me, those moments of me not wanting to share in discussions have a lot to do with my understanding of the content. I think that is something that many teachers should keep in mind as maybe it’s not that a student isn’t listening, they are unsure about their answer just yet.

            I think the Vblog was a great way for my peers and I to share our assignments with one another. We were able to customize and decorate our Vblogs where we shared our assignments which I thought was a great touch.  Enjoyed being able to communicate with each other and share our ideas about other people’s thoughts. I think the comments and replies we were required to do played a huge role in my learning of the content. I found it very helpful to read other people’s thoughts and opinions of something I wrote. Overall, I think the Vblog was a great tool in the learning of SLA for me.

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