I interviewed Marco, my fiance’s brother
in law. Marco recently married my fiance’s sister and has been a part of the
family for the past few years, so interaction with him has been plentiful, even
regarding speaking of his experience in learning English. Marco came to the US
from Mexico with his parents and two younger brothers when he was 13 years old
as a teenager. His brothers had an easier time transitioning into a US school,
and I believe this is due to the brain plasticity difference. He has spoken
about his culture shock and difficulty in transition and fitting in throughout
his education in the United States, so I was interested to hear his experience
with second language acquisition.
From this interview, I learned that he
struggles with his spelling. I made the assumption that because Marco excels in
verbal English, he must not struggle with spelling. I also assumed that math
and science were probably difficult for him when he was transitioning into a US
school due to his instruction being in English. However, contrary to my belief,
Marco mentioned that when he started school in Dallas, it was easy for him to
understand the math content because he already learned it in Mexico, and Mexico
was ahead in the curriculum.
A connection I made between this interview
experience and the text is the topic of negative feedback. Marco says that
English speakers have helped him the most by correcting him to speak the right
way and additionally, his spelling. In the fourth chapter of Ortega (2013),
negative feedback is praised, as “the accumulating evidence suggests that
providing negative feedback in some form results in better post-test
performance than ignoring errors” (p.75).
References:
Ortega, L.
(2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Brianna,
ReplyDeleteI could not really identify with Marco in the regards that he came to this country at such a young age, but I do understand his issues with spelling. Spelling in English is very complicated than it is in Spanish. In Spanish, we spell words as they sound. On the other hand, in English, we have different words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Also, we have certain sounds that have silent letters like, "ph", "kn", and "gn" which was confusing for me growing up as well. Ortega states that phonological decoding is being able to access spelling cues and be able to identify words (Ortega, 2009). I believe that with practice this can be achieved. According to Gass, spelling may not even be a problem for some. It may just depend on the language that is their L1 and the language that is becoming their L2.
Hi Jennifer, I also have a hard time identifying with Marco since I was born in the US. My older brother however could identify with him because my brother came over to the US when he was around 13-14 years old. They are both late learners. However, they prove Ortega’s point that there is no “supposedly critical age, ” where “early starters [are expected] to ‘succeed’ and for late starters to ‘fail’” (Ortega, 2013, p20). My brother spoke English very well and with little grammatical error. My brother struggled with Spelling and grammatical rules when writing, but his spoken English did not reveal his struggles as much.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print
Lam, your point about the critical age was not one that crossed my mind during this experience of interviewing. My interviewee Marco stated that he had spoken with others that had no idea he spoke Spanish, which alludes to the idea that his English has appeared to be native-like when speaking to others. According to Gass (2008), the critical period is “a limited developmental period during which it is possible to acquire a language be it L1 or L2, to normal, nativelike levels.”
DeleteReferences: Gass, S. M. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.
Hi Brianna,
ReplyDeleteAfter watching your video, Marco is a great person to interview for this assignment because of his age to when he started learning and speaking English. The age of 13, is a confusing age because it isn't too old, yet old enough that the L1 has already been established in the brain. Ortega states that "phonetic categories or mental representations of speech sounds in the L1 are stabilized by age five to seven." (Ortega, 2013, pg. 23) This could be a reason to why Marco would have trouble with his spelling because his brain has already settled into his L1 of Spanish and spelling has a lot to do with phonetics and spelling out how words sound. English has a lot of ambiguous and tricky sounds that can be deceiving to a second language English speaker.
Ortega, Lourdes. Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2013. Print
Joseph –
DeletePhonetics definitely are a significant concept in this interview because of Marco’s self-proclaimed trouble with spelling. What you are referring to appears to be phonological decoding, which according to Ortega is “the fluent ability to access spelling cues and automatically integrate them to identify words and retrieve associated meanings” (p. 153). The methodical explanation of Marco’s weakness in spelling can be explained by looking deeper into this area of language, and perhaps allow us to understand our own ELL students’ difficulty with spelling.
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Marco, your fiancé’s brother-in-law delved into some of the details of his second language learning. He mentioned that some of his difficulties with learning English were spelling and social practices. He spoke about how he learned a great deal of English from watching television programs and movies in English. The brief, five month, period of ESL classes he was enrolled him also benefited his learning. However, he made it a point that it was not until he was in college or cooperate America that he truly applied himself in his quest for formal English proficiency attainment. His new target language became formal, professional speech. According the Ortega (2009), “Producing the target language may be the trigger that forces the learner to pay attention to the means of expression needed in order to successfully convey his… intended meaning” (p. 62).
ReplyDeleteAudrey, the Speech Accommodation Theory is referred to as “one way of accounting for speech effects attributed to interlocutor differences” (p. 269) and “begins from the observation that speech patterns tend to converge/ diverge in social interaction” according to Gass (2008). By immersing himself in the environment of professional speech, this may be how Marco obtained an accelerated pace at English language proficiency.
DeleteReferences: Gass, S. M. (2008). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.