Language Autobiography: Personal Journey in Language Learning

Introduction: Language as Connection and Isolation

Language is essential in life and in learning. We use it to communicate ideas, feelings, needs, and thoughts. As social creatures, we use language to bond with people, to create ties of affection, and to build pillars of support for each other and for society as a whole. Language is something that can unite people; but if it is not known, it can also isolate those who do not have access to it.

Early Language Experiences: English and Spanish at Home

How I learned what I know about language has come from my experience as a learner. What I remember about acquiring my native language is a real reticence to begin speaking: I was five years old before I actually started to speak. I would listen to my two older brothers have conversations, and from them I learned both English and Spanish. Since my family and friends mostly spoke English over time, I gradually lost my Spanish and needed to retake it in school to become familiar with it again.

My parents and siblings played an important role in my process of learning language, as I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household. However, as we all grew older, we moved increasingly toward English because of where we lived. We needed to speak English to fit in with the society around us, and so English became our predominant language.

The role that my teachers and school environment played in my language development was significant as well. In school, everyone spoke English and promoted the concept of communication. Teachers were very expressive and used language to create many feelings and ideas in our minds throughout the grade levels.

School, Teachers, and the Challenge of Spanish Grammar

The hardest part of studying a foreign language — in my case Spanish, even though I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household — was learning the basic grammar rules. Because Spanish was not taught as a primary language in my schools and was not used as a primary language among my peers, it still felt foreign to me when I encountered it formally. I had to approach Spanish when I was older as though it were entirely new, because the grammar was different from the English I had already internalized. While I knew pronunciations in Spanish and could hear the language, I did not understand its grammar. Learning the grammar was the most difficult part.

This experience is why I now believe that grammar is the most important element of learning a new language: it lays the guidelines. Once you know the rules, you can play the game, so to speak. The easy part of learning Spanish in school, however, was that I was used to hearing it as a child at home, so I could draw on that early exposure to help me through the coursework.

My proficiency level in Spanish was, as a result of my household background, relatively advanced. What helped most with learning Spanish in school was repetition — something I had experienced abundantly at home with my family. Chomsky's Universal Grammar language acquisition theory was used in my classes to help us see how subjects and verbs fit together. This was an effective method for my learning style, as I enjoyed seeing how the parts of sentences related to each other and how grammar functioned in both Spanish and English.

Conclusion: Influences from Theory and Coursework

The readings and discussions from class have influenced my philosophy in the sense that they have given me many more options and much more flexibility in how to develop my own teaching style. One of the language learning methods discussed that best describes my personal philosophy is the one developed by Krashen (Rounds, 2010), because it focuses on creating a relaxed environment and allowing students to work and collaborate with classmates while interacting with visual supports. These theoretical frameworks, layered over my lived experience as a bilingual learner and a language learner abroad, form the foundation of how I intend to approach language teaching going forward.

References

Adichie, C. (2009). The danger of a single story. TED. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story

Gottlieb, M. (2006). Assessing English language learners: Bridges from language proficiency to academic achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Levien, R. [mediathatmatters]. (2009, June 16). Immersion [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Y0HAjLKYI

Pearson Education. (2014). The SIOP Model: Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. Retrieved from http://siop.pearson.com/about-siop/

Peregoy, S., & Boyle, O. (2013). Reading, writing, and learning in ESL: A resource book for teaching K–12 English learners. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Rounds, M. (2010). Stephen Krashen on language acquisition.