Hello everyone and welcome back to my Vblog!
The link to my video is here.
For this video, I interviewed my
friend Cynthia. She is currently in her second semester of student teaching in
a bilingual kindergarten classroom in Spring Branch ISD. She is originally from
Los Angeles and grew up speaking Spanish.
She learned Spanish through experiences with her family. The Spanish
language was in her environment and she learned it through observation. This
means that Cynthia was a “naturalistic learner,” she learned Spanish “through
informal opportunities without ever receiving any organized instruction on the
workings of the language” (Ortega, 2013, p.6). When Cynthia started Pre-K in a
HeadStart program, there were no bilingual classes offered. She learned English
in the classroom through formal instruction from her teachers. Cynthia was an
“instructed learner” of English, she was taught to speak, read, and write
English “through formal study in school” (Ortega, 2013, p.6).
Cynthia’s family moved to Houston
when she was in fourth-grade. In L.A., Cynthia was in an English, mainstream
classroom, but when she moved to Houston she was enrolled in a bilingual class.
This was the first time Cynthia had been in a formal Spanish speaking
environment. She was in this class for less than one semester because she had spent
so many years in a formal, English speaking classroom. Cynthia had learned how
to speak informal Spanish in her home, but she never learned to read or write
it. When she was in the bilingual class, she did not perform well because she
could not read or write in Spanish. Cynthia was more successful in the mainstream
English classroom because she had learned how to speak, read, and write in
English.
Now Cynthia is studying to be a
bilingual teacher. The struggles she is facing of being a bilingual teacher is
speaking formal Spanish with her students and writing correctly in Spanish. To
help aid these struggles, she prepares her materials in advance to make sure
she writes her anchor charts and materials correctly, and she avoids using
slang words within the classroom to ensure understanding between her and her
students.
Ortega, Lourdes.
(2013). Understanding second language acquisition.
London: Routledge.
Lauren Smajstrla
ReplyDeleteHey Lauren! I really enjoyed watching your interview with your friend Cynthia. I actually find her journey in learning a new language interesting. So, she grew up speaking Spanish and was exposed to English when she started school. It seems like English became more dominant just because of the fact that she learned how to read, write and speak it. Ortega states that, “through informal opportunities in multicultural neighborhoods, schools and workplaces, without ever receiving any organized instruction on the workings of the language they are learning" (Ortega, 2013, pg. 6) Which in this case is what happened she was exposed to both languages around her. To think that now she is going to be a bilingual teacher is great! She can now help her own students in her classroom, and it will be easy for her to understand their struggles because she went through it herself.
Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Hi Carina, thanks for watching my interview with Cynthia and commenting on my blog! I agree with you, I also find Cynthia’s language acquisition journey interesting. She informally spoke Spanish when she first learned to speak, but then she formally learned how to read and write in English in a mainstream classroom. English became dominant because it’s what she was formally taught and what she spoke more often at school. According to Ortega, Cynthia could be referred to as a naturalistic learner of Spanish and an instructed learner of English (Ortega, 2013, p.6). I wish her the best as she becomes a bilingual teacher.
DeleteOrtega, Lourdes. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London: Routledge.