Bridging Language & Culture

Reflection: Interview with Karin Frisch

         Karin Frisch, a married, stay-at-home, mother of twins, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was my interviewee. She never received formal English lessons; attributing her acquisition of English, largely, through children’s books, and American media. Through my interview with Karin, I was able to apply, grammar and morpheme, correction, of her word choices and prepositions, and identify theories that we have learned through our modules, that I could apply to Karin’s L1 transfer, and acquisition of English.

         Perhaps, Karin’s high level of culture shock attributed to her, instrumental and integrative, orientation motivation of English acquisition. She met her husband in 2004, and despite the language barrier between the two, they both experienced interpersonal exchanges, and developed communication competencies to cope. Although, to Karin, her English L1 transfer to L2 seemed natural and effortless, I can identify and apply the theories of studied linguistics to her ELL experience.

         She was 25, when she moved the states, a post-critical age period, which, I believe had no hindrance on her English acquisition. She acknowledges her educational background was helpful for her language transfer. She, also, states she was exposed to English through media, music, people, and schooling. at a critical age period, 5-13 years. This is interesting because, I believe this implicit and explicit exposure may have familiarized her with English, subconsciously, way before she knew her husband would be American. This makes me very curious about our subconscious learning abilities? I can relate research that mother’s playing music for their infants increasing brain functions. I think this could be a similar phenomenon that applies to adolescence.

         I believe Karin’s ELL is a very common story of newcomer transition. I have friends and family, who have married inter-culturally.  I think this is the best example of the interpersonal, acculturation process, as the phases of a relationship, serves as an analogy for the acculturation process; euphoria, honeymoon stage, excitement; culture shock, change of perception of self in new culture, or with new person; culture stress, finding discourse to alleviate tension of native pressures, integrating two individuals in a relationship; Assimilation, adaptation to culture, relationship interdependencies. I had to write that analogy, because I think comparing acculturation stages to relationship phases, is relatable for all people, especially students. That is why I enjoyed Karin so much, she points out that people experiencing language barriers, use communication competencies, when they feel an interpersonal connections. She said a few times, “I could barley speak English, but I could feel something, and he could too, so we worked at it,” explaining her interpersonal relationship with her husband.

         Today, Karin admits she still struggles with English prepositions, and understanding English “slang.” For example, she says, “Sometimes I have to ask my husband what phrases like, face the music, mean.” Another error, and evidence of her competency strategies, in her sentence structure, was her word choice in saying “I will teach you directions [to her house].” I knew she meant, “I can give you directions to my house,” I thought it was interesting that she presented directions, as something you can teach. This make sense, we, technically, have to learn a set of turns and roads to make our directions, but in English, it is grammatically correct to “give” directions. This is an example of Karin, communicating through L1 interface, as described by Ellis’s Contrastive Hypothesis Analysis. The word “teach,” is overtly incorrect, yet, she is transfering what she knows, to express her idea. I am not Karin’s teacher, so I did not correct her, but I know as a teacher, I would want to correct students. I would use approaches discussed in Thomas and Hienle’s, in their Grammar Dimension Series.

       Karin’s, two, three-year-old, twin, girls, are bilingual in Portuguese and English. It is fun to observe her children innately switch languages to accommodate other speakers. For example, pre-school, they may say “cuidado,” to eachother, when coming down the slide, but speak English to teachers and peers. Because, she is teaching Portuguese and English to her girls, equally, I expect there social distance will low and expansive, when visiting Brazil and her in the U.S. This family is really fun, and great to observe, in my social-linguistic studies.

Discussion on "Good" Language Learning

Consider the following scenario: you are teaching intermediate ESL writing to a group of twenty students--six and seventh graders from different first language backgrounds. They are interested in electronics and social media but not much else. Half of them have told you they hate English, or they hate writing, or they hate both. What strategies would you use to motivate them to learn?

Luckily, I have experience working with teenagers, and, I am all too familiar with this scenario. Teenagers these days are addicted to the internet, and it is not their fault. It is a sign of our, and, "their" times. So, instead of fighting their desire to participate in social media programs, I would find a way to make digital media useful, and instrumental in ELL. I would have them sign up for Twitter, and tweet, and connect with things they are interested in, in English.

I think social media is entertaining, interesting, and the reason why TESOL is in high demand for current and future generations. I think this would initiate more intrinsic motivation for student because they feel enjoyment, and can interact in English Also, I don't want students to hate English, and hate me, because teenagers look for anything to hate.

Also, I would promote internet games in the ESL classroom. I think the prizes and validation from the game challenge, will evoke extrinsic motivation.  To be sure, that all the student are not being totally sucked into the cyber world, I would limit internet use in the classroom. I could even use,  internet games access, as incentive, and a reward, to encourage students to work hard in class.

Some people are just not good at languages. Good language learners are born, not made. Language aptitude declines with age. I do not like, or agree with this comment.

I just interviewed a 32 year old, Brazilian, who did not begin speaking English, until she was 26. She is now, fluid and fluent, in speaking English. Her case shows that age does not effect a persons ability to acquire a second language. However, motivation does; she married her husband, who is American in 2004. Her Instrumental orientation to English, was falling in love with someone who speaks little of her native language. Her integrative orientation to English, was moving to the U.S. and submersing herself into an English community. She told me that, American's are very tolerant with speakers of another language, whereas, in Brazil, people are not as patient with newcomers. The tolerance of the American culture, was helpful and motivating to her L2 acquisition. 

So, the circumstances of the Russian, homemaker, and man in his twenties, are all capible of being a "good language learner," depending on motivation, intensity, quality, and effectiveness of their ELL course and their dedication. There are, of course, other factors that could hinder a persons L2 acquisition, such as, funding, previous educations, etc., but I think if someone is determined enough to totally submerse themselves into ELL, they will. 

Discussion on Creative Teaching/Social Media Influence

1. Respond now to this position: “Teaching speech acts seems to put teachers and students in a straightjacket. Won’t we be limited to teaching students dialogs that they have to memorize? Don’t we want them to be more creative in their use of the second language?”

I think defining, describing, and explaining speech acts to students, seems much more difficult for the teacher to describe to L2 learners.  J.L. Austin does a thorough, yet still confusing, explanation of interpersonal language functions. As a prospective teacher, I could only use graphs and charts to explain this phenomenon.

I think every culture experiences locution changes, and implicit or alternative meanings behind what a person says; however, cultural speech act transfers probably more than confuses L2 students, and would be hard to explain.  I think as a teacher, you have to let student acquire this understanding naturally, through their own interactions and error correction. Much like Professor Duarte explains about her experiences, in her lecture.

So, to answer the question above, I think speech acts more guides teachers in the break-down of language functions, and help teacher aid student utterances, inferences, and understanding. However, having students memorize speech acts seem unnecessarily confusing and too contrived.Considering the following scenario: A beginning adult in ESL class that is uninterested and not progressing well. The student is in the U.S., temporarily, to work and save as much money as he can, and then return to his hometown and help his family. He is living with an aunt and uncle who speak little English and use their first language at home. His friends are young people from his home country who do not speak English well or very much. He is in the ESL program to improve his English enough to understand his boss better and follow his instructions better.

2. I do not think it is fair, yet, to assume, Sociolinguist, John Schumann, would consider this student’s circumstances a “bad learning situation." However, I do agree that this guy's social distance may have a negative impact on his process of acculturation, and interfere with the SLA process. Shumann's, social distance theory helps teachers perceive social-cultural interferences, or, obstacles that may disrupt student progress. With teacher perception, there could always be something the teacher may not fully know, for example, maybe the student does not have time to study because he is working so much. It would not be fair for teacher to assume student is uninterested, because we don't really know what the student's life is like. His family may discourage his L2 acquisition and create pressure for him to work and make money, and not see the value in his education. 

The key is to consider the combination of student socio-cultural relations in the U.S., i.e. similarities in L1 &L2 culture, student motivations, length of residence. The negative implications of student's situation, are L1 dominance in this home life, short length of stay in U.S., and most strikingly, his lack of motivations. But, I would like to point out, his lack of motivation may derive from him not having a choice to work, away from his family. His home life works against him because he can only communicate in his native language to his family.

As a teacher, I would still see opportunity in the man's L2 learning ability, and would not consider his situation as"bad learning situation," because I think his job and L2 classes are still working towards his U.S. acculturation. Even if he finds more comfort in interacting with students from his native culture, as teachers, we must assign diverse small groups to break social barriers. I would push him to seek more interest in ESL course to further his career path, and not just get by. I would, also, encourage him to practice with friends and basic English use at home, letting him be the teacher. I can see how "bad combinations" of situation may affect his L2, but I would also strive to find the cultural similarities to help this student transfer and relate to new language to his home life, and hope he finds purpose in that.

Edited by Alexandria White on Dec 2 at 8:49am

Discussion on Personality Learning

1. I believe the combination of deductive and inductive teaching is most effective in ELL. I, personally, would prefer to teach, and be taught, through inductive approaches, because I think inductive is more in-tune with right brain learning. However, I feel like inductive learning method, of samples and patterns, in conjunction with deductive, rules and applications, creates the "AHA," moment, that we have experienced in our learning, and what we hope for our students to experience. The "AHA," moment, is where all the information, comes together, and finally makes sense to student. I remember, one "AHA," moment, that still sticks out, vividly, in my mind. Because I am such a right-brained, learner, I couldn't not understand long division. The rules, just would not click. I had two different teachers try to explain how to do long division. I felt embarrassed that I could not remember the rules, and failed all my quizzes. (Keep in mind I was in third grade.) It wasn't until an older peer tutor, explained long division, not by rules, but by showing me patterns, and helping me apply rules of multiplication to my division practice. Then, it all "clicks," "aha," I loved doing math and tutoring peers. For this moment, required both inductive and deductive usages.

I mentioned this in my exercise, that I think as an instructor, I would approach my lessons using the tolerance of ambiguity method, of explaining deductively, rules and regulations, then move inductively to patterns, exceptions, and strategies. By starting out lesson very specific prevents error, then, slowly and strategically, moving lesson to broader and more complicated caveots, will make lesson more thorough. 

2. If I have 15 students, with 15 learning styles, I do not think all students will have drastically varying learning abilities. At-least, I hope not. However, I think all learning styles methods should be integrated into the classroom. I do not think it is impossible to cater to every student. As one person, one teacher, that could be overwhelming, but that is where I think it is our jobs to, sort-of, delegate, and motivate, students and parents to find other sources, to help further ELL. Some moderate ideas I have to expand on classroom learning, that would be more individualized, at home, are online games and practice sites. More effective, outside classroom, help would be to sign-up for a peer tutor, or student teacher, to help student, one-on-one. I think these ideas, allow for more individualized help with lesson, that may better fit a student's learning style. If a student is really interpersonal, I think encouraging social networking, joining clubs, or any social group would be effective for their learning, because they are very interactive. If a student is interpersonal, I would encourage online exercises, and small group studies. The expect ion this this would be, trying to integrate and get students comfortable with all learning situations. This is important because it is always necessary to think about how to set your student's up to succeed outside the classroom, in their daily lives. But in the classroom, all 15 students will experience a mixture of learning approaches, for exposure and creativity of learning processes.

Reflection Paper: Language Learning Experience

          

 I studied Italian while I was abroad in Italy. I was 21 years old, completing independent, cross-cultural studies in interpersonal communications. This was, literally, an experience that reflects why I am passionate and interested in linguistic studies, today. Considering my post-critical age period of SLA, I was able to transfer and learn language forms and meaning, semantically, depending on pertinence, through verbal and non-verbal interactions, and with little grammar penology.

            The most interesting cross-cultural transfer I discovered during my L2 acquisition is the transfer of humor, i.e. jokes, laughter, and catching onto implicit meanings of another speaker, rather than, literal translations, during stages of SLA. This discovery of meta-linguistics, at beginning stages of L2 acquisition, at a post-critical age, really “speaks too,” a human’s ability to acclimate through cultural immersion. My study of interpersonal, cross-cultural communications and applied linguistics, leads me to the assumption; that post-pubescent humans, adapt to language, for survival, similarly to young infants adaptation of language for survival.

            This assumption, in my experience, comes from the universal need of our species to form relationships. Reflecting on the cases of The Wild Children, Genie and Victor, isolation from healthy family system structure, and no critical-period developments, or little to no interaction with any other humans, these post-pubescent children where able to adapt, quickly, to scientist and researchers who sought interest in their case. Through empirical evidence that we studied in our modules, we see that these children formed relationships, innately and without thought, through verbal and non-verbal interaction, (i.e. sounds, reactions, gestures,) which led directly to L1 acquisition.

            Similarly, babies will gesture, make sounds, and learn alternate ways to signal their needs to caretaker. For example, they will cry for milk. As they grow, caretaker will help infant substitute this cry, or signal for milk, with sign language, and later words. I can see that human needs are expressed in anyway that generates response. We can generate responses through our relationships with people around us. Another universal quality of humans, are we innately caretaker for other. I see that we generally want to help each other if we can, despite barriers, such as age, and language. That is what happened in Genie’s case, she began to learn alternative ways to signal her emotions and needs.

            I reference these cases above because I can relate this to my experience in learning a second language, abroad. In most cases, I was able to piece together what I already knew, to learn something that was vital to accomplishing what I need. For example, the one sentence, I used most was, “Como se dice,” pronounced, “se,” say, “dice,” dichAy. Pronunciation in Italian is a key element in expressing language in an understandable way. I was able to self-teach, because I have proper grammar and reading, education background. I did most self-taught acquisition through the Internet and reading. While in Italy, we had a translator for a majority of the trip. This was interesting because we did not focus on grammar techniques at all. Most phrases and useful L2 structures, where sentences that were situational fluencies,  i.e. market places, traveling, and self-expression to others. This acquisition is interesting because as a language learner in another country; having no formal grammar, syntax, or penology instruction, agrees with Wordhal’s semantic transfer theory. With no systematic instruction of grammar, I still naturally pieced together language meaning. What’s more, I was able to make sense of Italian jokes, based off of American and Italian stereotypes, funny gestures, and tonal changes. I received more error correction from locals, who would assist me in pronunciation, slowing down speech to give me time to translate, or facial queues that signaled misunderstandings. I think about Long’s Output Hypothesis, I do not think I would self-correct my errors, if it was not for language interactions, and striving to match more developed native speaker language. During this experience my affective filter was high. I have to admit; I felt pressure to speak to a standard that was not totally incomprehensible. Through each attempt to communicate with a native speaker, the more comfortable I became, thus lowering my affective filter.  This ties back to my original assumption that a person’s need to survive is easier with SLA, thus, there is more personal incentive to adapt to L2 rules. Survival comes from pertinent experiences, relationship formation, and language building techniques.

Cultural Portfolio Assignment:

·      Register account for daily e-mails through http://www.nytimes.com/?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1385953399-FHRnAmfB9al2SGZWbKPMYQ

·      Find article that is American current event. Send link to Instructor for approval.

·      Print article, and attach, 1-2 paragraph, typed, summary of article. Be sure to clarify any questions about unfamiliar vocabulary, or context, with instructor before presenting. Students should be prepared to read summary out-loud to class.

·      Prepare discussion question for classmates.

DUE EVERY TUESDAY

·      Lead discussion, with instructor assistance, should be 5-10 minuets. Remember, we are looking for a discussion of American culture and an understanding of what is going on in the country. This question is not meant to stump fellow-classmates. Pretend you are “around the water cooler.” (I will lead and present examples of what the discussion forum will look like, for students. Also, this allows for conversational analysis).

·      Students will archive articles in a running, and building portfolio, throughout the semester. Each week a new article will be added.

PRESENTATIONS ON THURSDAY

·      Instructor will choose 1-2 questions from each presented student article to place on, end of the week, written, quiz. The quiz will be posted online, fairly simple, and to be completed over the weekend. (Instructor will add feedback to student quiz, to clarify and correct any grammatical, discourse, or socio-linguistic competencies).

QUIZ DUE SUNDAY

Cultural Portfolio Activity Goals

            As an English teacher, my goal is to assist in student success, professionally and socially, in the community they choose to live. To carry out this idea, I have created, and assigned, a pertinent, language and professional acquisition curriculum, through a cultural portfolio assignment.

            My target demographic is University freshman, completing a semester course, one hour, three days a week, in introductory ESL course.  University student age range is approximatley18 to 25 years. To qualify for course, student must have completed high school, or equivalent, diploma, to prepare them for college level, socio-cultural, ESL course. Materials and assignment Requirements:

            The cultural portfolio will be a semester long compilation of weekly New York Times, article summaries, presentation, discussion, and quiz. Each week student will choose an article of their choice, which applies to American economy, art, science, finance, politics, or sciences. The student choice of article will give instructor an idea of competencies, i.e. easier or hard article; also, help instructor perception of student interests.

            Each student will be required to sign up for New York Times online account. Once their article is chosen, they will be responsible for summarizing article, and presenting to the class for discussion. As the instructor, I will guide the class on current events to research and stay on track. I want the students to feel empowered, and able to have choice in what they are learning. To prevent students from overlapping articles, I will make sure they run their chosen article by me first. I am assuming my class is smaller, to allow student led discussion on American culture. Student summary will be read straight from their paper. Student will create one question for the class that applies to article summary.  I want to model the discussion like a work place “round the water-cooler.”

            I know in American culture, we are very opinionated, and use current events, news, and entertainment, as means to socialize and create relationships with peers, and co-workers. I believe strongly, that this accruing portfolio of news and current events will help acclimate foreign students to American culture, and will serve as an open forum for student interaction of ideas and opinions. This, also, exercises and improves social interactions for students with low levels of cultural dimension and/or uncertainty avoidance fears.

            This portfolio will thoroughly measure and refine student communication competencies, prepare students for American socio-cultural professional success, as well as, promote American cultural assimilation. I think this assignment will allow for interpersonal communication competency refinement. For example, strategic competencies will be built through student correspondence with me, as the instructor, and allow for the bridging of any context or concepts that may need clarification. The strategic correspondence is that I can help explain mis-understandings, as well as, get an idea for English context that is difficult for foreign students to comprehend. I also foresee, student exchange and connecting of ideas and through chosen topics, discussions, and quizzes, as their discourse competencies are developed and refined. I would like to assess student progress by the level of difficulty in chosen articles, and writing improvements, at the end of the semester.

            Hopefully, through this assignment, students will become naturally interested in current events. I think the archive of articles throughout the semester will allow students to track their progress in reading and comprehending a valued and credible, American news-source, that can be applied to outside social interactions. Also, the instructor is able to collect quantitative and qualitative data on student progress, through the quizzes, article summary, and presentation progression. As I stated at the beginning, this portfolios intended to promote student success within their community.