Spanish I And II: Habitual Analysis

Many popular theories of second language acquisition have been analyzed throughout history. The socialization of L2 learners, their present emotional state that is present at time of acquisition, as well as the comprehensible input and output with the use of scaffolding play a major role in second language acquisition. Let us also not forget the importance of written expression as well as reading comprehension with these L2 learners. Each play a role in language development. However, I believe that in acquiring a language, one must use a variety of techniques that work together to create a balance within the learning environment. Furthermore, all L2 learners learn differently and so a variety of resources will need to be used based on the ability of each student. There are many theories that have been developed by highly qualified experts in the field on linguistics. However, I will address those areas that I agree with as I present my personal theories on second language acquisition.

There are both positive and negative aspects of learning a language, but people are likely to equalize two sides and try not to lose the relationships with their family and the society. Amy Tan, in “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez in “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” explain how they viewed their private and public languages through their experiences and how they managed these two languages and established themselves in the society. Tan initially felt ashamed of her private language and favored the public language; however, in the end she showed that she could manage the balance between the languages and finally utilized both in public. On the other hand, Rodriguez preferred his private language which made him feel comfortable;

Language can be a door to a new world for most people. It can help the person get that higher ranking position in the office or stand out to a company during an interview. For others, it may be a door that gets slammed in their face. This could be losing connection with your family or many other scenarios. The text, Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is about Amy’s life growing up with her “perfect English” and her mother’s “broken English”. Her mother is a very intelligent woman, but struggles with her English and has a hard time communicating with others. Amy is often used as her mother’s translator to help get her point across. The other text, Richard Rodriguez’s “Public and Private Language” is about Richard’s life growing up as a Spanish boy with a Spanish family in America. His teachers and peers cannot understand his Spanish so the Nuns come to his house and tell his parents to practice English for the children so they can strive in their academics. This soon tears Richard’s family apart from what use to be a happy, talkative family to a few words and alone. These two texts clearly show that language is a door is Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “Public and Private Language”.

Many people immigrate to the United States from different countries to begin a better life. Once in the American territory, the first step for success is to learn the English language. Richard Rodriguez, the writer of "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" describes the language decisions he faced as a child: "Outside the house was public society; inside the house was private" (16). The English language is the primary language in the United States, and it must be learned to be able to communicate with the public world. The language that we speak at home is considered to be private because it is only used in the presence of the people we feel comfortable with, our family. Families immigrate to

Based on the written and oral response, along with details from the student description, Guillermo needs assistance developing his grammatical skills. The student description notes that Guillermo struggles with grammar, both written and orally. In his written response, Guillermo has run-on sentences and struggles with verbs and their correct tenses. His oral response also shows weaknesses with verb tenses when he uses “go” instead of “went”.

1. One way to read Richard Rodriguez’s essay is as a discussion of two discrete educational philosophies. What are they?

When I was in eighth grade and my class was choosing our schedules for our first year of high school, I was told that for the diploma I wanted, I would have to take a foreign language. I chose Spanish, because I thought it would be easy. Little did I know that that decision would change my life forever.

Spanish verbs irregular in the present tense! ! Stem-Changing Verbs Ending in -ar and -er! ! e → ie -ar o → ue -er pensar - to think!

Since, the second language is an additional language after we acquire the first language, the L2 learning process can be influenced by the L1 learning process This essay will demonstrate the similarities and differences in L1 and L2 acquisition by discussing various theories. Then, draw a conclusion based on the evidence provided and my own experience.

Many popular theories of second language acquisition have been analyzed throughout history. The socialization of L2 learners, their present emotional state that is present at the time of acquisition, as well as the comprehensible input and output with the use of scaffolding play a major role in second language acquisition. Kirsten Hummel states, “The one most effective way to increase L2 competence was by exposure to ‘comprehensible input’.” (Hummel, 2014, p. 73) Let us also not forget the importance of written expression as well as reading comprehension with these L2 learners. Each plays a role in language development. However, I believe that to acquire language one must use a variety of techniques that work together to create a balance within the learning environment. Furthermore, all L2 learners acquire language differently and so using a variety of resources that are based on the ability of each student is neccesary. There are many theories that have been developed by highly qualified experts in the field of linguistics. However, I will address those areas that I agree with as I present my personal theories on second language acquisition.

Numerous theories try to explain the process of language acquisition. These theories fall into one of two camps. The environmentalist (or connectionist) theory of language acquisition asserts that language is acquired through environmental factors (Halvaei et al. 811). Theorists in this camp believe that a child learns language by gaining information from the outside world and then forming associations between words and objects. The nativist (or rationalist) approach, on the other hand, asserts that it is innate factors that determine language acquisition. Noam Chomsky, often described as “the father of modern linguistics”, falls into this camp as he believes that speech is the result of hidden rules of language that are hidden somewhere in the brain (Rahmani and Abdolmanafi 2111). Steven Pinker, a colleague of Chomsky, is a renowned psychologist, cognitive scientist and linguist who discusses his own theories on language acquisition in his book Words and Rules.

My native language is Spanish and second language is English. The language I was first taught was Spanish, my parents and relatives all speak Spanish so it is my native language. When I started school at the age of 4 my teachers and classmates spoke only English. As the years passed by they started teaching me grammar rules and how to pronounce words. My parents spoke Spanish to me, but it was nothing compared to learning new nursery rhymes that helped me grasp the language without too much difficulty. I can communicate with people in Spanish but I feel like I have an accent with my Spanish. It does not come as naturally as my English does, I can say a sentence without thinking about it while Spanish I have to think of the meaning of words and I stutter when trying to say a complete sentence. At home I speak Spanish but when I am with friends, cousins, or out in public I only speak English.

In the beginning of the class I had many problems with grammar and verb tense usage, primarily because my home country does not speak English even the alphabet is totally different. When I went to high school in Ethiopia, I never had to write an essay, or even a paragraph. Therefore,

In our everyday lives, the origin of our ability to communicate is usually not often taken into consideration. One doesn't think about how every person has, or rather had at one time, an innate ability to learn a language to total fluency without a conscious effort – a feat that is seen by the scientific community "as one of the many utterly unexplainable mysteries that beset us in our daily lives" (3).. Other such mysteries include our body's ability to pump blood and take in oxygen constantly seemingly without thought, and a new mother's ability to unconsciously raise her body temperature when her infant is placed on her chest. But a child's first language acquisition is different from these

Children encompass the ability to learn whichever language system they are introduced to, therefore a newborn would learn the fictional Klingon language (Hoff, 2006). Klingon is not a natural language such as English or Spanish, and does not adhere to all the rules of a natural language. Due to this issue, the child would encounter problems in saying everyday terms in Klingon. Also, since Klingon is a fictional language and not spoken in society the child would not be able to communicate with others, which may cause the child to reject this fictional language. This rejection may be related to the lack of acceptance of this fictional language in society. This could constrain the child’s ability to learn a new language in which he/she