The Starting of the End

This month has been pretty crazy. It started off pretty mellow with spring break, but once that was over, we hit the ground running. The crazy pace of how fast everything is being thrown at us kind of made me realize that I'm going to be graduating in just a month and a half. When we received our final presentation rubrics, my jaw dropped. Final presentations seemed like such a ways away, but there it was, the rubric staring at me right in the face! I honestly have no idea how I'm going to cope with all the things that will be going down in May since I barely survived this month. On the bright side, I finished my independent component! woo! I was finally able to meet up with Lawrence, and I spent a good chunk with the boy on the days I saw him. I really don't feel like going into details right now, but here are some pictures. (I used them on my independent component 2 post. lmao)

Lawrence and I playing with his cousins in the ocean. I would ask him "How does the water feel?" or "What do you want to do in the water?" Since this was in the beginning of my independent component, he didn't respond much to my questions since he was still shy and not use to my presence.

Lawrence playing some sick Minecraft. 

Independent Component 2

Title: Independent Component 2
Label: Independent Component
Due Date: Monday, 4/27 by 8AM

Content:

LITERAL

• (a) “I, Alyanna Landayan, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32 hours of work.”
• (b) The works of Krashen and the book, Beyond Methods, really assisted me in teaching Lawrence in an efficient way.
• (c) My independent component hours can be found here.
• (d) I had my sister's best friend's little brother, Lawrence, act as my student for English as a Second Language learning. I used all the information I have learned on child second language acquisition to teach Lawrence English in the most effective way possible.

INTERPRETIVE

• Because my senior project revolves around how young children acquire a second language, what better way to explore than actually teach a child myself? Teaching Lawrence how to speak English allowed me to utilize all the information I have collected these past few months to create a little lesson plan for an English learner. I was able to take the countless amount of methods I've read about and decide which ones would create the most effective and enjoyable way for Lawrence to learn English. I tried to make learning fun for him by reading these interesting books and playing video games with him. How did those activities help him acquire English? Ask me to find out. My independent component also enabled me to see which one of my answers is the best one. I began my independent component with my three best EQ answers in mind, but I still had trouble figuring out which one of these answers is the best answer. I was one of those students that wrote "Oh, ALL my answers are just so great. :]" Apparently, that wasn't acceptable, so I have to actually discover which answer is the most essential for child second language acquisition all on my own. By the end of this independent component, I'm proud to say that I have decided which one of my answers is the best answer. Not only that, I have also made a new friend. :] Here are some photos I have taken throughout my independent component. Some of these pictures are of my materials and some of them are of Lawrence. 

Here's a photo of Lawrence playing some Minecraft on one of the first days I started teaching him. He didn't really talk to me much in the beginning. All he did was play his video games, but even when he was playing his video games, I was still able to get some output out of him by asking him to verbalize what he's doing in the game.

One of the books I read to Lawrence. It's about a crayon having an identity crisis. It's quite a cute book.

Here's a book that Lawrence really liked. It's called Press Here. The books purpose is to teach children colors and actions.

At the family gathering. Lawrence was walking around with a stick of barbecue. I asked him to name all of the food that he wanted to eat in English, and he kept on saying "chicken barbecue." 

When I went to the Santa Fe Dam for the picnic. That's me in the blue shorts playing with Lawrence in the blue shirt. The kid in the red shirt is a family friend, Christian.

When we had a family gathering at the beach. Lawrence is the one in the blue shorts. I'm the one in the black bikini top and blue bikini bottom. I was talking to Lawrence in English, asking him to tell me everything he saw at the beach. Jessica, the one in the light blue bikini top, thought I was being weird.

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? 

• As I have stated before, my whole senior topic revolves around child second language acquisition and what the most important factors of second language acquisition are. Since I actually taught a child, I was able to see which one of my answers (affective filter, comprehensible input, and patience) is the best answer for my EQ. Just as Dr. Russikoff has said and I have predicted, the affective filter is the best answer for my essential question. Lawrence is a shy child and he didn't really open up to me in the beginning. He didn't talk to me much when I would ask him questions, and when he did talk to me, it was minimal and uninterested answers. However, after about a week of seeing me, he started to feel comfortable with me and it was so hard to shut the boy up. Lawrence was talking in English, though! And his English did improve a lot once I broke through that hard shell.