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.

Independent Component 2 Approval

Title: Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval
Label: Independent Component
Due Date: Thursday, 2/12 by 8AM


1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• English competence is needed in order to survive here in America. Since my EQ explores what factors would positively affect a child's second language acquisition, I am planning on teaching a child English for my independent component. My sister's best friend has a little brother, Lawrence, that doesn't know much English, and he needs it to communicate easier with his fellow classmates and his teacher. I can teach him traditional American games to give him comprehensible input and read children stories with him. However, if I'm unable to use Lawrence as my test subject  student, then I can find another relative/family friend to teach instead.

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• Posting pictures of children online wouldn't be the smartest idea to do, so I will document the student's progress of the language throughout the 30 hours I'm with him. I can have him write sentences about his day and post pictures of how his grammar, spelling, and vocabulary progresses over time.

3. Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Teaching a child a second language will really show me what is important when a child is learning their second language because I'm actually experiencing the process/factors in person rather than reading articles on the Input Hypothesis or some other Krashen book. I would be able to see what works and what doesn't.

4. Post a log in your Senior Project Hours link and label it "Independent Component 2" log.

• Done. lol.

Independent Component 1

Title: Independent Component 1
Label: Independent Component
Due Date: Friday 2/6 at 8AM
Content: 

• LITERAL
• (a) Write: “I, Alyanna Landayan, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 38 hours of work."
• (b) My mentor, DR. Karen Russikoff helped me complete the independent component (she IS the one who taught the class.)
• (c) My independent component hours can be found in the blue section all the way down at the bottom, beneath my mentorship hours here.
• (d) I took ENG 323, a Language Acquisition class taught by me mentor, Dr. Karen Russikoff. I would spend from 4:00-6:00 in that classroom every M/W for three months, learning about how language is acquired. Despite the strenuous workload from two back-to-back college classes and all the gray hairs earned from the stress that quarter, I enjoyed taking this class. Dr. Russikoff's easy-going personality and fun stories kept it interesting.

• INTERPRETIVE
• I entered senior year with little to no knowledge of language and all the factors that go behind acquiring a language. All I knew was that I wanted to have my senior project revolve around it I have always loved learning languages, and since my childhood was just one confusing linguistic case (from bilingual to a Tagalog only speaker to English only speaker), I wanted to know how I can easily learn a language I have once been fluent in and why did my language identity fluctuate the way it did. In this class, not only did I get an explanation, but I was also able to learn so much more about language and how people are able to connect meaning to the random noises and sounds that make up a language. From the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) to Baby Language Milestones to Krashen's Monitor Model, I learned a lot about language. Every time I stepped into that classroom, I would always be learning something new and I actually looked forward to going to class every Monday and Wednesday. ENG 323 was definitely not the easiest class to take with all the information that had to be remembered and the crazy (yet reasonable) amount of articles to read, but it was fun and engaging with Dr. Russikoff's interesting stories and humor. Also, just sitting in a 300 class just made me feel so smart and superior. "Yes, I am a high school student. Yes, I am taking a class with you college juniors. Suck it." It would've been awkward if I just whipped out my phone during class to snap some photos, so I don't have any documentation of me sitting inside the classroom, but I do have photos of the ENG 323 booklet, my grade for the class, and an e-mail between me and my group members for our Non-Native Speaker project.

My first assignment on a NNS article that the class had to read. I got an A- for the thoughtfulness of my short essay. What dinged me was my incorrect answers for some of the questions.

When the NNS project started, my group members e-mailed each other to make sure who is doing what role.

IPA chart in my ENG 323 booklet. Pretty fun stuff.

My grade for my language acquisition class. I blocked out my other grades to prevent nosy people from looking. Besides, they're irrelevant. This post is about my Language Acquisition class, not Religions of the World. But aye, your girl got a B.

A day's worth of notes ft. my eye drawing.

Behold, the ENG 323 booklet and it's entirety.

• APPLIED
• As I stated before, I had a limited knowledge of my senior topic. Taking this class has really helped me grasp a better understanding of language acquisition as well as build a greater passion and interest for it. This class was the kick-starter to my senior project. I learned more than half of my knowledge on language acquisition inside that classroom, which acted as a guide on what I should look into and what I should be researching in order to get more information. If I never decided to take this class, I wouldn't know the IPA, Krashen and Cummin's theories on second language acquisition, or how crucial ESL program qualities are for children learning English as a second language. ENG 323 is the foundation for my project. 

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1.For my 30-hour independent component, I am planning on taking my mentor's, Karen Russikoff, Language Acquisition course at Cal Poly Pomona.  

2. To show the thirty hours of evidence, I will file the homework and paperwork Dr. Russikoff will give the class into a portfolio, take pictures of class as it is in session, and ask Dr. Russikoff to give me my test scores so I may file them into a portfolio as well. Basically, I will all paperwork in a file and I will document a couple of pictures of the class to prove that I was actually attending the class.

3. Since it is a college course revolving around my senior topic, I feel like taking the class will benefit me greatly and provide me more insight regarding my topic. It will also educate me in the entirety of Language Acquisition (IPA, etc.) instead of just the one branch I have been focusing my research checks on. This class will help me make a better decision as to what branch of Language Acquisition is. There is more than meats the eye and this class will help me discover/realize that.