Mentorship

Title: Blog 22: Mentorship
Label: Mentorship
Due Date: Thursday, May 14 by 8AM

Content:

LIA Response to blog:

Literal

• Done. 
• Mentor: Dr. Karen Russikoff - Cal Poly Pomona

Interpretive
What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• I think all the foundation knowledge is the most important thing. My mentor has really given me a lot of information about my topic, from her class to our one-on-one sessions with each other. She was basically my Aladdin and showed me "a whole new world", the world being linguistics. I was able to learn about all the different branches of language acquisition, and that really helped me decide on what I wanted my whole senior project to revolve around on. If it weren't for my mentor and her interesting experiences with her TESOL summer classes in China, I would have missed out on something that I enjoy doing.

Applied
How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ? Please explain.

• My essential question is "What is the most important factor of child second language acquisition?"Since my mentor teaches Chinese kids a second language every summer, she has given me a lot of advice on how to give them a fun, but effective learning experience. I used the advice she has given me when I was teaching my sister's best friend's brother, Lawrence, English. Dr. Russikoff's advice helped me get Lawrence to open up to me and lower that affective filter, which allowed him to absorb more input. 

Exit Interview

Title: Exit Interview
Label: Exit Interview
Due Date: Thursday, May 7th by 8AM

Please be advised. The senior team will not conduct any exit interview in which the student has not turned in a passing research count and completing this blog. In addition, you are expected to dress as you would for a job interview.

Content:

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?

• "What is the most important factor of child second language acquisition?"
• Lowered Affective-Filter
• Comprehensible Input
• Patience
• Best answer: Lowered Affective Filter because when the affective-filter is up, no input will be acquired.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• When I took my English 323 class, my mentor explained the Affective Filter in great detail when she was teaching about Krashen's Monitor Model. She believes the Affective Filter is the most important hypothesis, and I agreed with her because I had some first hand experiences.

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

• After my ENG 323 class ended, it was more difficult for me to come up with resources to look at to find my third answer. I couldn't talk to my mentor either since she was always busy with other students. To resolve this, I began talking to some ESL teachers from my elementary school, and they were able to give me some helpful stuff to look into.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• My mentor: She has taught me everything I needed to know in order to kickstart my project. If it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't have been as successful with my senior project as I am.
• Stephen Krashen: His books are the life of linguistics.

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.

A Work in Progress...

If you have been keeping up with my blog, you are probably aware that my second independent component is teaching my sister's best friend's little brother, Lawrence, English. Unfortunately, I was not able to visit him much through-out this month of March due to a three-week long discrepancy between my sister and her friend and my busy schedule. However, I do plan on meeting with Lawrence tomorrow and at least record his knowledge on the English language. I'm kind of excited to see him since I haven't visited the Paje family in a whole month.

I've started reading this book called Beyond Methods my first interviewee, Aaron Salinger, Spanish teacher at Mt. Sac, lend to me. It's just this book that elaborates on ways to making learning a second language fun for any age, whether the student is 5 or 50 (probably not 50 though because whoa. that is too old to be learning.). I'll try to use the methods referenced in this book to teach Lawrence how to speak English.

My sister and I smelling the genius coming from Beyond Methods.

I also found some tagalog-english children stories I can read to him, which will help connect Tagalog words to English words since the translation is already on the page. I'm kind of excited to (finally) start my independent component. :]

Fourth Interview Questions

Title: Fourth Interview Questions
Label: Interviews
Due Date: Thursday, March 12, 2015

Content: Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. The focus of your questions should be on your answer to your EQ.

1. How many languages are you fluent in and what age did you learn these languages?
2. What helped you acquire these languages?
3. What do you feel are the most important factors of child second language acquisition?
4. Do you feel like there is a difference between learning and acquiring a language?
5. What strategies do you use when teaching the children English?
6. What makes being an ESL teacher enjoyable?
7. Why did you want to become an ESL teacher?
8. What are some special conditions to consider when analyzing a child's language competence level?
9. Do you feel like patience is an important factor to child second language acquisition, or are there more important things other than that?
10. Have you ever taught ESL for middle school students?
11. How can I elaborate on my three EQ answers?
12. Do you support the use of the child's first language within the classroom or do you prefer the students to stick to English only?
13. Which type of education do you feel is better for children learning a second language: bilingual education or ESL pull-out programs?
14. What do you do when a child goes through their Silent Period and refuses to talk?
15. How do you make your students more comfortable in the learning environment?
16. What is the most difficult obstacle you had to face when teaching children English as a second language?
17. How can you ensure understanding between the child and the teacher?
18. What are your opinions on writing drills?
19. Do you teach based on Krashen's Monitor Model?
20. What is some advice you can give me when it comes to teaching a child English as a second language?

Blog 17: Answer 3

Title: Blog 17: Third Answer
Label: Research
Due Date: Thursday, March 5th by 8AM

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and 2 post your:

1. EQ

• What is the most important factor of child second language acquisition?

2. Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*

• If a teacher is patient with a child who is learning their second language acquisition, the child is more likely to feel more comfortable with the language later.

3. 3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

• Everyone learns at a different pace
• It's kind of like school; some people are better at certain subjects than others because the information will just click for them. Children may not understand the grammar and structure of the language at times, but that does not mean that they won't ever be able to understand the input. Sometimes, things just need to settle in the brain for a while before information starts to come together. Other times, the teacher just needs to keep clarifying and find other ways to explain.
• Silent Period
• Children learning a second language are most likely going to go through a silent period, which is a phenomenon where someone is silent and gives little output because they do not feel like they are ready to speak in a new language/they are simply uncomfortable. Forcing a child to speak during this period can make the child feel even more uncomfortable with the language.
• Patience lowers the affective filter
• If a teacher is patient with their student along with encouraging, the student would feel more comfortable, which lowers their affective filter and allows language to be acquired more easily.

4. The research source (s) to support your details and answer

• Hasan, Ali S. "Making Input Comprehensible for Foreign Language Acquisition." Damascus University Journal. Damascus University, 2008. Web. 19 Feb 2015.
• Krashen, Stephen D. "Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition." University of Southern California. n.p., n,d, Web. 8 Jan 2015.

5. Concluding Sentence

• As the old saying goes, "Patience is key."