SLA_MartinezJessicaFall2018

     Taking Second Language Acquisitions has been an eye-opening experience. Before taking this course all I knew was that I was bilingual, able to speak, read, and write in English and Spanish. Yet, I never understood the remarkable transformation that my brain had to undergo in order for me or anyone else, for that matter, to become fluent in both my/their L1 and later L2 languages. Embarking on the mission to acquire a second language at any age comes with its challenges because there are many factors that influence these acquisitions. For example, I learned of influential factors such as age, cross-linguistic, cognition, and motivation that are crucial factors to English Language Learner or second language learners.      While some of these influential factors were new to me, age was not one of them. I was always aware that it is easier to acquire and retain a second or third language if you begin learning it at a very young age. What did resonate...

For this interview, I decided to step away from our traditional early childhood teachers and approached this interview with the question, "How do high school students learning a second language differ from early childhood second language learners?", and interviewed my best friend/ former colleague Ms. Angela Crowley. While our book focuses on second language acquisitions at an early age, I was curious to know about older students and their potential to learn a second language past their critical period which Ortega mentions is before the onset age of puberty (2013, p. 13). While Ms. Crowley has never served in a bilingual classroom before, she does spend more than 90 percent of her day surrounded by students whose primary language is not English and she has been able to serve them due to her training and ESL certification. Ms. Crowley addresses some topics that I found interesting like an older students motivation to learn and retain a second language has more to do with ...

         For this interview, I decided interview my husband Alberto Martinez, who I believed would be a great source and insight into what learning a second language as a pre-teen is like. Alberto speaks about how he came to the United States as a 12-year old with only basic knowledge of English, like memorizing shapes, colors, and letters through formal instruction (Ortega, 2013, p.6). Although he did receive some basic instruction in English while still living in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Alberto recounts how being placed in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes from 6th  to 9th grade helped him acquire his new, L2, language in a more formal setting (Ortega, 2013, p.6).. He also made a very interesting comment regarding both his and my fluency in English. When asked how he feels his English is compared to mine, he states that, "You speak English well but I seem to be a better at grammar than you." This particular comment made me realize that Alber...

Jessica Martinez's Blog Welcome to the first entry of my blog. Click here to watch my video.