https://www.wevideo.com/view/1212328495
A common problem for ELL students occurs when they are working in subject areas that require meaningful comprehension or present a lot of the new vocabulary within a short period of time. According to what Ortega talks about in chapter 5, this is considered a dual-task condition that involves two tasks trying to occur
at the same time, (Ortega, 2011, p.84). The student is not
only trying to process new vocabulary, but also trying to comprehend the text
containing the new vocabulary. This is
slower for ELL at first because it takes time to perform these dual-tasks, but
with practice will become more automatic.
During Reading, vocabulary can be especially difficult for some and also affected
their comprehension skills. Comprehension and vocabulary are difficult for ELL
because as Ortega says, “New L2 knowledge is stored in the mind and has to be
accessed and retrieved every time it is needed for use in comprehension or
production,” (Ortega, 2011, p.83). So, at the early stages of ELL acquisition
the learner takes longer to access and retrieve information and like vocabulary
words and their meaning. This time lag
causes comprehension to slow down. This can be especially difficult for learners because they may not want to speak up if they do not understand. Cognition and ELL get better with time and practice. Amazingly, some of students who are really motivated to learn can actually surpass some monolingual
students over time.
My interviewee mentioned to me that in the upper grades she could see more differences between monolingual and ELL, but that in kindergarten her students are very much
more similar. The younger students depend more on visual
pictures and cards and they utilize the word wall more. She also said that these students are also similar in that some
are in their first year of public school and may have not had an opportunity to
practice their formal language and speaking skills at home. In his video, Dornyei, talks about the importance of engagement, he describes it as indispensable. He also mentions how engagement is more challenging than ever in this day and age because of all the external distractions, (Dornyei, 2018).Therefore, teachers have to look at different ways to address today's learners. It is very important to engage students and encourage them to speak often in class. This oral speaking practice with peers in
class not only practices language, it also forms friendships between
students. Ortega mentions this building of
friendship as a motivation to learn the language more proficiently. Even though the students do not necessarily realize
it, according to Ortega they are, “…fostering general friendships with members
of the target language,” (Ortega, 2011, p. 173), by practicing with their peers. Gass and Selinker say, “The idea is that if
the child has target language peers, there is a greater social context where
the child learns the L2 rules as if the L2 were an L1, with no language
transfer occurring,” (Gass and Slinker, 2008, p.123,124). The more
opportunities language learners have to practice, the quicker their language
will progress. Therefore, it is important to provide plenty of opportunity for
language practice throughout the day.
[Cambridge University Press]. (2018, April 19). Zoltan Dornyei-Engaging language learners [Video File]. Retrieval from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg6BSbpVgVU
Gass, Susan, M. and Selinker, Larry. Second Language
Acquisition. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
Ortega, Lourdes.Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Ortega, Lourdes.Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
