https://www.wevideo.com/view/1308942107
For my interview, I chose Jennifer Rivera. Her family moved to the
United States after the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s. Jennifer
first began to learn her second language, English, when she entered the
public-school system in Houston in pre-kindergarten. According to
Wright, she is referred to as a sequential bilingual because this term
refers to, “… newcomer ELL’s who already speak the language or languages
of their home country but then start to learn English as a new language
at school,” (Wright, 2015, p. 5). She was in an ESL classroom in the
first semester. The class was taught in Spanish by a bilingual teacher.
The second semester the classes were taught in English.
Jennifer was able to practice speaking English with her older sister
at home because she too was learning English in public school at this
time. Their younger brother learned English from his two older sisters
at home by listening to them practice. When Jennifer move to
kindergarten, the class was taught in English and she said it was a
pretty easy transition for her. The kinder teacher was bilingual and
the class was still an ESL class which included bilingual students. For
the students who needed more help, there was a pull-out ESL teacher.
Jennifer said the instruction was all in English. The teacher would
present the lesson and then check for language understanding along the
way by asking questions to make sure the English words were understood,
if not she would explain in Spanish.
Jennifer said the
techniques that she remembered helping her most were picture cards that
her teacher used and the fact that the teacher used so much repetition
to help them understand. She also said the class was a good learning
environment because the students were allowed to use their language to
communicate and help each other. This teacher, knowing it or not, was
practicing the interaction hypothesis in that she believed as Long
(2015) did that, “…interaction is essential for SLA to occur…” (Wright,
2015, p.53). The teacher gave them the opportunity to practice their
English with each other in a nonthreatening environment and this made
the students more willing to want to practice with each other.
In my interview, Jennifer, said she wished she would have
learned English at a younger age so that she would have had an easier
time communicating when she began school. At the time she was learning
English, at school their household still spoke Spanish. Even though her
parents did learn English, they did not want her and her siblings to
lose their first language. In chapter one, Wright refers to this as
additive bilingualism because it, “...occurs when a student develops
proficiency in a new language without losing his or her home language,”
(Wright, 2015, p.21). The hardest concept for her being an ELL was
grammar and spelling. Even though speaking came easily the written
language mechanics took more practice to master. Her favorite memory of
learning English in pre-kindergarten was when her teacher read the
story Rainbow Fish by Markus Pfister. She said the teacher would stop
and have them repeat the nouns from the story in English to help them
learn English and comprehend the story. To this date, that book is
still a favorite of hers.
Wright, Wayne E. (2015) Foundations for Teaching Language Learners, Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing
