Week 3

"'The significance of learners' errors,' which calls on applied linguists to focus on L2 learners' errors not as 'bad habits' to be eradicated, but as sources of insight into the learning process" (Saville-Troike, 38).  This section of the reading really made sense to me because I feel the same way.  When learning French in the classroom, I felt that embarrassed to make a mistake and did not want to speak aloud in class.  I didn't want the other students or the teacher to think I wasn't smart enough to learn the language and there was a lot of pressure on breaking the "bad habits" we, as new French students, were bound to make.  After taking years of French in the classroom, I don't feel like I learned half as much as I did when I went to France.  Going to France for the summer as a 14 year old was an amazing experience.  I was in a small town in the south of France, living with my cousin and her half-brother.  There, I felt that I learned the most about the language.  The natives were patient about my "bad habits," which of course disappeared after being immersed into the culture.  I was not afraid to make mistakes while speaking because I wanted to communicate with everyone.  Due to this need to communicate, my French language skills soared.  I learned more in that summer than I ever could have sitting in a desk in a classroom.


On a different note, I'm really looking forward to watching L'Enfant Sauvage.  I'm really interested in the critical period hypothesis and I haven't really learned much about it so I'm hoping that in the next meeting I'll be able to form an opinion on the topic.  I also hope to solidify the many different theories that we've been studying and reading about.

Week 2

Chapter 1: Introducing SLA

It was interesting to read about the distinctions made in literature about second languages. I had heard of the differences between second language and foreign language, but library language and auxiliary language were new terms for me.  On a different note, after reading the first chapter, I realized that our secondary foreign language classrooms do not necessarily teach in a way that encourage students to linguistically perform without a stressful environment. The environment of testing and units creates a sort of stress on the students that would not exist in a discussion based classroom that focuses on meaningful exchanges between the students.

Chapter 2: Foundations of SLA

It was amazing to read about how linguistic data cannot really be collected in an unbiased way.  Between personal and political sensitivities, lack of identifying truths and the lack of agreement on linguistic terms, I never would have thought that it would be so difficult to collect until I read that section.  

Before learning linguistics, I would have put myself on the nurture aspect of the nature versus nurture debate.  I believed that learning was related to feedback and experience overall.  After taking a few linguistics classes, I realized that there must be an innateness to language.  The argument I found the most compelling was that children say things that adults do not, showing that it is not all modeling and imitation.  For a child to say goed or mans, they must understand, beyond the input they receive, how the language functions and certain grammatical patterns.

Early Theories in SLA

This article helped solidify the idea that there must be a universal grammar or language faculty that is innate in human beings.  Children acquire complex language rules that can't always be learned by imitation and analogy.  One part that confused me was the behaviorist view that imitation is not a conscious effort.  I wanted more information on this because I do not understand how imitation, which was considered mindless, would lead to someone learning a language.  I know that this view is no longer accepted, but I felt that the proof and evidence was not given in this article and I wanted to learn more about it.