Peer Response 1

1. What information surprises you? What is new information? What is something you had not considered before? Respond your peer and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. For distinguished peer responses, respond with a minimum of five sentences that add to the conversation, and refrain from evaluative posts (i.e., You did a good job.).

PEERS POST:

 Learning a second language in general is not easy. If someone is learning English as a second language, they might have to learn a new grammar system that their language does not have. For example, the Japanese language does not use articles, so when learning English, they must learn how to use “a”, “the” and other types of articles. When learning this new grammar system, they may place those words in the wrong places or forget how to use them in general. It also takes time to learn English; “Those who wrote the standards of most accountability measures seem to believe that three years is the time it takes to learn a language.” (Pinker, 2015), although this time frame differs between every individual, their learning abilities, and if they began learning a second language as a child.

“Culture shock refers to the stress that people experience when they are immersed in a new and unfamiliar environment” (Pinker, 2015) From acting out, nonparticipation in class, feeling “alienated” and the overall stress of being in a new environment and culture, these are results from culture shock and how they hinder someone from learning English. (Pinker, 2015) Dealing with culture shock as a child may slow down the learning process as they are focusing more on adapting to their new homes.

My ideas for learning English as a second language have not changed because my ideas are based on what I’ve learned so far in my degree. My degree focuses on teaching ELLs so there is already so much I have learned about them and second language acquisition.

-Barry Fernandez

References

Piper, T. (2015).  Language, learning, and culture: English language learning in today’s schools  . Bridgepoint Education.