Reflection
For this assignment, I was able to interview a bilingual teacher in Alief Independent School District named, Natalia Stewart. She teaches 2nd-grade dual language in Spanish and English. Also, she mentioned in the beginning that she teaches mostly in English so her students will able to write and speak well in English by the time they reach the 4th grade.
In one of my questions, I asked about motivation and what was effective in her classroom. Ms. Stewart told me that she helps motivate her students by explaining to them that they are in a safe classroom environment. Through this, they can express their thinking and not feel like they are being judged. She does her best to help limit that anxiety that students can feel when placed in situations they aren’t comfortable in. Ms. Stewart does her best to increase L2 motivation by helping her students have positive attitudes from learning a new language. According to Ortega (2013), attitudes towards the L2 and its speakers will contribute to increased or diminished L2 motivation” (p. 174). In her classroom, she makes sure there is as much peer interaction involved so her students can also gain more from others when speaking in English. I found this to be quite interesting learning about what types of strategies (e.g. Think-pair-share) she used to have them interact in her classroom. She also makes sure to do a lot of positive interactions with her students as well as reinforcement. It goes along with what is mentioned in our text that helps positive attitudes prevail in her classroom in which behaviors, “…are rewarded and modeled for the learner in the communities in which he or she participates” (Ortega, 2013, p. 174).
Also, I asked her about whether age played a factor on how much L2 attainment a student is able to obtain. Ms. Stewart’s answer was yes because it is more of a natural environment at an early age and research has proved that our brain is wired to learn languages very early. To follow up on her statement about the brain, Ortega (2013) also mentions this by stating, “there is a specific period of time early in life when the brain exhibits a special propensity to attend to certain experiences in the environment (for example, language) and learn from them” and that, “the brain is pre-programmed to be shaped by that experience in dramatic ways” (p. 13).
Overall, I learned a lot from Ms. Stewart and her answers were all very insightful for me. I did not expect some of the answers I have received, and it has definitely made me learn so much more about second language!
