Hello all! I had so much fun interviewing my mom's
cousin, Denise Rodriguez, who has been an ESL teacher for several years now.
She has taught all elementary grades from first grade to fifth grade in a few
districts in San Antonio, Texas. Sadly, since she lives a few hours away, and
we are both very busy women, we could not meet up in person. So, I hope
everyone can hear our conversation loud and clear. However, I still had lots of
fun talking to her and connecting what we talk about in this class with her experiences.
First of all, her experiences actually don’t quite mirror the research that we
have discussed about in this class so far. For example, when talking to Denise
about her English Language Learners’ motivation to learn English, she says that
their motivation has never been an issue for her and her students. She claims
that all of her students have been highly motivated and that they are willing
to put in the time and effort to learn English. As mentioned by Ortega (2013), this
might be because her students’ are most likely interested in learning a second
language in order to become closer to their L2 community (p. 170). For first
through fifth graders, they might have multiple reasons, or orientations, for
learning English. These might consist of integrating themselves to become more
like the members of their L2 community and/or to strengthen their friendships
with their peers who speak their L2 (Ortega, 2013, p. 173). Denise also talks
about how age does not really play a role in Second Language Acquisition, except
for the fact that younger learners are indeed sponges to new languages. This is
because in her experience, as long as English Language Learners are exposed to
meaningful and supportive instruction, they will be motivated and encouraged to
be successful. According to Ortega (2013), a second language learner may be an
exception to the pattern of young learners experiencing easier acquisition
because they, “appear to be related to unusually high motivation and high
quality of instruction,” (p. 29). I hope you enjoy my video as much as I did
making it! (:
