Sunday, February 11, 2018
Entry #2: Interview with Albagir!
Hello and welcome back to my blog for entry #2! I really enjoyed the opportunity to interview my good friend
from high school, Albagir Mohamed Elmahdi Elmalik. His first language is Arabic
and he started to formally learn English when he was around four years of age
when he started school in Sudan. He moved to the Unites States when he was
around six years of age, which is when he started to learn even more English informally
while in school. Albagir says he did not
consider himself completely fluent in English until he was 10 years old, but
that it was very easy to learn English as a second language while he was young.
According to Ortega (2009), "learners who began acquiring the L2 before a
certain age, which these studies locate to be around puberty, will tend to
exhibit intuitions that are very close to those of native speakers of that
language" (p. 19). Albagir was very fortunate because he learned English so
young before puberty, which made it easy for his brain to act like a sponge,
absorbing English like it was nothing. Therefore, he was engulfed in the
culture of Houston, Texas so young that he may seem as if his native tongue may
be English. Furthermore, because Albagir mentions that English was so easy to
absorb as a child, this must mean that in his case, he was not bothered by any
cross-linguistic influence or interference. Ortega (2009) also mentions that, “crosslinguistic
influences can have positive as well as negative consequences for L2 learning”
(p. 31). So, in Albagir’s case, he was blessed with an easy and positive transition
into the United States from Sudan. I hope you enjoy our video! Leave any comments below (:
Friday, January 26, 2018
Entry #1: Self Introduction
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