Improving second language acquisition processes
When I started to study Foreign Languages, at Universidad Surcolombiana, I didn’t imagine I was going to be in charge of such responsibility, which is teaching. Teaching is a very complex process that involves so many factors that need to be taken into account so as to make our students learn meaningfully, but sometimes, I used to ask myself why my students didn’t learn if I was bringing many activities and I was trying to do what I learnt at the university. Sometimes, I thought it was due to our educational system which is extremely flexible to some extent. So, what is going on? Am I doing a good job?
It is relevant to contrast and consider the way we learn our first language and the way we acquire the second language. When learning our first language, the atmosphere is appropriate to get it; our parents help us discover what is unknown and the necessity we have to communicate motivates us to learn it and use it. On the opposite, when acquiring a second language, is like getting a new soul, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling and acting, so the process is more complex without a doubt. It is also important to consider, as Brown proposes; the learner characteristics, linguistic factors, learning processes, age and acquisition, context and purpose of learning the second language. To sum up, I started to think that I had underestimated and disregarded my students when thinking they couldn’t learn a second language while there are many aspects involved.
So, I came to the conclusion I have to motivate my students to learn English. Affective factors are undoubtedly immersed and they aren’t motivated at all. Love is the engine that moves the whole world, therefore, I should relate my students’ reality to the topics we use in the classroom to learn English so that they can love English and classes will turn out to be successful and meaningful for them, but we, as teachers, have to cope with another problem; not everybody is that motivated. Why is that?
We hardly ever take into account our students’ learning styles, and it is a MUST to analyze their acts and behaviors. Some of our students are field independent; some of them are field dependent. Field independent students aren’t good at working in groups because they usually prefer working individually, on the contrary, field dependent students like working in groups and cooperative learning can be such a good strategy to have them learn. By knowing this, our grouping techniques will be selected according to the community we are working with.
It is extremely important to try to determine if our students are visual; “learners who prefer reading and studying charts, drawings and graphic information”, auditory; “learners who like listening to lectures and audiotapes” or kinesthetic; “learners who prefer demonstrations and physical activity involving bodily movement”, Brown, (p. 129).
Our classrooms are also full of students who are ambiguity tolerant; in other words, students who easily accept changes and new ways of communication. While others are reluctant to understand different structures and expressions that are used in a second language; ambiguity intolerant. Those ambiguity tolerant students can help us lead certain activities in the classroom, such as; presentations, sketches, etc, and they can also help us with those students who do not want to participate and work because they think English is useless.
These are important clues we have to use to choose appropriate activities that correspond to our students’ learning styles. Most of the time, we don’t know these styles and we just go to the classroom and give traditional classes in which students get bored, and sleepy. These learning styles imply and suggest that we must design a wide variety of activities. Those activities should get our students involved in the English learning, those activities should make our students enjoy it and learn it in a meaningful way. In my opinion, meaningful has just to do with taking advantage of our students’ reality and context to make the English learning enjoyable and contextualized, but what is our students’ reality?
Our students’ reality is the use of technology; facebook, sonico, badoo, messenger, e-mail, blogs, on-line games, 3D simulators and all types of devices which they are more familiarized with than we are, but it does not mean we cannot use those elements to improve our teaching methods. We can’t detach learners from their reality and their real world is the use of computers.
However, Technology has advantages and disadvantages and some advantages are; the use of authentic material to learn English, the possibility to interact with native speakers without traveling that far, the use of visuals and sound. Unfortunately, technology has disadvantages as well, such as; the access to all types of information; porn, violent contents, etc. Based on that, we should also help our students identify what is appropriate and what is not, nevertheless, it is relevant to start using technology in our classes. In that way, we are responding to our students’ contexts and at the same time they are learning new things.
There are many things we can do, and even though, we have many problems; especially public schools. We, as teachers, can take advantage of some of the resources we have. Students come to our classrooms and their brains are just ready to learn as many things as they can. Our difficult task consists of motivating them, first, I think it is crucial to motivate them and help them build-up a high self-esteem, second, we have to promote different activities in the classroom and out of it. The use of technology plays an important role, and it helps our students lower their level of anxiety and shyness because they won’t have anybody telling them how many mistakes they made.
Traditional classes are not worthy; our world is running faster thanks to technology, the teacher should be a facilitator not an authority. Learning should be a nice opportunity for students to express themselves, to share, to communicate, and to become disciplined, studious. It is our job to help them develop critical thinking skills through different activities that match their learning styles.
Colombia has many social, economic and educational difficulties, but it does not mean we should be passive and keep on doing the same and making the same mistakes other people have made in the past. As our world changes, we should also change so that we can have better and top notch methods to teach and not only change our students’ minds but also their hearts.
When I started to study Foreign Languages, at Universidad Surcolombiana, I didn’t imagine I was going to be in charge of such responsibility, which is teaching. Teaching is a very complex process that involves so many factors that need to be taken into account so as to make our students learn meaningfully, but sometimes, I used to ask myself why my students didn’t learn if I was bringing many activities and I was trying to do what I learnt at the university. Sometimes, I thought it was due to our educational system which is extremely flexible to some extent. So, what is going on? Am I doing a good job?
It is relevant to contrast and consider the way we learn our first language and the way we acquire the second language. When learning our first language, the atmosphere is appropriate to get it; our parents help us discover what is unknown and the necessity we have to communicate motivates us to learn it and use it. On the opposite, when acquiring a second language, is like getting a new soul, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling and acting, so the process is more complex without a doubt. It is also important to consider, as Brown proposes; the learner characteristics, linguistic factors, learning processes, age and acquisition, context and purpose of learning the second language. To sum up, I started to think that I had underestimated and disregarded my students when thinking they couldn’t learn a second language while there are many aspects involved.
So, I came to the conclusion I have to motivate my students to learn English. Affective factors are undoubtedly immersed and they aren’t motivated at all. Love is the engine that moves the whole world, therefore, I should relate my students’ reality to the topics we use in the classroom to learn English so that they can love English and classes will turn out to be successful and meaningful for them, but we, as teachers, have to cope with another problem; not everybody is that motivated. Why is that?
We hardly ever take into account our students’ learning styles, and it is a MUST to analyze their acts and behaviors. Some of our students are field independent; some of them are field dependent. Field independent students aren’t good at working in groups because they usually prefer working individually, on the contrary, field dependent students like working in groups and cooperative learning can be such a good strategy to have them learn. By knowing this, our grouping techniques will be selected according to the community we are working with.
It is extremely important to try to determine if our students are visual; “learners who prefer reading and studying charts, drawings and graphic information”, auditory; “learners who like listening to lectures and audiotapes” or kinesthetic; “learners who prefer demonstrations and physical activity involving bodily movement”, Brown, (p. 129).
Our classrooms are also full of students who are ambiguity tolerant; in other words, students who easily accept changes and new ways of communication. While others are reluctant to understand different structures and expressions that are used in a second language; ambiguity intolerant. Those ambiguity tolerant students can help us lead certain activities in the classroom, such as; presentations, sketches, etc, and they can also help us with those students who do not want to participate and work because they think English is useless.
These are important clues we have to use to choose appropriate activities that correspond to our students’ learning styles. Most of the time, we don’t know these styles and we just go to the classroom and give traditional classes in which students get bored, and sleepy. These learning styles imply and suggest that we must design a wide variety of activities. Those activities should get our students involved in the English learning, those activities should make our students enjoy it and learn it in a meaningful way. In my opinion, meaningful has just to do with taking advantage of our students’ reality and context to make the English learning enjoyable and contextualized, but what is our students’ reality?
Our students’ reality is the use of technology; facebook, sonico, badoo, messenger, e-mail, blogs, on-line games, 3D simulators and all types of devices which they are more familiarized with than we are, but it does not mean we cannot use those elements to improve our teaching methods. We can’t detach learners from their reality and their real world is the use of computers.
However, Technology has advantages and disadvantages and some advantages are; the use of authentic material to learn English, the possibility to interact with native speakers without traveling that far, the use of visuals and sound. Unfortunately, technology has disadvantages as well, such as; the access to all types of information; porn, violent contents, etc. Based on that, we should also help our students identify what is appropriate and what is not, nevertheless, it is relevant to start using technology in our classes. In that way, we are responding to our students’ contexts and at the same time they are learning new things.
There are many things we can do, and even though, we have many problems; especially public schools. We, as teachers, can take advantage of some of the resources we have. Students come to our classrooms and their brains are just ready to learn as many things as they can. Our difficult task consists of motivating them, first, I think it is crucial to motivate them and help them build-up a high self-esteem, second, we have to promote different activities in the classroom and out of it. The use of technology plays an important role, and it helps our students lower their level of anxiety and shyness because they won’t have anybody telling them how many mistakes they made.
Traditional classes are not worthy; our world is running faster thanks to technology, the teacher should be a facilitator not an authority. Learning should be a nice opportunity for students to express themselves, to share, to communicate, and to become disciplined, studious. It is our job to help them develop critical thinking skills through different activities that match their learning styles.
Colombia has many social, economic and educational difficulties, but it does not mean we should be passive and keep on doing the same and making the same mistakes other people have made in the past. As our world changes, we should also change so that we can have better and top notch methods to teach and not only change our students’ minds but also their hearts.
At the present time, technology has become a significant and necessary tool to make the class more attractive and interesting. You have explored and integrated technology in your teaching methodology getting a positive response in your students. You engaged them in a real situation using English. Well done!
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