Language Learning Reflection toward Future Teaching - Essay Example

Language Learning Reflection toward Future Teaching Awareness of Errors Second language learning is heavily influenced by comprehension of first language and experiences acquired when learning other languages. Learning different languages expands a student’s literary horizons and shapes people’s identities and lives. Acquisition of several languages is vital in the world where people are increasingly using more than two languages, leading to a threat of endangering monolinguals. However, competency in language learning is influenced by awareness of errors and the capacity to respond to them. Teachers and students play a vital role in language learning as the teacher helps students identify the errors they make for effective learning. I’m currently learning Spanish, but I have also learned Japanese and English, alongside my native language, Korean. While my experiences are mostly positive in the Spanish class, I have learned how to identify errors, the importance of errors awareness and how to respond to them. Reflecting on my learning experiences in the Spanish class, I can draw new insights and perspectives on the language learning and teaching. This essay seeks to study the awareness of errors in language learning and the extent of response to the mistakes. First, I will examine my experience as a Spanish learner and the difficulties I encountered when learning Spanish as a result of interference with English. Some of the important areas I will examine relate to sentence structure, phonemic errors, difference if pronunciation, alphabets among others. The second section of the reflection will cover the differences and similarities other Spanish learners in my class. Lastly, I will describe the implications of my experience in my future role as a teacher. I will examine how I will incorporate my experiences as a learning tool so that I can design teaching strategies that cater for the needs of all students effectively. Types of Errors Sentence Structure Errors One of the major difficulties of learning Spanish with an English background relates to the structure of sentences. When learning Spanish, it is prudent to aware of the fact that grammatical relations and sentence structure in English is largely based on the word order. The construction of sentences in English fixed as opposed to the flexible Spanish language that relies on morphological changes in a sentence. When learning phrases, we were required to use a simple dialogue to complete a speech. In order to structure the phrase correctly and write in Spanish, I had to make comparisons between the phrases in Japanese and Korean. Other than in Korea where greetings take a fixed form of ‘How are you?’ ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Spanish has a lot of variations in greetings where people can add their personal statement (Journal Week, 5). Articles errors When learning grammar, I noted major differences between the usage of articles in Spanish and English. Articles in Spanish are positioned at some points in the sentence that would otherwise not have an article in English. When Nora was teaching articles, I noted that there are at least eight articles in the Spanish language as opposed to three choices in the English language. The choice of articles in Spanish is influenced by word gender, and singular or plural form. Although I had already learned the gender of words in French, I still found it hard. I also noted major differences between the usage of articles in Spanish compared to how they are used in Korean and Japanese. The major problems stems from the fact that Spanish has a lot of exceptions during the application of grammar rules, hence it is not possible to universally apply the rules learned. In my previous language learning, I always tried to figure out the rules so that I could apply them after memorizing and internalizing them. However, I need to search for another way of learning Spanish grammar since the application of rules seems very different (Journal Week, 5). Pronunciation Errors Spanish and English have different sounds, which made it very difficult to follow especially when our teacher was very fast. Although the lesson on the pronunciation of Spanish alphabets seemed very stressful for my classmates, I found very intriguing. The experience made me feel that Spanish was the easiest, relaxed and enjoyable class of all other TESOL classes for me so far (Journal Week, 1). I tried to compare the similarities and differences between Spanish and Korean by writing a note with the closest pronunciation between the two languages. I found that pronunciation of Spanish alphabets was very different to Korean, but it was similar to Italian. I tried to guess the meaning of words by looking at them, but it was hard. I resolved to look for Spanish words that are close to English or commonly used Spanish words to practice with in order to improve my learning. I did not have any significant problems with speech test since I had previous experiences when learning Japanese, French, English and Italian. It was very easy for me since I already had the structure of the speech and I was only required to add my words to fit in. I practiced and memorized the words before the test and went to the Moodle to listen to the teacher’s speech so that I could learn to pronounce better in Spanish. While observing the other learners make their speech, I realized that most of them were nervous, and their voice was faint and vibrating. However, one spoke very clearly and seemed very confident in Spanish and it occurred to me that he had rehearsed before the class (Journal Week, 7). When learning numbers by listening, I tried to catch the number on hearing it the first time, the second time I wrote it down so as to use it for practice later. While I could only remember some of the numbers for days and months, I was able to recall all the numbers were learned in class correctly. I’m a bit apprehensive about making spoken errors in Spanish than making written errors. Nevertheless, I’m comfortable making those errors in pronunciation if it is the only way for me to improve my Spanish since I want to be the best in class (Journal Week, 8). Phonemic Errors I noted that there were differences between the Spanish and English language phonetically, which resulted in some phonetic errors. When learning Spanish alphabets, Nora gave us a vocabulary test to check out awareness of the Spanish alphabet. In the test, I got confused by the /h/ sound. The sound is pronounced as ‘H’ in English and ‘J’ in Spanish and, therefore, I wrote ‘San Hose’ instead of ‘San Jose.’ The phonemic error, in this case, resulted from my reliance on the English phonology instead of applying the Spanish rules (Journal Week, 2). During the preparation for the test, realized that I always confused some phonemics. I needed a way to establish the rules to make easy for me to memorize them. All my errors in the test were phonemes derived from influence from English. I resolved to group them as Nora had taught us to do in order to avoid the errors. I grouped them into ‘g’, ‘h’, and ‘j’ (Journal Week, 10). Self-comparison with Other Learners I compared myself in terms of error awareness and response to them with other learners in order to identify the similarities and differences. There was shared opinions in class about the difficulty in the pronunciation in Spanish, writing articles correctly and speech preparation. However, the level of difficulty subsided with practice and the motivation of the learners to pronounce words in Spanish correctly. I found some Spanish word to be too difficult for me to pronounce during the first lesson. While revising for my test, I realized that I made pronunciation errors when it came it came to differentiating between ‘g’, ‘h’, and ‘j’ in English and in Spanish (Journal Week, 10). The same case happened to some of the other learners. J had serious difficulty trying to pronounce Spanish alphabet, mostly ‘ere’, ‘R’ and ‘rr’, the rolling sound (Journal Week, 1). W also experienced difficulty with the pronunciation of rolling /r/ sound. She also made errors when it came to the differentiation between sound /l/ and/r/ (Journal Week, 2). I had a different experience from some of the learners when learning Spanish numbers during the math lesson. I was highly motivated to participate in the lesson, and it surprised me that M was not as enthusiast as I was in the activities of the Spanish class. Nora gave us a test for numbers, and we were required to write them down as she called them out. I did not use my book for reference and instead decided to use my memory (Journal Week, 4). When marking, I realized that I got everything correctly. M’s case was different. She was very confused and made several errors on numbers. During her first attempt, she seemed very confident but she was wrong, and our teacher made her correct the mistake. During the second attempt, she made a mistake because she tried to translate the math problem into Bengali, which made her translate it incorrectly. She was able to correctly solve the problem the third time (Journal Week, 5). Implication toward Future Teaching Error awareness is an essential attribute of the learning process. Learners achieve better comprehension when they are aware of the errors they encounter in the learning process. This gives them an opportunity to make the necessary corrections towards an effective learning process. I will ensure that my students are aware of the rules that govern the construction sentences of numerals in math so that they are constantly reminded to keep them in mind. One of the way to ensure that they do not forget is by recapping the previous lesson. Nora made me appreciate her teaching strategies a lot because she ensured that we remembered what we had already forgotten during the previous lesson. I will encourage my students to revise, practice and rehearse subjects that they had difficulty. ‘Practice makes perfect’ and the same is true in language learning. Practicing before coming to class made me and my classmates confident when working on subjects we find uncomfortable. It is also important that students learn to involve teachers in their revision activities so as to clarify difficulty ears, hence prevent many errors during tests. Read More