All 3 theories concentrate in how people acquired first language. Although, all 3 approaches, behavior, nativist, and fucntional have been researched, as a bilingual education teacher, ESL student, I believe all 3 come together when learning a first or second language. As a teacher, I do believe some students have it "within" to learn a language; however, behavior, social and other facotrs do shape a first langauge.
As an ESL student myself, I don't believe I was born with a "lingual gene:" it was diffiuclt for me to learn Enlgish. To me a Direct method (end of book) was my forte. Language is culture; therefore, the role of culture in learning a language is vital. As a bilingual education teacher, I believe that we must bring out culture to our classroom. Students need to reach the comfort zone level in oder to learn and what a better way to do so but to bring one of the most important aspects of society, our culture. I do believe that the child-parent interaction is different here in the United States than in Mexico.
In my personal experience, I see it everyday in my classoom when parents pick up their children or come and visit. Recent immigrants (from Mexico) tend to have more respect for their children and vice versa. They also teach their children to respect teachers, something is hard to see in our schools. But once again it all depends on how one is raised, SES, culture, etc.
1 comment:
Bringing in culture into the classroom is a very effective way in getting students to be engaged and motivated. Students, like you said, need to have that comfort zone in order to feel a part of the classroom and what better way than to bring who they are in teh class, especially because they are the ones who make up the environment.
Post a Comment