Incident 2 :
I thought I speak a very good English until I came to England. I was at the supermarket once and a man approached me , thinking that I work in the supermarket, and asked me about something he was looking for.I asked him to repeat his words and he did , but again,I did not get what he said.I was embarrassed and so I said “ sorry I can not understand what you say , my English is very bad”. He replied “ only if you have an American accent”. My English was not bad because I was already studying my master degree , but I think I was not used to Essex accent at that time. I still remember that day and I say to myself “how life can be extremely funnily unpredictable”. I do not if it is skill or a desire that made it easy for me to …show more content…
My main interests covered a wide range of cultural aspects such as : the literature , the lifestyle, the food ,the music ,and the history. However, later on the interest emerged into learning the language for an education and professional purpose which is known as an instrumental motivation.I believe it is the case when an interest becomes a passion for living as there are a number of people who took took their hobbies to the next level where these hobbies became their jobs, too. I figured as I progressed from English to French to Italian that language education is what interests me the most when it comes to school subjects.As English was the most requested language to learn / teach in Saudi Arabia ,I started taking my interest into languages far beyond my personal interest in the cultural of the English language itself. For example,as a non-native speaker, I was obliged to obtain an IELTS score to get an acceptance offer from a British university to study my master degree.The same requirement was listed in the job application when I tried to find a decent job in my home country.Learning the language became essential to get further education, and later to land a decent job.My experience started to shift into learning the language for an instrumental purpose, and not for an integrative purpose .This type of …show more content…
For example ,I used to watch a Turkish series in Turkish with English subtitles even though a dubbed version in Arabic was available. There is a certain irresistible charm in hearing languages by real authentic voices. My experience here taught me that the use of authentic materials is important in learning a foreign language. I believe that this kind of interest is linked to having a sense of the “exposure to real language and its use in its own community” (Widdowson, 1990). I noticed that my students appreciated such activities and felt that there was a real contact with the language. This goes in line with what (Nuttall 1996:172) claimed in his study that
I thought I speak a very good English until I came to England. I was at the supermarket once and a man approached me , thinking that I work in the supermarket, and asked me about something he was looking for.I asked him to repeat his words and he did , but again,I did not get what he said.I was embarrassed and so I said “ sorry I can not understand what you say , my English is very bad”. He replied “ only if you have an American accent”. My English was not bad because I was already studying my master degree , but I think I was not used to Essex accent at that time. I still remember that day and I say to myself “how life can be extremely funnily unpredictable”. I do not if it is skill or a desire that made it easy for me to …show more content…
My main interests covered a wide range of cultural aspects such as : the literature , the lifestyle, the food ,the music ,and the history. However, later on the interest emerged into learning the language for an education and professional purpose which is known as an instrumental motivation.I believe it is the case when an interest becomes a passion for living as there are a number of people who took took their hobbies to the next level where these hobbies became their jobs, too. I figured as I progressed from English to French to Italian that language education is what interests me the most when it comes to school subjects.As English was the most requested language to learn / teach in Saudi Arabia ,I started taking my interest into languages far beyond my personal interest in the cultural of the English language itself. For example,as a non-native speaker, I was obliged to obtain an IELTS score to get an acceptance offer from a British university to study my master degree.The same requirement was listed in the job application when I tried to find a decent job in my home country.Learning the language became essential to get further education, and later to land a decent job.My experience started to shift into learning the language for an instrumental purpose, and not for an integrative purpose .This type of …show more content…
For example ,I used to watch a Turkish series in Turkish with English subtitles even though a dubbed version in Arabic was available. There is a certain irresistible charm in hearing languages by real authentic voices. My experience here taught me that the use of authentic materials is important in learning a foreign language. I believe that this kind of interest is linked to having a sense of the “exposure to real language and its use in its own community” (Widdowson, 1990). I noticed that my students appreciated such activities and felt that there was a real contact with the language. This goes in line with what (Nuttall 1996:172) claimed in his study that