Second language

Skill acquisition theory focuses on how people learn a skill and the advancement of that skill. (DeKeyser, 2007) .According to Lightbown and Spada (2013), second language acquisition is seen as a build up of knowledge that eventually becomes automatised. In addition, McLaughlin (1990) views language acquisition as a type of motor skill and that language acquisition is related to learning a skill like driving a car or riding a bike. Skill acquisition theory claims that we all acquire skills in…

Dear members of the graduate admissions committee: My background as a language learner and my own knowledge as a language instructor is what motivates me to pursue a doctorate in Second Language Studies at Michigan State University. In this program, I will be able to expand my knowledge and experience to conduct useful research and encourage others to learn foreign languages. My interest in foreign languages and language acquisition began when I moved to Indiana to spend a year as a high…

Imagine leaving your home country only to go to a foreign place, now referred to as “home” and being forced to attend school without knowing the language. My family immigrated from Kosovo to the United States in January of 2004. I was only 5 years old at the time, so learning another language was fairly easy. My parents eagerly wanted to enroll me in school, and after only a few weeks of settling in my parents along with my uncle scheduled a meeting with the local elementary school. I was…

English as a second language (ESL) is learned through-out our entire universe. Each student(s) may be effected in a different way in their course of learning. I interviewed an educator by the name of Salvatore Di Giallonardo, who is the creator, director, and a teacher for Languages for Communications school in Pescara, Italy. I was able to skype him several times during this process to gain as much knowledge on the effects teaching English to students who spoke a different language. During…

another language is to have a second soul” (BrainyQuote). As a native Spanish speaker, I find this statement to be true since I think about objects different than an English native speaker would. For example, when thinking about objects Spanish speakers tend to associate objects with genders while English speakers do not. The topic of language and how people think has been studied by a few Linguists, Psychologists, and Neuroscientists. Research and studies have shown that our native language…

Learning a second language is a complex process that exceeds the acquisition of its structure and vocabulary. One of the major components of mastering a new language requires learners to become familiar and sensitive to the preference in language use by native speakers of certain sequences of words over others (Wray, 2000). It is the mastery of these word sequences that distinguishes novice from proficient L2 learners. Yet, there is still little agreement across studies on the number of words…

the same question in every grade, “Why does my English suck?” In school, I was the student that would just get by with C’s and barely grasp the concepts that I’ve been taught. I could not understand why I wasn’t good in English, but it was my first language. Then I realized that I wasn’t great in English because I disliked reading, and that was one significant way of learning it. Eventually, I found myself in a classroom full of students who can barely speak and write English and I felt bitter. …

as a second language. This caused an uproar towards the African American communities who felt insulted by the board by comparing Ebonics to another language like Spanish or Chinese. Linguistic anthropologist, Marcyelina Morgan asserts that the African American community thinks that just cause this African American community speaks a variation of English, it doesn’t make them at an intellectual disadvantage and they shouldn’t be treated as such. This example intertwines with the idea of language…

When I came to the United States, everything such as people, culture, tradition, language and college was strange to me. Especially language was an issue tome. Although I went to International language Institution in my country, I had troubles in most English classes when I first arrived to the U.S. As an immigrant student who was new in a different atmosphere would feel homesick to establish the social networks as in my country. As a matter of fact, I had a restricted social networks at…

The Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Language can unlock many doors, but our world can also be limited to what we know about it. This is the cruel reality that many of us face when arriving in a new country, not being able to speak the language. One feels as everything around us has broadened, but our world has shrunken. One feels impotent, unable to communicate with the people that surround us. For this reason,…