Second Lieutenant

Ben Zimmer’s article entitled “Chunking” from the September 2010 issue of the New York Times, raises the question: should collocation education be used to teach English? The article focuses on the importance of chunking and how useful it is in teaching and developing others in the language of English. Zimmer uses his son as a prime example of how kids of his age unknowingly pick up myriads of chunks, “or idioms,” throughout the span of their childhood; he explains, “As Blake learned these…

In this intriguing novel, speech and language give the impression of being the more significant issues. Language is crucial, it is constantly illustrated throughout the novel. The rest of the world has made up their mind about what it truly means to be a native speaker. However, Chang Rae Lee has other ideas. With that said; being a native speaker doesn’t just mean the language you speak, but rather who you are as a person. Henry, the narrator, grew up speaking fluent English; he also spoke…

Mark Edmundson states in his writing “The Ideal English Major” that becoming an English major is “pursuing the most important subject of all--being a human being” (1). Edmundson describes English majors as readers who are born again and again through reading. According to Edmundson being an English major makes you more alive by allowing you to see the world as “bigger, sweeter, more tragic and intense-- more alive with meaning than you had thought” (4). Edmundson attempts to persuade us by…

Once upon a time, there was a girl whose first language was Arabic. When she was a kid, she admired anyone who could speak English. She had a dream of speaking English one day. As a result, she had a strong desire to learn English. This girl is me, Eman. I am starting my language learning autobiography as a story because stories always have value, and are worth a lot to someone. My English learning autobiography expand several stages of my life: elementary, middle, high school, college, and my…

When I first came here from the Middle East I did not know English. I was worried for my family and myself. The culture here is much different than the culture where I am from. Classes move very quickly and the assignments are very different. Before I came here I had a five day long meeting that helped me prepare myself for American culture. We discussed behavioral things, such as what to ask, social networking, and research. At home in my country, I read the news before going out, here is much…

studies looking at anxiety and specific language skills, in which the emphasis was mainly on second language (L2) speaking. 2.1.1 FL Anxiety in the Listening Skill FLLs are facing a big sufferance when listening to foreign language. In this regard, Krashen (1982) claimed that when listening or attempting to extract the message from messages in L2 was the major procedure in the evolution of a second language, in this juncture; he supposed that anxiety formed an “affective filter…

ccording to the data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, in the 2002-2003 school year there was an estimate of 4.1 million ELL students (NCES, 2015). However, this number has increase throughout the years. In the 2012-2013 school year there was an estimate of 4.4 million ELLs (NCES, 2015).In addition, Texas is one of the six states that has “10.0% or more of public school students” that are English language learners (NCES, 2015). Since there are a growing number of ELLs, it is…

My family’s lifestyle was focused on outdoor activities, not reading and writing. I would have to say that it was a lack of encountering writing materials that lead to difficulties in reading, spelling, and writing. I believe that my grandparents second language also played a part in that difficulty. Hearing people talking with words and sounds that you don’t understand would be confusing to young…

Pfeiffer was presented a child who had very little exposure to writing or reading, little to no knowledge of the alphabet, phonological awareness, or concepts of print. Whatever her strategies were, she found a way to get through to me and send me into second grade well prepared. From that point on, my grades were always As and Bs, and positive…

Questions In this study, the authors addressed three research questions regarding L2 fluency. The first research question was: “Do learners of Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish improve their L2 fluency after a semester of language study abroad?” The second research question was: “Is there a difference in gains made by learners of…