LEARNING A SECOND
LANGUAGE
The objectives are:
1.
To experience second
language acquisition;
2.
To reflect upon SLA as
both a psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic process;
3.
To identify your personal
strengths and weaknesses as an L2 learner;
4.
To identify your
preferred learning strategies;
5.
To become familiar with
another language.
1. Choose a language from a language family that is completely unfamiliar
to you. For example, you might choose a language which uses a
non-Roman alphabet (Russian or Arabic), an ideographic language such as Chinese
or Japanese, or perhaps a tonal language, such as Vietnamese or Thai.
2. You will study the language for eight (8) contact hours.
The recommendation is for eight one-hour “classes”.
3. Your instructor should give you ‘homework’. The recommendation
is approximately one hour of homework per “class.”
4. You may study in a small group with other learners, or you may be
tutored.
5. Your classes should address all four language domains.
Monitor your own language
learning and keep a learning journal. Be attentive to as many aspects of
language learning as you can. Some examples that you might want to
include:
1.
the
cognitive aspects: for example
· what’s easy for you
· what’s hard for you
· what strategies you use; which strategies are
most/least successful
· what you tend to avoid in terms of
structures, sounds,
2.
the
affective aspects: for example
· your thoughts and feelings about the process;
· how apprehension affects you;
· how success affects you;
3.
the
pedagogical aspects: for example
· what ‘works’ for you in terms of teaching
methodology;
· what doesn’t ‘work’ for you in terms of teaching
methodology;
4.
implications
for teaching
· what you learned (if anything) that you will
remember when working with your second language students
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