Entry 2: Interview
Hello
everyone! Click here for the link to the interview.
For this entry, I interviewed my significant other, Howard Pham. He came
from Vietnam when he was about five years old. He was raised in Houston, Texas,
and attended the University of Houston. The two languages he can speak are
English and Vietnamese. Howard considers his dominant language to be English
because he spent most of his life in Houston. Although Howard can speak
fluently in both English and Vietnamese, he cannot write well in Vietnamese
because he did not attend school for that.
Howard began learning English at the age of five when he entered
kindergarten. When I was talking to Howard, he told me that he did believe that
his age affected his proficiency in English. According to Ortega (2013, p.
28-29), “in terms of L2 ultimate attainment, most learners who begin acquiring
the L2 before a certain age, typically before puberty, will develop levels of
morphosyntactic and phonological competence that are very close to those of
native speakers of that language. Post-pubertal learners, however, are not
likely to perform in the native speaker range, and this holds true regardless
of the number of years they have resided in the L2 environment.” Howard has two
older brothers, and they were about 6 years older than him. Since his brothers
were already used to speaking and learning in Vietnamese, it was harder for
them to speak English like a native. Howard’s brothers are both proficient in
speaking and writing English, but they have a bit of an accent when speaking.
Howard, on the other hand, has almost no accent at all because he learned
English when he was younger.
Howard’s motivation for learning English was to make friends. Everyone
spoke English, so the only way that he could befriend the other students was to
learn English. Howard felt that learning English was easy for him because it
was a necessity. He said that learning Spanish and other languages were much
more difficult compared to English. Howard said that the most challenging part
about learning a second language is understanding the accent. When he was
growing up, he was already used to speaking Vietnamese. As a result, it’s hard
to adjust the speech from Vietnamese to English because it doesn’t work out the
same way. Howard also felt like pronouncing the words and making sure the words
come out correct were challenging.
Attending school in America affected Howard’s fluency in English because
there were great examples of native speakers everywhere. It was easier to pick
up because the people around him were able to fluently speak English. They also
encouraged him to try and speak English to make friends. Although school
positively affected his English proficiency, the thing that had the biggest
influence was reading. Howard enjoyed reading a lot when he was younger, and
still enjoys reading even today. He believes that reading is a very good skill
or hobby to have. As he read books and stories, he learned a lot more about the
language, words, definitions, and ways to put sentences together.
According to Ortega (2013, p. 171), “the highest and most facilitative
form of motivation is the integrative motivation, which is only attained when
three conditions are met: (1) the antecedent of integrativeness itself is high,
(2) motivation quantity (that is, the combined amount of effort, enjoyment, and
investment) is also high, and (3) attitudes towards the learning situation
(teachers, curriculum) are positive. Exceptionally successful learners who
attain native-like competence are likely to be integratively motivated
individuals.” In Howard’s case, I do feel like he had integrative motivation
because he had mostly positive experiences with learning English as his second
language. He was very motivated in learning English because he wanted to make
friends, and he also enjoyed reading books, which further increased his
motivation for learning English. Howard also felt happy and grateful that his
teachers were so patient with him and did the best they could to help him
understand and learn English. It was very interesting and enjoyable to interview
Howard and learn about his experiences with learning English as a second
language. In the future, I hope to become a teacher that can positively affect
their students’ lives as Howard’s teachers did for him.
Ortega, L.
Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge; 2013.
Hi Angela, I had never seen English as a necessity, I never questioned the language because it is what I grew up with, but Howard is right I learned it because it was a necessity here in the U.S., I enjoyed listening to his perspective. He mentioned how learning English at a younger age helped his speech in comparison to his brothers. Ortega, “concluded that older is better initially, but that younger is better in the long run” although his brothers may have learned faster it wasn’t as developed as Howards speech/accent (2013, pg. 16). I think it is amazing that he’s learned so much and is not working for google!
ReplyDeleteHi Cesia, thank you for your reply! I also never questioned the English language since I grew up with it. It was eye-opening to hear that it was a necessity for Howard. According to Ortega (2013, p.170), “integrativeness is an attitude defined as a genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the other language community.” I feel that Howard’s goal of making friends helped with learning the language since he wanted to get closer to the English language community. I am proud of how far Howard has come!
DeleteHi Angela! I loved to listen to your significant other talk about being fluent in both English and Vietnamese, because I was able to relate with him. I am also fluent in two languages, my L1, Spanish and, my L2, English, but I cannot really write in Spanish. Unlike Cesia, I have always seen English as a necessity because just like Howard, I learned early on that if I wanted to be heard, I needed to be able to communicate in the dominant language that was being spoken around me. Ortega mentions that, "students/individuals who were more active and consistent in daily activities in the language they are studying at the time are more successful" and Howard mentions that reading really helped him in attaining and reaching fluency in, his L2, English language (2013, pg. 26).
ReplyDeleteHi Jessica, thank you for your reply! Both you and Howard were motivated by similar reasons for learning English because you both wanted to communicate with other people. Ortega mentions that “when individuals engage in behavior that they understand as self-initiated by choice and largely sustained by inherent enjoyment in the activity, they are said to be intrinsically motivated” (2013, p. 176). Since Howard enjoyed reading books, he was intrinsically motivated to learn more about the English language.
DeleteHello Angela!
ReplyDeleteI definitely enjoyed watching your interview, and I personally connected to Howard a lot. I learned Vietnamese as a first language as well and started learning English only when I got to school. I also cannot write in Vietnamese, I actually found it very difficult to learn. I liked how Howard brought up the fact that learning another language is difficult when your tongue doesn't want to work a specific way in order to make correct sounds! In Lieberman's YouTube video that we watched about Transfer he mentions that we tend to use what we know and transfer our L1 language to L2. So, it was pretty interesting that he pointed that out! I also like how he pointed out that you learn a lot more when it is a necessity, and I completely agree. I have been trying to learn Spanish and keep putting it off due to the fact that I know I can just fall back onto English and honestly don't need to use Spanish at all in my daily life.
Hi Kelly, I am glad that you enjoyed watching my interview! Vietnamese was also my first language, so I only started learning English when I attended elementary school. According to Ortega (2013, p. 31), “knowledge of the L1 impacts on L2 acquisition subtly and selectively, sometimes resulting in strikingly different negative and positive consequences for different learner L1 backgrounds, at different stages of development or proficiency and for different areas of the L2.” Since Howard came over to America when he was four years old, his knowledge of Vietnamese somewhat interfered with learning English. Howard had to get used to pronouncing English words before he could improve his accent. With his hard work and dedication, Howard was able to become fluent in English and retain his knowledge of Vietnamese.
DeleteHey Angela! Yeah, as I mentioned before from Lieberman's video about Transfer, because Howard learned Vietnamese as his first language he tried to transfer a lot of what he already knew into the English that he was learning. Which was hard because as we already know, Vietnamese and English literally have nothing in common! According to Lieberman it is hard to force your tongue to move a different way to learn a new language when you're already so use to it moving a specific way to make different sounds!
Delete