CUIN4363 Blog Entry 2

In SLA 4303 course, it shows the research in the second language acquisition impacts ELLs and teaching practices today.  “An understanding of what ELL students can do with oral and written English at different stages of second language acquisition is crucial if teachers are to provide effective language and content area instruction” (Wright, 2010, p. 10).  When I studied in UH Language Culture Center, I had different English language instruction and environment.  The academic program at LCC provides twenty hours of classroom instruction per week for students who need to significantly improve their English to study in an American college or university, whose professions require a mastery of the English language or who simply desire to improve their English language skills. The program includes instruction in reading, writing, listening, speaking, as well as grammar.  “This genre of L2 instruction is commonly associated with higher education and has offshoots in English for academic purposes” (Brown & Lee, 2015, pg. 61).  In that program, teachers would like to use grammar-translation method to teach students.  We focused on explaining rules, memorizing vocabulary, and reading passages.  However, teachers still encouraged students to practice oral communication.  For speaking and writing teachers, sometimes they would like to use theme-based instruction.  According to the different themes, we have classroom reading, discussion, and research.  After that, we had writing projects.  Before I came to here, I never spoke English because I always felt that I was not good enough to talk in English.  The most important part of learning a second language is to practice. At LCC, I improved a lot in learning English.

In my opinion, I think bilingualism good for cognition.  With the development of the social economy, more and more people can speak more than two languages because they know it can help them to open their eyes to know more difference than their our country.  As a bilingual, language learning impacts my life.  To learn a second language can practice brain and improving learning ability.  There are some bilingual education models, such as immersion and sheltered models.  “Immersion programs have been highly successful, with children performing on a par with their monolingual counterparts and becoming functional bilinguals by the end of elementary school”(Brown & Lee, 2015, pg. 58).  In the immersion program, I think children start to learn a second language when they are young.  They start to learn knowledge in their first and second language at the same time.   It will help students to succeed in different subjects with both first and second language.  I think it is important for the profession of SLA to have research and researchers who investigate how a second language is best learned.  The research was collecting data to show the effective teaching or not so that teachers do not need to waste time.  According to research and researchers, teachers can have more different methods, which is successful in teaching the second language.  At last, I believe that research impact our education teaching practice today.  Through research, new teachers can learn how to teach improve teaching ability.  

Wright, W. E. (2010). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing.

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.