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Welcome!
Let me introduce you to my learning autobiography. I am a fourth-year student of the English Language Teaching Program at UNCuyo, and this is a final assignment required for a subject called 'Second Language Acquisition'.

From doing this learning autobiography, I intend to go deeper into my process as a second language learner. I think that, by doing so, I will be able not only to understand aspects of my own process, but also to learn about what students in general might be going through when learning a second language. Therefore, I will be able to help and understand my future students in their own processes.

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I am a bilingual person. I started studying English in kindergarten at the age of 4, at a bilingual school, Platero. Then my parents transferred me to Padre Claret school. The latter had a very basic level of English. However, I really liked it when we had English classes.

From a very early age, I became really interested in the language, mostly because it was not difficult for me. I remember I found (and I still do) solving exercises really entertaining. Differently from my classmates, it did not bother me when the English hour started. From a very early age, I have felt safe whenever the English class arrived. None of the school subjects ever really caught my attention; however, it was different with English. Even though I coul not study, for example, I felt confident and secure. Of course, there were aspects like vocabulary and structures that I needed to study, but generally, I felt I could do anything when I thought about English.

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I have attended English classes my whole life. When I was very young, around 4 years old, I started having English classes at school; then, throughout my whole primary and secondary education. My parents have always considered the learning of the English language crucial in a person's life, so apart from school, I have always gone to a private institute. Therefore, I did not 'choose' to learn the language, but it did not bother me. At first, I did not mind solving exercises, listening to songs, reading and trying to improve my pronunciation; I actually found it entertaining. However, little by little, I started realizing I loved learning the language.

I do not remember very much about my kindergarten education of English; however, from what I remember of Platero school, English was taught as a workshop. We would learn words and maybe phrases, but everything through songs, games or projects. Students could really get immersed in the language because we were taught through activties or songs that we liked and, therefore, we got really engaged in the classes.

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My formal English language learning trajectory

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My formal English language learning trajectory

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Apart from school, I started at the age of 6 at an institute called 'Bridge'. I really liked going there because, even though we had to go at nap time and I was very young, I liked the fact that the classes were small (5 to 8 students) and the atmosphere was very friendly. Also, they organized a lot of games for special ocasions like Spring day, Student's day, 25th of May, among other festivities. Them doing this really encouraged us to keep wanting to go there. They made learning English very fun and interesting.

When I started secondary school, I changed to 'Colegio de Lenguas Extranjeras' (CLE). And this is another story: in order to enter the institute, we had to present our Spanish language average from primary level (not even the English one). I did not enter that year because my average was lower than the rest. I was really frustrated about this since English was my favourite subject. At first, I was disappointed in me. I am a perfectionist, so I was ashamed of not being able to enter. But then I accepted the challenge of trying to enter again the following year.

That year (when I was in seventh grade) I did not study any extracurricular English. In the summer, however, I prepared myself to take an exam at CLE as 'libre' so as to skip first year. I was very nervous, mainly because I had not come across any English material rather than the simple things they gave us at school. Luckily, I got in. I studied the four years in that institute until I graduated from there.

I finished that course of English when I was in fourth year of secondary school (16 years old). It was a 'tradition' in my house to sit for the FCE (First Certificate Exam) at some point in our lives. Therefore, during my senior year of school, I went back to Bridge Institute and prepared to take the exam. Fortunately, I passed, and this exam exempted me from the entry exam for university.

So I can say I have learned English my whole life, so I needed to like it! But apart from that, English always was the only subject I enjoyed, I felt good at, I felt motivated to have.

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Learning at school
As regards my school (Padre Claret), I think that the teaching practices could be improved. As it has been taught to us in Language Pedagogy I and II, and now in Second Language Acquisition, the Behaviorist view on learning, where students are expected to fill in gaps and repeat everything as if they were robots, is not considered the best one anymore. It is not considered wrong either, but there are so many ways to teach nowadays that cater for the students wants, needs and likes! What is more, we used to see the same basic topics throughout the whole secondary years. Since it is not a bilingual school, I understand that they are not interested in giving more difficult topics; however, at least the approach they take could be different in order to keep students motivated.

The structuralist and traditional approach to learning states that students are empty boxes who need to be filled with grammatical rules, so changing this idea could be a good start. I remember having done some activities that were different, like learning from songs or performing plays, but those were exceptions. I do not see that the teaching practice they chose catered for our interests, nor were there mixed-ability classes. We used to work with a book, no matter the way in which we, as students, preferred to learn the language.

At school, English classes were not engaging, and this is where they were mistaken: we lacked motivation. According to Douglas Brown, motivation is “the extent to which you make choices about goals to pursue and the effort you will devote to that pursuit.” Therefore, if students are not motivated to learn and find a purpose in something, they will never be fully engaged.

What is more, we were not able to interact with each other, and what is the purpose of learning a language if not to use it for communication? The teaching techniques and approaches were very structuralist, following the PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) model. I did not mind, though, since that was the only way in which I knew English was taught. In order to learn the language you had to know the grammar, which you learned by using a coursebook. It was my belief that English could be taught only in this manner. However, now that I know there are so many others, my beliefs have changed. I think that the more you can play and experiment with the language, the better.

According to Lightbown and Spada, there are three main types of bilingualism: coordinate, subordinate and compound. I believe I am a coordinate bilingual. Even though I had learned the Spanish language before English, I learned them both at the same time (at different levels of proficiency and with different purposes, of course). Spanish is my mother tongue and I use it to speak with everyone around me. English is my second language, and I did not use it to communicate with anyone until I started studying to become an English teacher. For a coordinate bilingual, their L1 and L2 are two different systems, that is, the student creates his/her own interlanguage.

Everyone has their own unique interlanguage, it being a unique and internalized system somewhere between the learners' L1 and L2. Of course, as a second language learner, I had my interlanguage too. I remember always struggling with adjective placement. In Spanish, adjectives go after the word they are modifying, whereas in English they go before them. Due to negative transfer, I used to say, for example, 'house cute' or 'tree green' instead of 'cute house' and 'green tree' because I managed the Spanish way of saying it, though not the English one yet.

Learning at a private institute
Luckily, I had more contact with the language because I always went to a private institute besides school.  I really enjoyed going there. Of the two contacts I had with the language, I very much preferred the institute. The classes were smaller, the activities were more engaging and they catered for our interests and different abilities.

Classes were interesting and organized in small groups. One factor that has really affected my learning of the language is my personality. I have always considered myself an introverted person: I am really self-aware and take my time making decisions; I also prefer writing rather than talking with others. How can this not affect my language learning process, which I should use as a means of communication with others? Gladly, institutes really helped me with this issue. I have always confused the term 'introvert' with being shy, but they do not mean the same. I think I am both and introverted and shy person, but they go separately. Being in small groups helped me get the courage to talk and get over my shyness. Also, though I cannot say I consider myself an extrovert now, I can say I have adapted some of their characteristics. Because of these institutes I now feel more confident when talking with people. What is more, I have learned to be a more flexible and outgoing person.

As a kid, I did not have any other contact with the language since no one close in my family spoke it well. As a teenager, however, I always tried to watch movies and series in English and, now that I have a better understanding of the language, I also watch them with the subtitles in English. Watching series, or setting your cellphone in English, or navigating through the media are other contacts with the language. In fact, they teach you the language that native people actually use, something that is not taught in formal institutions.

How you are taught something really influences how you will be able to manage it in the future. For instance, having only a behaviorist education of the language at school, where I had to do nothing more than repeating what was in front of me (even though I did like the language) had an impact on how I used (or actually, did not use) the language to communicate with others today. I am constantly thinking about how I said or will say something wrong and will be ashamed of it, when that is not really the point. Luckily, going to a private institute with a different approach really helped me with that. There they taught me that even though you need to know the language so as to be able to use it, if you can make yourself intelligible, you will learn the rest on the road. Students need to feel safe and engaged when learning and producing the language so that they want to do it again and to keep learning more and more.

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As I mentioned before, English came very easily for me and I really liked it. When I was younger, I used to study a lot because I liked to get good grades. However, as I grew older, especially as an adolescent in CLE, I did not study so much and did well anyway during the year. The problem came when I had to sit for the final exam. It was senior year, and I thought I would do great without studying so much. So I took the exam, and I passed but barely. I felt so frustrated after that exam because I did not understand why I had gotten that grade. However, I later realized I was seeking the wrong goal: I was more focused on the grades than on actually learning the language. This does not mean I did not like the language, but, even worse, I was not enjoying it. So that was a switch in my life as an English learner: ever since that day everything that was English-related I decided to approach with pleasure. I think that is the best thing that I could do, and I am really grateful that situation taught me that.

Another situation I remember was at school. I was in third year of secondary school, and I got on really well with my English teacher. She knew I liked the language and that I was pretty good at it. So, one day, she was evaluating some students, and she did not have time to correct some tests from lower courses. Therefore, she asked me to take a look at them and correct them with a pencil, so that it would help her correct faster later. I felt so proud and she made me feel so important. I remember going back home and telling my mom about it, and how excited it had been. After that, I was much more immersed in the classes and payed more attention. Knowing that my teacher had that confidence in me really increased my self-esteem as a language learner. Now that I think about it, I realize how important it is the way in which the teacher approaches both the language and his or her students.

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Experiences and beliefs always shape our new experiences, even when we do not realize it. In my case, studying English started as an obligation, and ended up being what I am going to dedicate my life to teach. Therefore, even if I have my reservations about the way in which I learned the language, it clearly marked me positively. Every day I am more and more interested in the language. Even better, I am more and more interested in the aspects I was never taught about the language: phonetics, literature, history of other places, culture...

Yes, it is frustrating to learn a new language since you are learning something completely new, or at least that is how I saw it at the beginning. Also, it is frustrating because there are so many factors affecting yourself as a learner: age, personality, beliefes, learning styles, among others.There are many words, sounds, expressions that are different from the ones in our first language, but that is the good part about it. We get to widen our vocabulary, to improve our listening and speaking abilities. Learning a second language, in my case English, opens so many doors for a learner. It can give us the chance to travel abroad and to be able to communicate with other people who do not speak our first language. What is more, it is self-rewarding and self-motivating: knowing that we are able to manage another language encourages us to choose to learn more languages, or the one we are learning in more deeply.

I think it is better to be, at least, bilingual. English is a global language nowadays: it tends to be the lingua franca among people from different countries whose first language is not English. Every day English is being used more and more, so I think it is important to learn at least two languages in one´s life. Not only is it better, but it is sometimes necessary to learn the language since most countries speak it and require foreigners to do so as well. As I said at the beginning of this autobiography, learning a new language is a door-opener.

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As a language learner and user, I think my weaknesses are, first of all, that I am a perfectionist. Therefore, I do not produce the language until I am sure that what I am about to say is perfectly built (both pronunciation and grammar). Also, I do not rely very much on what I know: I tend to doubt, especially when I am writing, whether I am doing it right or not.

As regards my strengths, I think I am a very persistent person, so I do not allow myself to give up until I have completed or understood a task. Also I really love languages, and I think that is the key to learning a second language (or more!).

We are learners all of our lives. Some day, I hope to overcome my weaknesses, to enhance my strengths and to develop new ones. I know that there always is more to learn, and I really look forward to that. In the future, I see myself looking for different courses to keep learning, either about English literature or phonetics, or even learning other languages! In fact, I never want to stop learning, because there is always something we do not know yet. Yes, I have knowledge of grammatical rules and phonetics, but there is so much more out there to learn: literature, history, how to teach literature or phonetics, to kids, teenagers or adults... The thing is, it is important to know that learning is a process that never stops.

In fact, last year I was talking to one of my classmates and we were discussing exactly this: what are we going to do next? And the best part is that there is always something else! And with that knowledge, specially as a teacher, I can do so many things!

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Having taken a look at my past as a second language learner has taught me a lot. I have gotten to know the kind of learner I was and compare it to the one I am today. I think I have grown a lot in terms of personality: I now am able to communicate better with others, to work in groups and use the English language more effectively. However, I still have many challenges to face. Maybe not so much as a language learner, but as a teacher, and how my own process as a learner will affect my teaching of it.

I always say that every teacher's practice tells us a little bit about the teacher himself/herself. Before doing this assignment, it had never crossed my mind all of the challenges, insecurities, anxieties, preferences that learners go through in their learning process. I hope that after having done this, I will be able as a teacher to understand students more and cater for as many of their desires, needs and expectations as possible. I would like to transmit my passion for the language to my students, so that they can have a good experience when learning English.

Also, what I would like to transmit them is the fact that learning a language is much more than only linguistics: you learn about the culture, the history, the people. The richness that one can find in learning a second language is inexplicable. We are learners throughout our whole lives, so I hope I can keep on learning about all of the aspects of the English language as well (and perhaps a third language, too!).

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Saville-Troike (2012) Introducing Second Language Acquisition

Lightbown, P. and N. Spada (2006) How Languages Are Learnt