As an adult now, I still believe that because of my native language being my first language I will always struggle to become 100% fluent in English.

In the ESL book chapter 2 there is a quote stating, "In the present context, we emphasize background knowledge as a cornerstone of comprehending and producing academic language appropriate to age and grade level. Making instruction understandable to students helps with both content learning and academic language development." which enhances the idea that background knowledge allows students to better grasp the concept of the second language that they are learning.

• Later explaining how essential it is for students to actively learn a language because it allows students to shadow educators with word repetition, word sounds, word usage, etc.

• I think that when students are able to better understand something in their brains it's only a matter of memorization in order for them to begin to speak the second language.

Some Factors that may Affect this learning process maybe:

• not understanding material

• not rehearsing for sounds, spelling, vocabulary

• not having someone to practice or learn the language from/with

I think some linguistic factors affecting language acquisition are:

• learning two or more language that are very different from each other

• not having someone who you can practice these languages with

• having to learn the different rules and concepts of all the different languages

I also think that while learning new languages is very good and healthy for ones brain, it can also affect not fully grasping one language because your brain is constantly learning or trying to learn a new language.

There was a video called "The Bridge between Cultures" which was about a guy ridding a buss with a lady who was struggling to communicate with the conductors due to a language barrier. He goes on to explain that he was able to help this woman by communicating and translating for her which essentially helped her in the long run.

• how does the video and this topic relate?

  • if the woman who could speak very little or the non native language would have felt confident enough to try and communicate with the conductors she would have been able to help herself facilitate her problem.

  • much like students in the classroom who limit themselves because they are embarrassed or lack the confidence to make an attempt to communicate with their educators.

• feeling embarrassed to pronounce or speak the language to others

• mimicking or modeling the new words learned

• feeling uncomfortable or uncertain about the words used to speak the new language

The ESL book explains in chapter two, "He defines acquisition as a natural process that occurs when the target

language is used in meaningful interactions with native speakers. The focus is communication, not accuracy of form." which then tells me that while people are learning a language they may become afraid to have interactions in a physical aspect because they are limited and afraid to not have an accurate spoken language or form of communication.

Coming from experience, I think that if my parents were to have know English prior to me learning it, it would have made a huge difference in how fast I picked up English.

I also think that because students spend so much time around their families that they lack the practice amongst each other to pick up a language there for affecting the pace at which they learn.

They promote english as an essential tool to grow at their own pace and their given "grade level".

I think that while it is great that the federal government wants kids to learn a second language and while they think that placing them in a specific course will allow them to grow their vocabulary, I also think that it limits students to grow faster than they potentially could.

I do believe that if a child who if proficient in other subject matters has the ability to learn a second language faster if placed in an environment that is promoting growth to all students not limiting to all students simply because of a language barrier.