Week 7 Article reflection

After reading this week’s articles I learned a lot about how important vocabulary is when learning a language. Which brings me to my first major point. In “The Importance of Vocabulary in Language Learning and How to be Taught” Alqahtani states “In order to understand the language, vocabulary is crucial to be mastered by the learner. Vocabulary mastery is needed to express our ideas and to be able to understand other people's sayings.” This article shows us many ways we can incorporate vocabulary into the classroom in a way our language learners will stay engaged and be educated. Alqahtani lists ways such as drawing, pictures, and contrast but one way that stuck out to me was objects. I learn best when I can see a physical thing in front of me and put a name to it. A physical object gives children more of an excitement than a word, thus leading to them having a better chance of remembering what that object is called.

In the article “Six Principles of Language Development: Implications for Second Language Learner” a few things jumped out at me as something I would like to use in my future classroom. Principal 2 states that children learn words for things and events that interest them. This stuck out to me because in general, when a child is familiar with something, they naturally are more engaged in learning. Learning a new language can be tedious and so I think its important to offer some familiarity to the child. In the classroom I work in, when we are teaching a subject of interest to the students, they generally perform better. Principal 3 talks about how interactive and responsive lessons as opposed to passive ones promote language learning. Group work is something I definitely want to include in my future classroom. Giving bilingual students the opportunity to converse with their peers and practice their language learning in a casual environment builds confidence and allows for self and peer feedback. The classroom that I observe in uses a lot of collaborative work, with teacher guidance. This seems to be a comfortable environment for the students and allows them to really work on their skills with someone there trying to do the same thing.

One key point that I pulled out of the article “Bilingual Language Learning in Children” is the statement: “Studies with bilingual infants show that their language growth is directly related to the quality and quantity of speech they hear in each language (Ramírez-Esparza et al., 2016).” Although we know this to be true in infants, I think as bilingual children get older, we often forget that what they hear is what they learn. We as teachers must provide the proper vocabulary and grammar for our students to flourish linguistically.

References:

ALQAHTANI, M. (2015). The importance of vocabulary in language learning and how to be taught. International Journal of Teaching and Education, III(3), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.20472/te.2015.3.3.002

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Konishi, H., Kanero, J., Freeman, M. R., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2014). Six Principles of Language Development: Implications for Second Language Learners. Developmental Neuropsychology, 39(5), 404–420. https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2014.931961

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(2016). Bilingual Language Learning in Children [Review of Bilingual Language Learning in Children]. Institute For Learning and Brain Sciences.

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