English language learner

Posted by Winnie Melda on April 2nd, 2019

English language learner

I interviewed Chow Yang, a Chinese grade six who came from their native country China less than a year ago. Yang had no English language background for the first time he and his parents arrived in America although his parents can speak a little English though they are not fluent. However, Yang has been attending English lessons at school. He attends his elementary education in American schools where English is the major language used by students and teachers. But since Yang started attending the English classes soon after they came to United States, he can comprehend the meaning of numerous English words though he can hardly construct a grammatically correct sentence whenever speaking.

The Chinese language that is thenativelanguage of Yang has a completelydifferentscript with English. The Chinese language uses the semanto-phonetic language system mostly while English uses the alphabetic language system (Bassetti, 2005). While, at home, Yang due to his desire to know how to speak English watches videos in Englishlanguage but while the parents are at home, the T.V is usually tuned to Chinese language. At religious functions which Yang frequently attends due to his parents’ religious nature, these functions and services are in the Chinese language (Huang, 2013). At home, Yang’s parents have provided English learning materials for their boy. Examples of these materials include short story books, MP3s for English language learners, learning charts and tables and videos of online teachers. Yang uses these materials in doing his personal studies. Since Yang’s parent knows very little English, they have enrolled Yang to a program offers English lessons for Chinese children. Yang attends his lessons after school and during weekends.

In his school time, Yang is quiet and a boy who looks to be bored. This is because, at school where Yang acquires his elementary education, English is the language used by teachers and other pupils. The use of English throughout the day makes it hard for Yang to converse since he can only construct the simplest sentence in English. This makes him a dull boy since he cannot converse fluently to his American friends though he understands what they are saying. Similarly, some of his classmates discourage Yang to converse publicly as they usually laugh at him due to his accent and the incorrect grammar. On the contrary, Yang is the most cheerful boy while at home. He freely interacts with his parents and siblings and other Chinese children in the neighborhood as they all speak Chinese. Therefore, these languages spoken in different settings have affected Yang’s social interaction. Back at home and in the neighborhood, is quite social and interactive, but when he is a school, he has very few friends and he hardly speaks in front of other pupils. Similarly, Yang’s emotional comfort is affected back in school as most of the time he cannot express himself and at times he appears to be not part of the school’s fraternity. His emotions are also affected whenever other children laugh at him if he fails to pronounce the English words correctly of he uses inaccurate grammar.

I interviewed Miss Gladys, who is Yang’s English teacher at the program. Miss Gladys confirmed that Yang is a bright student who is a fast-learner. However, the usage of two totally different languages in different settings of his life has affected his acquisition and verbal usage of English. According to the teacher, the child has difficulties in verbal usage of English, even though, understands the meaning of numerous English words due to differences in the phonetics of the English language and the Chinese. Similarly, the pupil’s environment back at home, where Chinese is the language used, hinders the ability of the boy to use English language verbally.

Yang has to live two different literacy worlds. The child uses Chinese, which his nativelanguage to communicate with his parents and siblings back at home. Similarly, in his neighborhood which is composed mostly of the Chinese natives, Yang is forced to converse using his nativelanguage in most of the times. This environment that Yang experiences back at home is quite the opposite the environment back in school. In the school, English that is a foreign language to Yang is the language that both the teachers and pupils use. Yang is required to switch from his Chinese to English that he can hardly converse using. Yang’s parent should create an environment back at home that encourages the use of English. Though they have limited literacy in the language, they should encourage Yang to use English to communicate rather than using the Chinese language. The use of English language at home to converse would facilitate Yang’s learning as there would be reduced conflict of language.

I have learned that the home setting in which a child is growing while learning a foreign language can greatly influence his or her ability to learn the foreign language. The parents such children should create an environment that could assist their children in learning the language. The experience I had during this exercise gave me the courage and confidence to interact more effectively with ELL students, as well as their families in the future.

References:

Bassetti (2005) Second Language Writing Systems, Multilingual Matters, USA

Huang, J. (2013). A Common Construction Pattern of English Words and Chinese Characters; Plos ONE, 8(9), 1-6. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074515

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in Write My Research Paper For Me services. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom nursing essay writing services.