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Similarities and differences between language acquisition and second language acquisition
Theory of first and second language acquisition
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Language is first learned as an infant by absorbing and mimicking one's environment, surroundings, and daily life. For some, like myself, more than one language is spoken, and learning how to balance multiple languages can be a challenge. Trying to integrate language with culture and environment at times can be interesting and other times demanding and tiresome. Maxine Hong Kingston describes her struggles in coping with the differences in her languages, coming to terms with herself, and accepting how her culture uses language in her essay, “The Language of Silence”. Although similar struggles are had by Christine Marin, she writes in her essay “Spanish Lessons”, about how she discovered her culture through language, how it empowered her, and how she learned to love that part of herself.
Mother Tongue was written by Amy Tan who is famous for her writings of her experiences as a Chinese immigrant growing up and living in American culture. Her primary purpose is to explain to the reader her interpretation of standard English and broken. In her essay Tan shares stories of her mother's broken English and her it affected her life and how people took advantage of her mother's broken English. Tan's intended audience are people who are unaware of people like her mother's limited English who are taken advantage of in everyday life. The experiences Tan shares with reader is an emotion inducing strategy which Tan uses throughout her writing and it is proved to be very effective.
The title “Mother Tongue” is almost brilliantly misleading. My first thought when I read the title was that this story would be about a language that the author spoke before moving to another country and having to learn a new language, but I was incredibly incorrect. This is about English as a language and how easily the author switches from a version that is eloquent to a version that many would considered to be broken. She talks about how many people have judged her mom’s English skills and how she has even been ostracized because of it, but how it inspired the author’s writing style. The title is a fitting tribute to her mom and how she shaped the author’s English skill and the author as a person into who she is today.
“Amy Tan: Mother Tongue” In Amy Tan’s essay ¨Mother Tongue¨(1990), Amy Tan, a Chinese American Author, asserts that all languages are very significant. Ms. Tan explains her idea by praising her mother´s broken English, and sharing personal stories and conversation between her Mother and her husband The purpose of of praising the broken English is make her book easier to read and have the people who have mixed Englishes understand her life story. Her audience is the many people who speak broken English and people that understand her writing. The tone of the story was very solemn and hopeful because of the mixed Englishes to tell her story.
How would you use the demographic data pertaining to students and their families to develop a school mission and goals for Harpo Allen Middle School? What additional information might prove to be helpful in the process? • Tailor the school climate and atmosphere around multiculturalism based on the socio-economic environment of the school to help promote pride in the accomplishments of people from different cultures. • Use a staff development day to take teachers into the neighborhoods to visit students in their homes and meet parents face-to-face to let them know that the faculty cares about each student and has his or her best interest in mind.
Class ESL 5 In the article, ”My English” by Julia Alvarez, the author wrote about her experience as she learn to speak English. Spanish was her mother tongue and struggled to speak English in the early phases. She thought that English was a form of Spanish, as there are different dialects in Spanish. Her parents spoke English when they didn’t want her and her siblings to know what was going on.
The tongue for every language is that inside the mouth, speaking words, meanings, and sentences. Both articles, being, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and “The Mother Tongue”, touch on this subject. We see how these articles describe how language varies around the world yet both articles are different in describing this; both taking a deeper approach. Language has become a powerful tool used around the world and peoples interpretation of these various languages can shape that of who we are/how we view the people speaking them, shown throughout both articles. We see a perfect description of language in the first article, being that of, “A language which they can connect their identity to, one capable of communicating the realities and values true
Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a very controversial book as it touches on many sensitive topics, but it still should be taught in schools. In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, it discusses many different topics such as poverty, racism/discrimination, and struggles other people might have. The importance of teaching these topics in schools is to create awareness and wellness for students. This is to help indicate an awareness for both students and teachers, to help them and to help them recognize if they are struggling with any of these issues. It is also setting forth that it can be a great deal for students to be taught about this topic just like the book demonstrates.
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is the short story about the importance of language and how it is a key for communication. Tan emigrated from China to Oakland, California and she was a first generation of Asian-American. The author is very fascinated by the language and she believes that the language has the power of emotions, a visual image, a complex idea, and a simple truth. She also believes that there are many different types of “Englishes”.
Tan is able to convey the power of language in her writing through the significance of the title "Mother Tongue", by narrating from three different perspectives and through her diction. The title "Mother Tongue" exemplifies the connection between culture and language as one's native language can also be known as their mother tongue. This language is the first language a child hears and learns to speak. Tan's mother tongue is a combination of Chinese and English, which was taught to her by her mother.
Out of Breath Becoming accustomed to a new language is difficult, especially when it is not one’s primary language. Amy Tan, the author of “Mother Tongue” went through this same situation. Tan’s mother had a hard time with the way she spoke English because no one seemed to understand what she wanted to convey. Amy Tan uses her story as a way to let the audience know about how language can lead people to be prejudice, connect people, change perception and open new doors in life.
After reading Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, my perspective changed about the struggles for people who are not as good at English. All throughout this article Tan uses personal experience from her mom to show the readers the struggle while also using primary sources to back up her claim. All the evidence backs up her initial claim and as the reader your perspective changes after reading about how she personally was effected. The author 's main claim of Mother Tongue is to persuade people so respect people who struggle with English because she has serval personal connections, she has fact based proof, and she is an experienced writer on this topic and in general. All throughout the reading she uses many personal stories and personal experiences on how difficult it was for her mother to go through her everyday life.
In Amy Tan‘s essay “Mother Tongue” (1999), she describes her life with her mother in America and how the broken speech of her mother has had an influence on her life. Amy Tan talks about the different “Englishes" she speaks to communicate with different people. Also, she tells us about her love for English and how she becomes a famous writer in America. In her essay she tries to shows us that language, culture, and education shapes us into who we are and the more you study English the more you learn and English will change your life a lot.
Phonemic Awareness and Phonics As a ESL student, I learned a lot information to teach young students to read, pronounce letters and words. “English is an alphabetic language, and children learn crack this code as they learn about phonemes (sound), graphemes (letters), and graph phonemic (letter-sound) relationship (Tompkins, p.103). My first language`s letters sounds never changed, but in English it changes when different letters come together for example “sh”, “ch” and words are cat and cent. When you read these word, sound is changing first letter of words even same letter.
Several studies have been done to identify problems that affects student’s academic performance. The students’ academic performance depends on a number of socio-economic factors like students’ presence of trained teacher in school, teacher-student ratio, attendance in the class, sex of the student, family income, mother’s and father’s education, , and distance of schools (Amitava Raychaudhuri,
