Amy Mardis

World Language Methods

EDUC 688 107 Spring Semester
Professor Thomasina White
6 February 2017
Assignment #2

Chapter 4
Connecting Language Learning to the Elementary School Curriculum

Question #1 How does age impact language learning?

Due to neurological, social, and psychological factors, the age of language acquisition

impacts language learning in many ways. In general, the younger the age at which someone

begins receiving meaningful language input the higher the proficiency they will have in that

language. Birdsong (2006) states that the age of acquisition is reliably the strongest

prediction of ultimate attainment of a language (qtd. in Shrum and Glisan, pg 109). In

addition to the fact that younger learners generally have a more favorable mindset for

language learning and foreign cultures than older learners, there are various neurological

factors that support Birdsongs claim, most notably associative memory and pronunciation.

Because associative memory declines with age, younger language learners have a more

innate ability to make meaningful connection between language and concrete objects or ideas

than older language learners. When it comes to pronunciation the benefits associated with

younger age are great; those who start learning a language as a child are able to achieve a

more native like accent than those who begin as adolescents or adults (pg 109). Specifically,

given sufficient language input, all learners up until the age of six or seven automatically

attain a level of speaking that identifies them as a native speaker (pg 110).

After the age of six or seven, however, neurological factors are no longer the key

determinants in language acquisition. Instead, social and psychological effects will have a

greater impact on language learning. According to Dekeyer (2000), older learners may
require more motivation, effective L2 input and instruction, and language aptitude to reach

the same levels that are automatically attained by younger learners (pg 110). This means

that although younger learners have many benefits over older learners when learning a

language, older learners can certainly make meaningful gains in language ability with the

right combination of motivation, effort, and effective teaching.

Question #2 - Which strategies identified for elementary learners might work in your
classroom? State the strategy and explain how it might be used.

As noted in the chapter, each of the many strategies that have been identified for

elementary learners can be effectively adapted for a secondary classroom (pg 123). While I

do recognize that all of the nine strategies could be beneficial in my classroom, I believe the

three following strategies have the potential to be the most valuable:

1) Helping students to Organize and Explore Content

2) Contextualized Performance Assessments
3) Literacy: From Interpretive Listening to Reading and Writing

I would employ the first strategy I chose helping students to organize and explore

content by having students create graphic organizers with thematic vocabulary units. By

having students create these graphic organizers with vocabulary words they would be

cementing the relationship between object and meaning in a way that makes the most sense to

them instead of attempting to grapple the content in the way that I as a teacher understand it.

The second strategy that I think has great potential in my classroom is the

incorporation of contextualized performance assessments. I believe that contextualized

performance assessments will benefit my students for multiple reasons. First, designing a

final CPA when I am planning a unit will help focus my instruction around realistic language

usage. Secondly, CPAs give students a chance to express themselves and their interests in a

meaningful way, which invites more student engagement than a traditional assessment. And
finally, CPAs can serve as an investment builder in my class because they answer the WHY

behind the task they are assessing. Students are constantly complaining about the tedious

nature of grammar exercises and similar isolated drills, and CPAs offer a realistic application

of those drills with a clear purpose. Furthermore, by allowing student input in the creation of

the rubric for the CPA, students will feel as though their voice is heard and will hopefully be

more invested in performing well on the assessment.

The third strategy literacy is the strategy on which I need to place a strong focus.

In my opinion, one of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher of any subject and/or level

is the inability to place ourselves in the learners mind. In other words, it is not easy to cross

the knowledge gap between teacher and student and imagine what its like to not know the

content that we are teaching. Throughout my first year of teaching I have realized that I dont

always provide my students with enough comprehensible input before I expect them to

produce the Spanish language, which is not only an example of ineffective teaching but it is

unfair to the students. Furthermore, students oftentimes lose self-confidence and interest in

the content as a result. In order to provide more opportunities for interpretive listening,

during the next report period I plan to experiment with TPS and TPRS lesson structures. By

focusing on literacy through the communicative sequence described in Chapter 4 (from

interpretive listening, to reading, and then to writing and speaking), I will be setting my

students up for greater success in the classroom and ultimately in their language acquisition.

Work Cited:

Shrum, Judith L.; Glisan, Eileen W. Teacher's Handbook. Cengage Textbook. Kindle Edition.