Teacher Reflection 2 - Kelsey Cooper

This past week in class, something that really stood out to me was the video we watched about the Chinese immersion school.  I thought it was interesting because we talked about the different methods of second language instruction and bilingual education programs, but I had never seen this style of second language learning in action. 

My first thoughts were I couldn’t believe that this young of children were doing this.  I thought back to myself at the age and had my parents placed me into an immersion school at that age I don’t think I would’ve known what to do.  I would’ve been so scared, but in reality the students in the video seemed to be adapting very well despite how confused they were.  I have always heard that the best way to learn a language is to go to a country where they speak that language and be immersed in the environment with people speaking that language.  But seeing this immersion in a school was interesting because it was like bringing the country to the students.   

Seeing the children interacting in the immersion school connected well to the Savignon article where she discussed how second language learners that aren’t completely familiar with the language have to negotiate uncomfortable situations to be able to communicate.  For example, when the teacher was telling the boy to get his backpacks and books to move he first just grabbed his backpack, but he had to use the motions of reaching for different items along with the teachers body language to establish what she wanted because he could not understand the verbal language.

This video showed me that younger kids could pick up a language easier than adults as studies have shown. I did not take any Spanish classes until high school, which is past the time when second language acquisition is said to be easiest and I definitely agree.  All the students in the video were doing a good job picking up the Chinese through immersion.  But for me, learning Spanish, even when the teacher was using both English and Spanish to teach was difficult. 

The teachers at the Chinese immersion school only spoke English to the students for a set time each day and they made sure that the teacher who spoke to them in their L2 never spoke English to them as not to confuse them.  Learning new material and a new language simultaneously can be overwhelming, but the teachers repeated themselves, talked slower, and gestured to the students until they understood what they were conveying.  I could not imagine learning an L2 in that way and I was very impressed with the young students who adjusted so well to the situation.