Week of October 8

Interaction hypothesis by Kumar is the idea that you can learn language entirely through the “process of interaction”. As he states in the text, “Oral interaction in which communication problems are negotiated between participants promotes L2 comprehension and production ultimately facilitating language development” (106). I like this idea but I don’t think it’s necessarily revolutionary or original. It really relates very closely to the method of CLT. It’s all about communication and learning the language through speaking it. Brown touches on this subject as well in his chapters about listening and speaking. He says that although communication as a whole is important, perfecting our skills of listening comprehension and speaking are possibly even more important. “Much of our language-teaching energy is devoted to instruction in mastering English conversation. However, numerous other forms of spoken language are also important to incorporate into a language course, especially in teaching listening comprehension” (Brown 303). This is the opposite of the class in Cary’s article. Although the teacher employs conversation as a tool for learning, she adds other things to enrich the conversation, she gives it direction. Although the interaction hypothesis is valid, I believe that we can’t teach students English through conversation alone. There needs to be more things to cater to all students. Some students need more than speaking to learn. They need activities or visual aids or hands on projects. Even if that theory sounds good, we need to make sure that we are aware of all of the students in our classrooms and we are doing what is best for all of them.

I loved the article entitled, “How do I support a student’s first language when I don’t speak the language?”. I thought that the teacher portrayed was such an awesome role model and had so many great ideas that I would love to employ in my classroom. One thing that really stood out to me was the idea of language diversity. Giving the students a chance to teach their native language to the whole class was so unique and fosters a sense of cultural pride while still benefitting the entire class. It was also really neat because as stated, “[it] gave native English-speaking kids a taste of what their second language learner classmates experienced daily” (Cary 139).  I love this because it gives the native speaking children such a perspective on what their peers have to go through every day. The argument to for English only education is definitely a growing one in the United States. I wonder how the legislators or adults who are for full immersion programs would feel if they were put in this situation. Would they still be an advocate of English only? Or would they realize that it makes sense to foster a child’s native language alongside their acquisition of the L2?