Interviewing an ELL was interesting. I loved hearing her experiences and what she feels had either helped or hurt her language development as an ELL. The person I interviewed has been my next door neighbor for nearly twelve years now. We have been friends who have spoke in English to each other ever since I can remember, which is even more so why their was such an interesting experience for me!
Like she mentioned in the Video, Laura was taught English and Spanish at the same time, however her English as well as he Spanish is very fluent. According to Ortega, there is clear evidence that accents are likely to develop when the L2 is first learned later in life (Ortega, 2013, 23).
When Laura mentioned how hard Morphology was for her, I did relate to her as well. I myself was also an ELL. I was never in Bilingual but I do Phonology was harder for me. However, for me it was certainly learning Spanish. I know that we focus on English language learning and that is very important, but I do feel as though learning any two languages can be tricky and a challenge that is easily overlooked since it i not English, when it should not be this way because the struggle and difficulties are still there.
I really have always believed that as educators we must do our part to understand what children need not where we think they should be according to age or ability. For instance, with Laura her teachers never took the time to talk about her pronunciation or her, they wanted her to seem as if she knew it sou they could do their job and move on. I like being an ELL because I hope and feel like I will want my kids to actually feel like they are hitting their mark in everything they possibly should be to truly understand a language.
Ortega, L. (2014). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
