Entry 2: Interview with my friend Kiri!
Hello everyone,
For this Vlog assignment, I interviewed my good friend Kiri, who I went to high school with and she also goes to the University of Houston. She was born in Yangon, Myanmar and she came to the United States of America at the age of five years old. So according to Ortega, her first language (L1) would be Burmese and her second language (L2) would be English because of how she says a child's first language learns "from the womb to up to four years." (Ortega, 2013, pg. 5) Kiri states in the video that she is a both a naturalistic learner and a instrutionalistic learner. Ortega defines that naturalistic learners “learn the L2 through informal opportunities in multicultural neighborhoods, school, and workplaces…” (Ortega, 2013, pg. 6) and a instructional learner is someone that learns “through formal study in school or university, through private lessons and so on.” (Ortega, 2013. Pg. 6) Kiri started learning and building a foundation of her L2 of English through school as she states in the video and then she had chances to practice and perfect her L2 in a naturalistic way through social settings and school. Kiri also learned other English concepts that they usually don’t teach in schools such as “slang” for example through a naturalistic way of learning. I think it is great that she was able to both learn Burmese and English as she grew up, learning Burmese from her friends and family and of course English outside of those areas. Although her English is better than her Burmese due to not being able to use her Burmese as much, she says that she does want to continue to learn her mother language and hopes to get it to a level as equal as her English is.
Here is the interview video here: https://youtu.be/CxiHWhy1_B8
Hi jean,
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful, because Kini just backed up what I have been saying through different comments. The naturalistic way is the best way to learn a new language. She stated at the end of her interview that without socializing, that she would not have been able to learn English. Simply talking to teachers would not have helped her learn the language. As a child, it would be more easier to flow because your brain is grabbing so much information, and still growing. And when you get older its hard to position you mouth to say certain things, but the more you are put in that situation to have to speak a certain way, the more comfortable it will become. No matter the age an L2 to can be acquired in a naturalistic setting. How ever Kini claims she learned from both a instructional setting and a naturalistic setting. That gives here the best of both worlds, and puts her in a position with the majority. Ortega states, "Most people learn additional languages from a mixture of both naturalistic and instructed experiences.
Ortega p. 6