Self introduction
Hello! My name is Joseph.
I was born and raised
in Texas. My parents were raised in Vietnam and as a result, I grew up speaking
Vietnamese fluently as well as English. My father is Chinese and works in the
china town area of Houston. From years of listening and growing up in that area,
I am able to hear and understand a little bit of Chinese as well. My
family is mainly Vietnamese. My dad is Chinese but his family lives in Vietnam.
My father speaks Chinese and Vietnamese however I can only speak Vietnamese and
English. I do not remember at what age I started learning English, but I can
remember that English was part of me for as long as I can remember. The only
other language that I somewhat learned was Spanish, but it was only for classes
back in middle and high school. In the video I will go into
more detail.
Hello Joseph,
ReplyDeleteI think its great you grew up being bilingual, knowing both Vietnamese and English fluently, I myself am also bilingual. I noticed you understand a bit of Chinese, do you plan on pursuing that language to become multilingualism?
I agree with you on how ELL struggle on forming sentences with transition because they are used to their native language and trying to speak English makes it tough on them due to their accent they might have. There are words that might not mean the same when you translate them from your native language to English, and this is where the students get confused. According to Gass (2008) second language learners need to learn the “grammar” of the target language to understand what it is that needs to be learned. How would you help you future students develop the literal translation?
Gass, S., Selinker L. (2008). Second language acquisition. London and New York: Routledge.
Hey Griselda! Yes I do plan to learn a lot more Chinese. I am actually self teaching myself Chinese right now though audio books and vocabulary practices everyday. My goal is to actually learn five languages and speak them fluently. After Chinese I wish to learn Korean and Japanese, but that is a long way to go.
DeleteYeah, transitions are hard. I know there's a proper term for transitions but I don't remember what it is. For my students, I think I would have to provide a list of those "transitional" words for my students to look at and use when forming sentences.
Hey Joseph ,
DeleteI was looking through your blog and happen to see the comment between you and Griselda. The thing that got my attention was the part you said you was " self-teaching yourself Chinese right now ." How is that going ? Wow you want to learn at least five languages . I think learning two languages in my life time is enough . Do you believe age can have a factor on you learning the new language ? In my opinion , I believe that is hard to learn a language at late stage but its still possible to . I have two friends who learned how to speak Spanish at like the age of 20 something .
Hey Emmanuel,
DeleteYeah learning a new language when we are older is definitely more difficult than at a younger age. Especially when you aren't continually exposed to the language, learning becomes difficult. Right now I have been doing this program thing i bought online called, living language. It has basic chinese, inermediate and advanced books. It also include audio tracks that follow the lessons of the books. I think it is pretty good so far and it helps to actually hear the language you want to learn. But it also takes a lot of discipline to practice everyday.
Hi Joseph, I could really relate to your story growing up because my parents were born and raised in Vietnam. When they came to the U.S. and had me, I grew in the Vietnamese speaking household with minimum English language exposure. Nonetheless, I still talk to my parents and family in Vietnamese. It's great that you know Vietnamese and Chinese! Would you ever consider becoming a bilingual teacher? When you mentioned that words of "and, but, or, etc" there is no translation of that into the language, that is true and that would be quite difficult to do so. Like Gass and Selinker mentioned "more important... it involves learning to express communicative needs" (Gass & Selinker, 2008, pg. 3). It is important that learning and communication goes hand in hand to all students. Thank you for sharing, and good luck of your last semester!
ReplyDeleteHey Katherine!
DeleteI have thought about becoming a bilingual teacher at one point, but I don't think I am quite confident to actually teach in another language. I mean, I have taught some of my students in Vietnamese because he was really struggling to understand the lesson, but even then I could barely explain properly. I do hope to get a lot better at the languages I am learning.