Second Language Acquisition Theory
Struggles
My father is a known businessman, he used to travel to the various countries around the world especially Europe for business purposes. My father has difficulty communicating in English because it is not his first language. He had hired a translator who accompanied him in all his journeys. Unfortunately, the translator passed away, his death devastated my father because they were close companions. The translator had values that made my father happy like kindness, honesty and calmness. My father contemplated on how he could go on his business trips without his translator and companion. It was difficult to find a person who could fill the gap left by the late translator who was trustworthy. My father’s businesses needed confidentiality and trust all the translators he wanted to appoint lacked these qualities. The only option available to solve the problem at hand was for my father to learn other languages to be able to communicate with other people. He was successful in the beginning, but his business activities held him back from further learning.
After two years, my father experienced a heart attack that rendered him immobile and used a lot of his finances in treatment. My father had understood the importance of learning languages like English and knew it would benefit us greatly. He explained that he had suffered greatly because of the inability to speak English (Rahman, 2013). My father encouraged me and supported me though it was difficult learning English because we lived in an Arab State of Saudi Arabia around twenty years ago. In Saudi Arabia there were no pre-schools or kindergarten at that time, which led me to join the Government sponsored Middle, elementary and high school. The elementary schools in Saudi Arabia also had no English classes. Second language acquisition in childhood is much better compared to adulthood because as a child you grow up learning it as a first language. (Krashen, 1981). I began learning English while in middle school this was pretty late compared to when Americans begin learning English.
During my study at the Middle and High school, the classes focused not on speaking or writing but on grammar. In my last year of high school, I began thinking about which major to pursue and realized that my dream is learning the English language more than anything. I thought that by picking English as a major, I would graduate speaking fluent English. However, this was not the case, during the first year learning was difficult and disorienting by the vocabulary used such as phonetics, phonology, prose, among many other concepts which second language users find troublesome (Haq & Smadi 1996). With time my happiness and joy rose once more since I was studying my dream subject, but also at this point, there were no speaking practice sessions. Most of the courses based majorly on writing than speaking. The major hindrance was the absence of people to talk to whom we could talk to improve with practice of speaking English (Rahman, 2013). I knew that I had to device a way to make my English speaking, improve; I engaged in watching movies.
There were some professors who were not considerate and helpful like Professor Sarah Alzahrani. Whenever I had not understood the concept in class or I needed extra clarification about an aspect should talk in a harsh demeaning way. She used to always complain that she was busy at the moment and that I do not pay attention in class. My parents paid for tutors, translation tools among other beneficial things.
Motivations
My father realized that there were obstacles hindering my progress in English speaking. He took it upon himself and told me after my graduation, he and I would move to America so that I pursue my masters in English while there. Encouraging, motivating and supportive statements from close people enable second language acquisition be easy (Ortega, 2010). My father’s words were always at the back of my mind and drove me to study harder than before. My father has supported me through my dream; his motivation helped me acquire English as my second language.
Successes
I graduated and my father kept his promise to move to the United States with him. One of the satisfactions I felt was when we were at the airport waiting for our luggage to catch a connecting flight. I used to think that I could not speak English and be understood because I had not practiced speaking with anyone. Our luggage was lost and my father asked me to go over the customer care desk and make an inquiry since we were to get on another flight. I was tense because I thought the care employee would not understand me, to my shock, I explained myself, he understood and took action. At that moment, I felt proud and the cared for; employee helped us recover our luggage. From that moment, I felt more self-confident and my passion for English was burning brighter than ever before.
My Heading
On arrival in America, I began my master classes made friends with the local people and my fellow students at the university. The constant interaction of the second language user with a first language user can help improve greatly the progress of the second language user (Cook, 2002). Since English is the official language, everyone was speaking it and this made my English speaking, improve drastically since all communication is in English giving me an opportunity to practice my speaking. I take part in all the activities my friends and teachers propose and this has greatly helped me. I am now confident and am learning new phrases each day. Though at times I encounter difficulty because of the accent and slang words, but with time, I will be perfect and speaking like an American.
References
Cook, V. (2002). Background to the L2 user. Portraits of the L2 user, 1, 1-28.
Haq & Smadi, O. (1996). Spread of English and westernization in Saudi Arabia. World Englishes, 15(3), 307-317.
Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford University Press.
Ortega, L. (2010, March). The bilingual turn in SLA. In Plenary delivered at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Atlanta, GA.
Rahman, M. M., & Alhaisoni, E. (2013). Teaching English in Saudi Arabia: prospects and challenges. Academic Research International, 4(1), 112.
