blog # 3

The Norton article basically explained how the individual learning the second language, their social identity, and the experiences they encounter effect their second language acquisition. Early in the article, Norton mentions Krashen’s idea of a low affective filter (3). In my Bilingual education classes that I have taken, we have talked a lot about how having a classroom atmosphere that provides a low affective filter is really helpful and important for a student acquiring a second language. With the idea of a low affective filter, you want the students to feel comfortable enough to participate and practice reading, writing, and speaking the new language yet not feel pressured or embarrassed to do so in the classroom. A few different ways, as a teacher, that you can provide this type of atmosphere is to allow students to work in peer groups, by allowing them time to think about a response to a question rather than just put them on the spot or to allow them to use their native language in the classroom. All of these strategies help build the self-confidence of the student which is really important when they are learning a new language. The example given in the article about social interactions between Gail and Eva, in my opinion, showed how a language learner will respond when there is a high affective filter (6). The way that Gail talked down to Eva, since she didn’t know who Bart Simpson was, made Eva feel uncomfortable and inferior and in return made it really hard for her to respond to Gail and practice speaking in her new language in this social interaction. This could have been a great opportunity for Eva to practice speaking, but Gail made her feel “strange” and so she was not motivated to say anything back.  I know that when I first started to learn Spanish I would feel very nervous and uncomfortable to speak it because I wasn’t confident in my new language. Now I don’t feel uncomfortable like I used to when I speak it, however in certain situations I do feel more intimidated to speak it. For example, I feel like I am in a high affective filter when I am speaking to a native Spanish speaker because they have more experience with the language. I also found it interesting when the article talked about how your social identity is always changing (11). This reminded me of the non-essentialist idea of culture and how it is constantly changing through our lifetime. In a lot of ways, your social identity is part of your own personal culture. I also found it really interesting when the article talked about investment and motivation when it came to practicing and speaking the new language (12). Eva’s motivation for learning the English was different from Felicia’s motivation and therefore they were most comfortable speaking English in different conditions. As a future teacher, it’s important to realize that your students are all coming from different home situations and have different motivations for coming to school and learning a new language. One sort of random thought that I did have was about something that was mentioned about Felicia. She said she didn’t feel comfortable speaking English in front of native-English speakers because she didn’t want to be labeled as an immigrant. I find that saddening, but it also made me think back to social identity. Felicia didn’t want her identity from the social world to be “an immigrant” so she chose not to speaking certain situations. This just shows how important social identity can be for a language learner.