Entry 1: Reflection

As you saw in my video, I grew up as a monolingual in Texas. Although my father speaks Hindi, my brother and I do not. I actually don’t remember ever hearing my father speak Hindi until I was in my teens. One day I overheard him speaking to someone on the phone and it took me by surprise. It’s interesting to me that, according to Ortega, I am part of the minority that grows up only speaking one language (Ortega, 2013). I think that it would have been nice to grow up speaking my father’s native tongue in addition to learning other languages. Although I did take Spanish courses in high school I do not how to speak Spanish fluently. I think the language is beautiful and there are certain words that I can understand when spoken and piece together sentences, but as far as speaking the language goes, my capabilities there are far below average. It is a dream of mine to travel the world and maybe even teach English in another country where I can also learn the language of the people who live there.  I think that it is important to be well-rounded and delve into the cultures of others in order to understand and communicate effectively with them. I hope to learn about more about second language acquisition, and all of the factors that affect ELL's capability to learn another language. 

Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.