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Merissa Leonard ELL Student Interview

September 30, 2015


One thing that I found interesting when I was finished with the interview

with Faras is that he said he actually enjoyed learning English. When he said this I

found it interesting because English is a very hard language to learn. He really

enjoys listening to peoples conversation and he explained that he likes that because

it puts him directly into the culture. It makes it easier to learn the slang terms rather

than just lectured about them in his classes. One way I connected this interesting

finding back to the readings we have had in class is that we have read that being

immersed in the culture is a great way to help understand a second language that

you are learning (Wright 2015, p. 56). This is an example of emergent bilingualism.

This is exactly what Faras was explaining to us in the interview.

Also another interesting finding is that the grammar that people use in

America throws him off a lot of the time. This makes sense because as I was

interviewing and just having good conversation with Faras I realized he was having

a hard time understanding exactly what I meant or what I was actually saying. Even

though we live in America and English is our first language we still do not use the

correct grammar. I can see how this can be difficult for ELL students because they

learn the correct way to speak whereas a lot of the time here in America we use

some sort of slang that changes frequently. Discussing grammar and how Americans

speak relates back to the chapter 2 when the book discusses register. Register is

used by linguists to refer to variations in language, including choice of words and

grammar that reflect the social setting in which it is used (Wright 2015, p. 37).
Merissa Leonard ELL Student Interview
September 30, 2015
I still believe that language is learned from being surrounded by the culture

but also through scaffolding and using content-based instruction (Wright 2015, p.

55-62). Overall, I believe that in order to be successful at learning a second language

you must have multiple different ways of learning the language. Whether you have

to be completely emerged into the language by just living in that culture or if you

need someones help to achieve a goal. Also although content-based instruction can

be boring at times I really do believe that it helps when you have instruction on

what to do and how to do it. As you can see the interview went very well and I

strongly feel that it did help me to understand more about ELL students and their

feeling about learning English and about what makes it hard or fun to learn a second

language.
Merissa Leonard ELL Student Interview
September 30, 2015
Works Cited

Wayne, W. (2015). Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners (2nd ed.).
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Caslon Publishing.

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