Entry 3

For this blog post, I interviewed Mrs. Carolina Brown. She is a bilingual teacher who grew up in the town of Seguin, Texas. Mrs. Brown learned to speak her second language of Spanish as a young child, but always felt that she was more proficient in her first language of English since it was the dominant language that was spoken at home. During our interview, I asked questions in regard to the methods she would use to help her students in the adaptation process, her views about bilingualism, and the advantages she feels students with bilingual backgrounds could attain. In the school district she used to work for, Mrs. Brown was fortunate enough to be able to pull kids from non core classes like specials and P.E, this allowed her to work with kids one on one to help them reach a high proficiently level in the English language. Ortega states that in the linguistic environment, particularly in naturalistic settings, but also in today's communicative classrooms, comes to learners in the midst of oral interaction with one or more interlocutors, rather than as exposure to monologic spoken or written discourse (Ortega, 2013, p.60). This explains that the most important influence in regards to language learning will take place in the classroom and teachers like Mrs. Brown will account for being the mediators that allow this kind of learning to take place. Ortega also states, "learners who begin acquiring the L2 before a certain age . . . tend to exhibit intuitions that are very close to those native speakers of that language" (Ortega, 2013, p.19). This defends the point of students being able to become fully proficient in a language when given the right resources, guidance, and environment in which they are able to excel in. The following interview will depict Mrs. Brown's experiences with bilingual teachings: https://youtu.be/0ls6qm8GI1M