Reflective Portfolio

Reflectivemagazine Orbital learning

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By Laura González, Karoll Linares and Carolina Vásquez

Acquiring a second language is not an easy task when we are adults, as it is in our case, because it is a process that requires determination and discipline. Therefore, to develop a second language, a whole process of a natural and unconscious nature is needed, in the case of children, and full of daily effort to consolidate development. However, how do we really learn an L2? Learning does not ensure acquisition and that is why, when learning a new language, we turn the unconscious into something conscious and take learning to the background to enhance our language skills. The attitude and effor

What’s our L2 learning path?

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How do we translanguage?

When we want to speak another language, we turn to our mother tongue to find out what we could say, think of multiple possibilities when giving instruction, and strive to find similarities in a new language and make it even easier. If we take this into account, translanguaging is present even if we are not capable of conceiving it and, when we are aware of its use, we make it a key learning tool.

Translanguage is the way in which a bilingual or multilingual people can manage two or more languages at the same time to reproduce the discursive practices that involve this community. Translanguage presents when we use a language to learn another language in order that two languages can be taught at the same time. If we think about this concept, it is something that we constantly use and deal with throughout our lives.

Examples of translanguage with our experience:

On the other hand, as teachers, we see the importance that students have so that they first write a specific piece of writing, in their first language, and thus, when they are corrected, they can make drafts in the second language to be learned, in our case, it is English. However, this example is usual for any language that you do not have a great command of. Finally, we have lived the experience that in the first semesters, we did work in groups or in pairs, but to perform them quickly, we chose to speak in our first language to divide the topics and instructions for a presentation that was in English. It is so, as it serves as beginners, but we should not always depend on Translanguage.

We support the language with which we are learning through a rapid translation to our native language. Thus, as many times, we take classes in English and, at the same time, we take a rain of ideas into Spanish. So as not to forget an important instruction. In addition, we remember that when we were learning at school, they taught us the translations in Spanish and/or we looked them up in the dictionary. So that we have the most optimal function of the word to learn. Later, at the university, we made some glossaries at different levels of English of words that were very common, and we should have always known in college.

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