Linguistic Autobiography: A Reflection

I wrote the following linguistic autobiography in the Fall of 2012 as a reflective task for the linguistic seminar “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching” taught by Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl.

 

I am from Málaga, Spain, and my native language is Spanish. I began learning English in primary school and continued through high school. The main focus of the classroom was grammar study with priority given to reading and writing. I was not the best student back then, but English was the subject I enjoyed most. I have an aunt who lives in Massachusetts, and I spent a month with her and her family in the States at age 12. For the next few years I continued to visit them during the summer and while I was able to understand English, I was reticent to actually speak it except when needed. I also took Latin for two years (which I really enjoyed but didn´t truly remember when I had to take my PhD required Latin course two summers ago). I also wanted to take French in high school, but the school decided that my overall grades were not good enough and that I should take an “easier” subject. Regardless, I was eventually required to take French at the end of high school, but everyone in the class had already taken either two or four years of French. I remember struggling through the class and just wanting to pass the exams. After that, the only other foreign language that I have formally studied has been Portuguese.

When it came to choosing a major (which in Spain you do prior to starting university) it was clear to me that I wanted to study English Philology. I realized, much to my and everyone else’s surprise, that I was a very capable student if I studied things that I liked (This also taught me a lot about the negative effects of (self)labeling students as “good” or “bad”, and about different types of learners). After completing my BA and MA in English, I decided that I could continue studying what I loved, but this time in my native language. I find it linguistically curious that I have come to study/teach English in Spain and then study/teach Spanish in the States.

One of the hardest linguistic challenges has been coming to terms with my own native language and accent, as I sometimes encounter dialectal prejudices. One (well-intentioned) professor told me that my native accent was not “professional” and his comment caused me a great deal of self-consciousness. When I first began teaching Spanish, the textbooks often excluded Peninsular Spanish vocabulary and verb forms, and I felt it was unfair for my students that I used, for example, the “vosotros” form (the peninsular Spanish, second person plural pronoun). On the other hand, it did not seem natural to me to use “ustedes” and I was quite inconsistent, confusing both myself and my students. Then, one of my most linguistically enlightened professors helped me realize that my way of speaking was a way of integrating culture in the classroom. Since then, I work to make my students aware of the rich dialectal and cultural varieties that they can encounter in the Hispanic world.

38 thoughts on “Linguistic Autobiography: A Reflection

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    In a linguistic autobiography, one may reflect on various aspects of their language learning journey, such as their early exposure to different languages, their formal language education, and their interactions with different linguistic communities. This reflection may also include discussions of the individual’s attitudes towards different languages and dialects, as well as their perceptions of their own linguistic abilities. Now I am looking for non Gamstop platform online where could I play exciting games in order to earn money through it without paying any tax.

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