LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1

Language Acquisition Autobiography

Daniel A. Garcia

English 420 Principles of Language

Professor Gonzalez

November 10, 2019

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Reflecting back on my path to language acquisition I would have to go back to learning

most of what I know from my parents. As far as I can remember my mom was an avid reader and

that was something, she did with me the most. Not having a lot of money growing up we would

go to the local library spend time reading. At home there we only spoke English even though my

older siblings all spoke Spanish and English. There was is a fifteen-year difference from my

older sibling and myself, so that is a good question as to why I didn’t learn Spanish as a child?

Now knowing that is it easier to learn two languages as a child than after the puberty years I

want to instill that in my children, knowing two languages benefits anyone in the long run. Back

to me, another task that I was given as a child was word searches, my grandmother would have

me do them and practice saying the word as I found them. In school at an early age I would

imitate the teacher or the kids that seem to get what was being taught. I got through reading

music this same way but that really didn’t last very long. What helped me the most was being

able to have more adults talking to me as a child rather that at me. I say this because I had a lot of

interaction with my parents. They also owned a business that employed close to 25 people so

after school and most of the summers I would be there talking up a storm. Thinking back on it

most of my vocabulary would come along greater after summers spent at my parent’s business.

Being around human interaction and not stuck in front of the television what helped me the most,

an example is in the video that we watched in this week’s lesson describing that we most human

interaction help with babies learning language as oppose to those learning from other means. The

Study of Language states, “under normal circumstances, human infants are certainly helped in

their language acquisition by the typical behavior of older children and the adults in the home

environment who provide language samples, or input” (Yule, 2017). I do think that the best
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practice is to have conversation and model language, whether it is going to be one language or

have the child become bilingual.

Currently as a parent of four children, in my house there is constant conversation going

on. From my memories of growing up and acquiring language as oppose to how my kids

acquired their language, I would say that my feeling are the same as my parents had for me. My

two boys I read to more because they were the first and Nathaniel had a stroke as a baby so we

were told the more therapy and talking we do will help in the long run. My two younger

daughters had the boys modeling for them as the same for my wife and me. They took off

running talking at an early age, my parents would tell me “oh girls develop faster than boys”. I

now know that it’s because of the family dynamics we have the boys has two people helping

them and the girls have four older people inputting what language would be for them. I guess this

is why they say be careful of what you say around toddlers because now I know that they are

paying attention to everything you are saying. Being a future teacher will allow me to mentor

students and also see if the student will need help in their development in the English language.

Educating parents in this will also help the student because more practice will be done at home

rather than the six hours or so that I would have them during the day. Students that come from

another country is also a big part of the school districts around me and knowing that there needs

to be the extra human element in helping them acquire the new language to this really makes me

think that the way my parents helped me whether they knew what they were doing or not had

stuck with me and had helped me with my children but made me want help others. My English

teacher in sixth grade, Ms. Langston taught me that repetition is going to help us in a lot of

things in life but most of all help us in learning how to speak to people and communicate our
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wants and needs in life. Constantly hearing words and going over the ones that we don’t know is

something that I would want to teach my future students.

I do think that when I child is able to acquire language at an earlier age, the child is going

to grow up more confident depending on other factors that are associated with the child’s

development. Early child language acquisition is starting to become a movement here in Los

Angeles there is the First 5 organization that promotes early reading and literacy that actually

should start at childbirth by reading, singing and modeling for the child. I do also believe that it

promotes children’s social and emotional skills for later on in life to be more confident in the

actions that are taking on in school, building friendships with peers. The National Research

Council in 1999, explains that in book and stories they are a source for teaching morals and

values. Stories are the framework for building important social-emotional concepts relating to

empathy and relationships (santos, Fettig, & Shaffer, 2012). If Children can learn to read at

earlier age, they will learn the basics of being a human being not only from their parents but

through the books and stories. This will in time give to be better for society as a whole. I can

only hope to be able to one day be a teacher that can mold children into excellent readers and

also for my children at home.

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References
santos, R. M., Fettig, A., & Shaffer, L. (2012). The link between literacy and social-emotional

skills. In Helping Families Connect Early Literacy with Social-Emotional Development

(p. 89). The National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Yule, G. (2017). Input. In The study of Language (p. 191). Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.