Language Acquisition Autobiography !

Language Acquisition Autobiography

ENGL 420

Los Angeles Pacific University

Alyssa Elias
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Growing up, I had the privilege of having a nanny that helped to take care of me from

when I was about 3 months old. Both of my parents needed to return to work, so they ended up

hiring a nanny to help take care of me and my two sisters. My nanny’s name was Elena and she

was hispanic and spoke broken english. When she was taking care of us, she often spoke Spanish

to us. My mom has told me multiple times that technically my first language was Spanish

because of this. Now I do not remember exactly what my first words were to be specific but I do

remember Elena referring to items in both English and Spanish, so words like water were also

referred to as agua.

Now although Elena did take care of us for large portions of the day, when my parents

came home they took over caring for us. When my parents were taking care of us they only

spoke English to us. I honestly do not have a ton of memory from when I was little, but I am

lucky enough to have plenty of home videos of me and my sisters from when we were little. I

have seen these videos multiple times with my family, and one thing we noticed is that my

mother often spoke to us in what the book refers to as caregiver speech. She often used small

phrases and simple words in order for us to try to understand her better. On the other hand, my

dad almost always spoke to us in complete sentences. My sisters and I always thought this was

kind of funny because we were so young and he was speaking to us like we were young adults. I

thought that was really interesting, but at the same time I think that because he spoke to us in

complete sentences, we were in turn forced to try to understand him.

My sisters and I are all very smart girls and I honestly think that is because of the way

that my parents raised us. They always tried to get us to read and write as soon as we were able

to. I even remember during the summers, my parents trying to get us to do extra writing and
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reading. Once I finally was old enough to go to school, my grandparents helped take care of me

during the day when my parents were at work. My grandma was an elementary school teacher,

so whenever we had free time, she would encourage us to do something that involved academics.

Now knowing what I do about how children learn language, it makes sense that my

sisters and I were very accelerated compared to our peers. We had so much support from our

parents and grandparents about how to properly learn English. My grandma was always

correcting our grammar and making sure that we knew the proper way to phrase sentences.

Because she was a teacher, she always made sure that we were using proper semantics and

syntax when we were speaking. I can remember getting a little bit irritated with her when she

would correct me, but now I know why.

Looking back at my early stages of learning English, it makes a lot of sense why I was so

accelerated in my reading levels and writing. My parents and caregivers were always talking to

me and interacting with me using both acquisition and learning. “The term acquisition describes

the gradual development over time of ability in a language by using it naturally in

communicative situations with others who know the language. Acquisition normally takes place

without a teacher and without much attention to the details of what is being acquired. The term

learning, however, applies to a more conscious process of accumulating knowledge through

analysis of features of a language, such as vocabulary and grammar, typically in an institutional

setting, with teachers.”(Yule 2016) Both of these were used with me because I had both my

parents helping me with acquisition and my grandma who was a teacher helping me with

learning more formally. I think that this gave me and my sisters tons of confidence in the

classroom setting, because we felt prepared when we entered.

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Being able to learn from my grandma helped me to feel super confident in my scholastic

abilities. It was soon after I began junior high that I realized that I wanted to become a teacher

one day, just like my grandma. Although my grandma was an elementary school teacher and I

want to be a high school teacher, her passion for kids helped to also fuel my passion. I think that

all the positive experiences I have had with teachers have helped me to decide that I wanted to be

a teacher just like them. My hopes are to become a teacher that is involved with her class and

shows empathy and understanding with her students. I feel that every single teacher that I had

good experiences with, helped me to feel more motivated and invested in the material.

Children who are exposed to language development at a young age can feel more

confident when they enter a classroom environment. “Children may enter school with poor skills

in listening, speaking and/or phonological processing. Children with poor listening and speaking

skills are referred to as having a language impairment (LI) or developmental language disorder

(DLD): current estimates are that about 10% of children entering schools in the U.S. and Canada

have LI.”(Duff 2018) When children do not have their parents helping them with language

acquisition, it can cause difficulties later in their school years. “The basis of the relationship

between early spoken language and later reading development is thought to be causal in nature,

such that spoken language skills, especially phonological awareness and listening

comprehension, are fundamental precursors to later successful reading. Children with limitations

in phonological processing are at risk for early decoding problems, which can then lead to

problems of reading comprehension. “(Duff 2018)

Language is something that we often take for granted and do not take the time to

understand just how greatly it can affect our lives. Making sure to incorporate early language
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acquisition in a babies life can help them to become more successful in their future academic

life.



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References

Duff, D. (n.d.). Literacy as an outcome of language development and its impact on children's
psychosocial and emotional development. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood
Development. Retrieved July 18, 2022, from https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/
language-development-and-literacy/according-experts/literacy-outcome-language-
development-and-its

Yule, G. (2016). The Study of Language (6th Edition). Cambridge University Press. https://

online.vitalsource.com/books/9781316776124