I find I am delighted to be unexpectedly studying Linguistics as a field. I have always held a fascination with language, and especially word etymology, so an eleventh-hour change to a TESOL major for my Master of Education program introduces new challenges and great rewards. I have printed the readings and skimmed through them to gauge the nature of the content, and frankly I’m intimidated by the volume and scope.
Based on a surface scan I can identify that the content compares first language acquisition (FLA) and second language acquisition (SLA) which is novel to me – I have always assumed the learning of a ‘new’ language to be the same process as learning a ‘birth’ language. Incidentally I have struggled to learn new languages – and so this concept offers a degree of hope for teaching and for my own language learning.
The first module includes a crash-course in the specific vocabulary of linguistics and also looks at the recent historical markers in the field, the various competing theories and personalities. I'm not sure how much will be of later use, or remembered, but it's an interesting journey to date.
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