6/21/2019 Language Learning Autobiography - Haiying liao

Language Learning Autobiography

I believe everyone has experienced how a language is learned. For me, I have learned Chinese (Mandarin,
Cantonese, and Hakka), English, and Korean. I can speak Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hakka) very fluently,
and I speak English well enough to cope with any everyday situations. However, Korean is a language that I am still
learning, and able to speak some sentences.

My Language Background

I was born and raised in a little village in Guangdong, China, where most of the people speak Hakka and Cantonese.
My father and mother’s first language is Hakka but they are also able to speak Cantonese. Both of them can also
speak Mandarin, though with accents. However, my mother tongue is Hakka, which is the main language that we use
in our family. The Hakka dialect that I speak is the Guangdong Hakka dialect. I am also capable of speaking
Cantonese is all because of my grandparents (mother’s parents), as Cantonese is their mother language. They are
much more fluent in Cantonese than in Hakka. I have plenty of opportunities to speak and practice my Cantonese
when I see my grandparents. For my language acquisition in Hakka and Cantonese just similar to natural language
acquisition in bilingual children, and I learned these languages in a natural linguistic environment
through imitation from parents and family members, which is what we called behaviorism, according to B.F Skinner.
Beside from these two languages that I can speak fluently, I am also able to speak and write in Mandarin. I learned
how to speak and write in Mandarin when I first started to go to school, because every school in China requires
teachers to teach in Mandarin, and students to communicate in Mandarin.

I had my second language, English, first learning experience when I was seven years old. Because my parents paid
a lot of attention to my early education, they hired a private tutor for me to learn English on the weekends. Three
years later when I was in fourth grade, our elementary school offered the English classes, and I begun to reject
having tutor in weekend. I still remembered that my English teacher in my elementary school spent a lot time to
teach us the pronunciation of 26 character, and some simple words and sentences, such as “Hello! How are you? I
am fine. Thank you!” When I entered middle school I learn English because there is a reason, just like Ryuko
Kubota, an assistant professor of foreign language education in University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had
mention in her experiences of learning English as a second language on the Reflections On Multiliterate Lives book
that “I was interested in popular songs in English and was eager to learn the subject.” (Belcher, 2001, p.103)

In my high school, I learned a lot of English knowledge that I never had before, because my whole family moved to
Hawaii when I was thirteen years old. Because this is the period of time that I have to speak English everywhere,
and that is the only way that I can communicate with other people beside my family. Finally in college, I decide to
major in Second Language Studies and minor in Chinese as well as study Korean at the same time. Because I am
really interested in Korean culture, and I believe the most basic way to know more about Korean culture and history
is to study its language. I have learned Korean for a year so far. I can introduce myself briefly in Korean, say basic
words and sentences.

Language Acquisition

From these languages that I have learned, I found out the best way to learn a language form my experiences or
myself is through reading and communicate with native speaker in target language. Reading is so important to
language development, and affects all areas of language acquisition. I believe if a person is a good reader, they will
also be a good writer and good speaker. In my experience, as a new student first entered high school being place in
English as a second language (ESL) learning program, and I started to learn English through listen, writing,
speaking, and reading. For myself, I found that reading really helpful and useful way to learn English. The more I
read, the better comprehension and more information I will get. For instance, I know a lot Americans’ culture by
reading extensively in my ESL class; teacher allowed student choose books, magazine or newspaper that they like
or interested to read in the first 15 - 20 minute of the class. Another effective approach to learn a language is to
communicate with native speaker, it can help us improves our listening skill, pronunciation, increases your
vocabulary and modes of expression.

Education and Language

As an ESL teacher in the future, I believe one of the main components of being an effective language teacher is to
give students a motivating learning environment. I think motivation is a very important key in either teaching or

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6/21/2019 Language Learning Autobiography - Haiying liao

learning. In order to motivate students toward language learning, a teacher’s showing interest about what he/she is
teaching is an important factor in student’s motivation. If you are bored and apathetic, I believe students will be too.
For example, making the material relevant to their lives, and not just based on form. Also, it is important to believe
that students can succeed, and to show them that you believe in him or her and give them support that they should
trust themselves and can do well. If you believe it, students will realize it and will work harder. It is also an important
job for teacher to create an environment in which they feel safe and welcome to express their own opinions and their
own ideas.

Another component of being a successful ESL teacher is to help students to achieve communicative competence by
giving them confident. Because being students in an ESL class, their ultimate goals are learn how to successfully
use and communicate in the target language that they are learning. Although it is important for student to learn
grammar and target language, but if students are not able to communicate and interact with other by what they have
learned that will be a big problem too. Therefore, as a teacher, we need to teach student how to be confident while
we are communicating with other in their target language. I think the only way to help ESL students to be confident in
their communication in class is by doing more specking activity or an activity that needs student to communicator
with others a lot, such as share their own culture with the classes by doing a poster project in a group.

Conclusions

Overall, I have tried to explore my own language acquisition process, and also give my own view on my belief
of how second language should be learn and teach from my personal experiences: to achieve a second language
successfully I think that reading and communicate with native speaker in target language are the most effective way
to learn second language, as well as second language teacher should provide having a motivating learning
environment and help students to achieve communicative competence by giving them confident are very important
too.

Reference:
Belcher, Diane Dewhurst Connor. (2011). Reflections On Multiliterate Lives. Retrieved from
http://site.ebrary.com.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/lib/uhmanoa/docDetail.action?docID=10016707

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