Language Acquisition Autobiography

Language Acquisition Autobiography
Tiffani Knox
Los Angeles Pacific University
ENGL 420 Principle of Language
Lesley Gonzalez
March 22, 2021

Language acquisition and development is an essential part of each of our lives and
learning. Growing up my parents used multiple ways of making sure my language development
was there and growing. They made this a priority to both my siblings and myself, but for myself,
I had some setbacks no matter how much they tried to help me. I have worked hard to try to
overcome those obstacles in order to further my career in the educational field. Seeing kids
around me and in my career benefit from their parents taking those extra fifteen minutes to read
to them, has shown just how important early language exposure is.
Growing up from as far back as I can remember, my parents made it a priority to
constantly ask us questions that we had to respond to, would read us books, and play learning
games with us. My mom was an elementary school teacher, which meant for us that in our
everyday agenda, we either had to have a book read to us or when we got older we had to read it
ourselves. I remember thinking to myself and even stating it to my brother, “This is dumb. Why
can we not just go play outside?” It never meant anything to me until my nephew was born and I
was helping raise him with my sister. Even then I did not fully understand why it was such a big
deal, until I started working with elementary children. You can always tell which parents took
their extra time to even just read a few books a week to their kids and talk to them. My parents
spent countless amounts of hours reading to us, singing to us, and letting us play little alphabet
card games, and now I can see why.
When I was in middle school and high school, my mom still made us read everyday. I
would still get so upset when she would make us read, but not because I did not want to, it was
because it was hard for me. I have always done fairly well in school. A’s and B’s through
everything and very very rare would I get a C, but when I did, it was usually in my English
classes. My mom would hound me and hound me and tell me I was not doing my reading and
that is why I was getting a C, but really it was because my comprehension level was low. I had
finally told my mom that I do not understand a lot of the things they were saying in the books.
My mom had contacted my teacher and talked to her about my level. They both agreed to lower
my A.R. level on my books and work one on one with me to help get it higher. I took a huge
advantage from this once my comprehension level went up, but it took a few years. I went from
hating anything to do with my EEnglish classes, to loving them once I got into college. Although
comprehending some things is still a little hard, for the most part, I have improved tremendously.
Not only did this make me feel better about myself, but it also made me want to become a
teacher. I worked and still do work hard in trying to improve my skills to be able to help younger
kids who are struggling just like I did. About five years ago when I turned eighteen, I started
working with kids in comprehension and reading. I see how frustrated some of them get from not
being able to understand some of the things in our books or our questions. This is what keeps
pushing me everyday to continue helping them. Whether or not their parents took the time to talk
to them and read to them, there are still those like myself, who struggle.
Early language exposure is something that may be able to help make us, or can break us.
Janet Castrejón states in Why early exposure to language is so important, “Most experts agree
that there is a window of opportunity when the brain is most efficient at learning languages.”
Many researchers and books have stated that kids younger than seven years of age have a higher
advantage of learning languages. Castrejón also stated, “Everyone knows that children learn
languages much more quickly and efficiently than we adults do. Mere exposure is enough for a
child to soak up a new language while we adults struggle in language classes trying to apply
grammar rules as if they were algebra formulas.” This can apply to learning our first language
and our second language. It is much easier to teach them younger rather than older. I personally
believe that if you read to them often and play fun reading games with them, they will grow up to
enjoy reading and ELA. For example, when we were all helping raise my nephew, we read to
him several times a time. One time just for fun and another time when we were putting him to
bed. He is now thirteen years old and absolutely loves to read and has always had the highest
grade in his English classes. This has shown us that he has strong feelings in his language
acquisition because of what we all did. Unlike him, I myself had a very hard feeling for reading
because of my delay in comprehension. Once I was able to get past that, I learned to love the
field of language and how much you can add to it.
Although some will say that talking to the baby in the womb and reading those books to
them does not help them in the future, I am a strong believer that it does help them and can also
make their lives a bit easier in the long run. My parents made sure we were always doing
something educational but would also try to make it fun for us kids, which I believe is key to a
proper learning environment. I have pushed hard to overcome my setbacks so I am able to pursue
the career that I want to be in, which is education. Not everyone will have a smooth road like
myself, but it takes those certain teachers or adults in your life to help push you. I feel happiness
from being able to help kids who are like myself or those kids whose parents did not take that
extra time to help them.

References
Advice and resources for language learning in children. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.childrenlearninglanguages.com/Bilingualism_and_Multilingualism/Early_exposure.h
tml
Yule, G. (2017). The study of language (6th ed.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.

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Language Acquisition Autobiography

Los Angeles Pacific University

ENGL 420 Principle of Language

March 22, 2021

Growing up from as far back as I can remember, my parents made it a priority to

card games, and now I can see why.

field of language and how much you can add to it.

extra time to help them.

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