Reflective Blog

 ESL: My learning and Teaching experiences   June 2, 2023 Here is my experience learning English as a second language. I went to a French Elementary school and high school. Until the age of 13-14, I was not exposed to the English language or barely. I sometimes heard it on the radio, I heard it when traveling, and at school maybe once or twice a week during the ESL classes. On top of that, I was quite reserved as a child and I was too shy to practice the language out loud. I had no willingness to communicate (WTC), and I was very anxious and insecure about making mistakes when practicing(Lightbown & Spada). I do not think my teachers were bad, I just think my identity and motivation blocked me from learning. The only motivation I had was to pass my classes. I was giving minimal effort with the purpose of attaining immediate goals. I had the integrative motivation to simply pass the class(Gardner & Lambert, 1972). However, it's been shown that identities are dynamic(Toohey,