span 345: Bilingualism in the Spanish WORLD
This course will first explore the nature of bilingualism focusing on its neurolinguistic psycholinguistic and linguistic aspects. Students will examine the most important concepts and research questions in these areas. In addition the class will focus on bilingualism in the United States and the Spanish-speaking world including the examination of bilingual education programs (e.g. immersion programs) and important political matters connected to them. (Obtained from the CSUMB course catalog).
course Narrative
This was one of the last classes I took at CSUMB as a Spanish major. I was really grateful for taking this class because I was able to better understand how the brain works with language acquisition. I learned that there is no language that is better than the other, and that every person is going to have a different way of speaking a language. I also learned that it is possible for a person to have more than just one mother tongue. If a child has two parents that speak two different languages and each parents talk to their child in their own language, the child grows up as having two mother tongues. This was phenomenal to me because I would like for my own children to have two first languages and I learned it is possible with this course. I was amazed at how the brain functions and learns languages and grasps on to the specific sounds of a language. This course taught me the importance of being bilingual and the advantages that a person can have knowing two or more languages. I also always wanted to have both,my Spanish and my English language, at the same level of proficiency, but with this class I learned that there will never be and equal understanding and learning of two languages. Dr. Oliva really helped me understand the way the brain functions and explain why a baby acts in such a way when learning a language. I also learned to identify these stages of learning and expand my linguistics knowledge. Furthermore, this class also helped me and gave me tips on how to teach a certain language and how not to teach it. Teaching a language is not as easy as it may seem and it has to be taught in such a way that it is fun to learn and easy or else a student wont really learn the material. This course helped me to have a lot of things in mind as I pursue on my teaching career.
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