Essay Example on Developing Language & Literacy: My Journey

Introduction

Learning a new language can be quite tricky for second language learners. Every language has its different structure and rules involved. These unique skills may be connected to the native speakers' culture, making it difficult for a second language learner to relate. In developing proficiency in a new language, a student is faced with the challenges to connect the new sounds with different writing systems that they are unfamiliar with.

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The Language Literacy I Have Developed

I developed a reading literacy in French. This language is quite different from English. Reading French requires one to acquire the right pronunciation and sometimes to develop an accent. I had to learn to use the back of the throat to produce nasal sounds 'r,' which is so prevalent in the language. Some letters that appear in the spellings of written words are mostly unpronounced when reading.

My Journey to Proficiency

Because of the differences in language patterns and rules between English and French, I had to develop new ways to learn the language much more quickly. Language proficiency comes mostly through interaction between speakers of the language. I needed to understand the difference in spellings and pronunciation of words. To keep this in context, my class formed a discussion group where we read and discussed different French words. Most of the members of this group were French speakers, and so they made it quite easier to learn pronunciation and accent when reading the words. Although sometimes, I would check the French dictionary to confirm that it was correct.

I have a great love for stories and fairy tales. I cooperated with my interests in reading storybooks with learning the language. My passion for reading stories made me find bilingual fairy tale books that would guide me. I found several books like 'My Grandma's Tales' series. I read from the French and English to understand the flow of the story then checked for the correct pronunciations of words that I was unfamiliar with from my audio dictionary. This method also increased my curiosity to read more stories in French without translations.

Watching movies is my recreational activity. During my resting period, I made it a habit to watch French films with French subtitles. This initiative enabled me to hear from the movie characters how the words were pronounced as I read out the spellings from the screen. This method proved useful, and after some time, I had grasped several pronunciations from my best characters. To test my learning progress, I adopted watching French movies without any subtitles to gauge myself whether I could be able to understand. I sometimes repeated words after my favorite actors and actresses.

In my online interactions, I made an effort to read out French words to my tutors and friends who were native speakers of French. Those I interacted with gave me feedback and corrections, which encouraged me to be more consistent in my hunt for proficiency. I also started reading short stories to my online friends in French: this made the whole language learning process fun.

Conclusion

Conclusively, finding creative strategies and techniques is the best way to keep the enthusiasm to learn a new language. It is not always easy to achieve anything I had to set goals to keep me going. My consistency in finding creative means to learn through adopting movies translated storybooks and later reading French stories to my online friends proved useful by keeping me motivated. Language learning is a process, and it requires time to prove its worth, and all this effort enabled me to keep the language into context.