Valerie's English Blog

This semester was full of lots of learning!   

    American sign language (ASL) is made up of movements of the hands and facial expressions to be able to communicate. ASL was originally LSF (Langue des Signes Francaise), which means that it originated in France, and as people came to America so did the language. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet brought over this language and opened up a school for the deaf in 1817.  Is it ASL Different?  ASL Alphabet     Just as English and any other language have different rules, ASL has its own set of rules with grammar, pronunciation, and word order. The word order that ASL uses is time+subject+verb+object. This means that they pronounce when they go somewhere first and then continue the sentence. An example is "Last year me went Ireland." Another rule that they have is they keep their words in base form. They don't have prefixes or suffixes or use past tense. They can understand each other because of their word order. Fingerspelling is also an essential part of ASL. As you ...

      When starting a new school semester, you must look for the room number to ensure you are in the right room. While looking at your classroom number, have you ever seen little dots under it? If you pay close attention those dots are under most of the labels at school. These little dots are called braille. Braille is a system that was created for the blind to be able to read. The person who created this system was blind and his name was Louis Braille.      Braille is read using your fingertips. The people glide their fingers from left to right, just as how we read our sentences. Braille comprises a small number sequence that makes a little rectangle. Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are under one row, and numbers 4, 5, and 6 are under the second row. This braille form is called grade 1 as it only shows the alphabet and numbers and the second form of braille is called grade 2. In grade 2 they have abbreviations that are commonly used in English.     ...

    As we go on with our lives, we never stop and think to ourselves, "How am I able to understand this story?" or "How can I understand what the author was feeling?" because as we are reading we are comprehending what the author is trying to say to us without realizing it. This skill that we have is called linguistic intelligence . This means that we can understand what we read or hear and we can tell others what we feel or think through speech or written words.  This skill is one of eight multiple intelligences that were created by Howard Gardner.  Verbal Intelligence Quotient      As a young child, you are read stories and are commonly asked "How do you think the character felt?" as a way of seeing if you understood what was going on in the story. When at school, between the ages 6-16, you are tested with a test called Verbal Intelligence Quotient (Verbal IQ). This test determines how well your child can comprehend and express language , it i...

      Phonetics is the study of the way we use different muscles in our mouth to make sounds, syllables, and words and how we can hear these sounds as words. Three categories under phonetics are: articulatory and   acoustic . These two are different aspects that come together as one to produce words.  Articulatory phonetics is the description of what our vocal organs do to be able to create sound. There are a lot of muscles and organs that we use within our body to create sound. Some of these are lungs, respiratory system, bilabial, labiodental, alveolar, palatal, etc. Vowels are known to not use any of the major constrictions in the vocal tract compared to consonants.   Acoustic phonetics is the study of the sound waves and vibrations throughout speaking. Some of the things that are measured are the frequency (pitch) and amplitude ( intensity) of the voice. The way these two things are measured is by sine waves and complex waves. Sine waves can...

     Many people struggle with pronouncing words at a young age or as adults due to speech impediments. This means that their mouth , jaw , tongue , and vocal tracts aren't able to produce words we can understand. There are different types of speech impediments that children have, some of them are stuttering, articulation errors, tongue tie, and dysarthria.  Different Types      Stuttering is one of the main types of speech impediment. This happens when you are speaking and your muscles start twitching uncontrollably. Some of the symptoms that you will notice will be repeating sounds or syllables. You can hear when they start stuttering typically at the beginning of a word. Some kids will start holding out certain syllables because they can't pronounce them correctly. People will begin repeating the single-word syllables as they try to prove a point. Some causes of stuttering are family history, genetics, or how your brain is structured.    ...

     Language acquisition is the way a person can understand, learn, and comprehend a language. There are two types of acquisitions: first-language and second-language. First language acquisition is when a child is learning their native language because of sounds around them. Second language acquisition is learning the elements of a new language while already having a native tongue. In this blog post, I will be explaining the six steps a second language acquisition goes through.       The first stage is "the silent period." This is when a child is surrounded by people speaking another language they don't know or understand yet and they just don't talk. These kids won't talk for a couple of weeks till they start getting a little familiar with the language. The second step will be early production . This starts when the student gets familiar with basic words or sentences. The child won't talk unless they are directly spoken to or they need to ask a ques...

When knowing two languages we never stop and think about what is going on in our brains as we hear other people talk the languages we know and how sometimes we switch languages as we are having a conversation. Knowing two languages means that you are considered bilingual and your brain looks and works differently than monolingual people.  There are three types of ways people learn languages. The first way is called compound bilingual; you are considered a child learning two languages at the same time. Coordinate bilingual, the second way is when you are learning a new language at school but still speaking your native language at home with friends and family. Subordinate bilingual is the last way of learning a second language which means you learn by using your native language. When you learn a language as a child you can grasp the social and emotional context better. As an adult, you don't get the same benefits.  Now that I know the different types of bilingual learning, I con...