Discussion 3 (Week 8)

Discuss your experience of either learning a second language sequentially or simultaneously.

Coming from a rural area in Kelantan (where its dialect is strong), I learned my second language sequentially. I was exposed to the minimum amount of the standard first language(bahasa Melayu) at home through reading materials, television programs as well as occasional conversation with my parents in the particular language.

My second language is English and I learned it at school. Although the exposure was inadequate and insufficient, still, it was the only place where I got to learn my L2. In terms of communication, I had a better chance practicing my first language since the community around me understands that language. However, the dialect is still given a priority. On the other hand, I didn't have the chance to practice it in the early days since there was no one in the community who spoke that particular language.

High school situation was a bit different, at least for my English language learning efforts. Aside from the improved chances of practicing in bahasa Melayu, I finally got the avenue to practice communicating in English. All in, there's been a balanced distribution of opportunities to practice the said languages as I am getting older and gaining more experiences.

In my experience, i went through simultaneous learning, but in a slightly different view. In my case, when i was younger, before starting school, my parents both speak in Malay and in English. So, as a result, i can speak and read in both languages before starting standard 1. When we started school, we learn both bahasa melayu and English as a subject, but the whole instruction was conducted in Bahasa Melayu. English was only spoken in English class, and at home, where my mother would insist that we speak in english. As I grow up, i learn a few other languages, such as arabic, spanish and german. But I have not been able to acquire all those languages as easily as English.

I'm neither Malay, Chinese nor Indian so, learning languages was quite an experience, which is something im SERIOUSLY thankful for. To shine a slant of light, my family consists of the Portuguese, Arabic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese (paternal cousins) and my ancestors (i assume) are Malays in race. this is as far as i can trace my ancestries. there have been mix marriages in our family for generations. this made me a color blind, full grown Malaysian.

Both my parents don't speak each other's languages therefore they converse in Malay. my parents on the other hand converses mainly in English to me when i was young. i developed a fluency in English and a smattering in Malay by the time i was 7. i polished my Malay throughout my primary school years, and it actually became the spoken language of our home for a few years to come.

When i started developing a serious love for color-blindness in this country, i found it a waste that we were constantly exposed to a variety of languages and yet, not acquire them. that's when i polished my smattering of Tamil (my maternal relatives are Tamil-speaking). i still suck at the language though, but i now know just enough to get around in case i got lost in India XD

lastly, we were required to learn a foreign language in upm. i chose Spanish because it sounded familiar, and it sounded sexy too. you should see how the lips of the Hispanics move like when the =converse in this language of love- so much feelings. i again, suck at this language since i am just not really motivated to acquire it.

summary- learned English and Malay simultaneously, Tamil and Spanish via sequencing =)

from my experience, i learn my first and second language simultaneously. this is because, from an early age, my parents always encouraging me to read books. so, they bought me enid blyton book for me to read. thats how i learn english. i learn malay by informal education and daily language. when i am in primary school and secondary school, i participated in a lot of english based event. thats how i improve my english besides my malay.

As a child. i learned 2 language simultaneously. i feel learning both is an advantage when i start learning from a young age. because i have many friends from my school and matriculation that find English language as troublesome. they are not interested as they have not been exposed much to the language. they only focus on their first language.

I find it interesting as a child when my parents used English to communicate between themselves in order to not let me and my sister understand what they are saying. that sparked the interest in me to learn the language. which my parents gladly taught me through speaking and storytelling.

So, i believe learning simultaneously is much more advantageous.

My mother and my father speaks different language..When I was a kid, my mum taught me her language which is Bahasa Kayan and at the same time, my dad teaches me his language, Bahasa Melayu Sarawak..At home, we speak both languages. This means, when I communicate with my mother, I use her language and when I communicate with my father using his language. I use both languages up until now and I speak both languages very fluent. At the age of 9, we moved out to a place whereby Bahasa Iban is use widely. At school, most of my friends are Iban. I was struggling to learn Bahasa Iban at first, but as I practice to speak in Bahasa Iban everyday, I finally master it and also speak Bahasa Iban very fluent.
At school, it is compulsory to learn Bahasa Malaysia and English. I learn both languages at school and my BM and English is quite good too.
I learnt all 5 languages since I was little. Before the age of 12 i can speak all 5 languages very well. So I believe that it is best to learn languages during the critical period of age and that our surrounding do help us to learn the language faster.

English is my first language. I was enrolled into the mandarin class in kindergarten and went to a Chinese primary, so I started sequential learning of Mandarin from the age of 6 up until form 3 in secondary school. Other than that, I acquired the Malay language sequentially when I went to primary school at 7. While I'm at university, I also learned a little German and Korean and I chosed French as the foreign language requirement and started sequential learning. Sometimes, I am exposed to Hakka and Teochew at home through my grandparents, so I learned to speak both dialects simultaneously. Other than that, I am also exposed to Cantonese via Hong Kong dramas and Hokkien via relatives, since most of them speak it. I have a thorough understanding of the former and basic understanding of the latter but I don't speak both languages well.

I experienced both simultaneous and sequential learning of languages.

When I was very young, my parents would speak to me in English, English is my first language. My grandmother who lived with us to take care of me spoke to me in Cantonese. My babysitter also spoke to me in Cantonese.

When I entered kindergarten I learned Mandarin and then my home helper spoke to me in Malay. My parents still spoke to me in English at home. This continued when I entered a Chinese primary school as well. However, my grandmother stopped living with us at home and returned to her hometown, so I stopped speaking Cantonese as frequently as before.

In secondary school, I stopped learning Mandarin after Form 3, but continued with English at home and Malay with my home helper. This carried on until tertiary education. I took French language lessons but due to minimal usage, proper and full language acquisition was never reached.

Now, I'm fluent in both English and Malay, and only mediocre in Mandarin and Cantonese probably because of my grandmother's absence and the reduced frequency of speaking Mandarin at home and at school. Had I continued speaking with my grandmother and continued learning Mandarin at school, I probably would be fluent in 2 languages plus 2 dialects of the Chinese language by now.

I learned my L2 ( BM & BI ) sequentially at school (Primary & secondary). I came from rural school but it was advantageous because there was this program called World Challenge where graduated students from US & UK came to our school for the whole year( 6 months per group) to help the rural students with their English and also build things for the school. They organised lots of activities for us to enable us to communicate with them in English, it was quite an experience! Besides learning English from them & teachers, my aunt was a librarian then, i went to the library every evening & I read lots of English books, comics especially like Tintin, Obelix & Asterix but i was never a fan of Enid's book. lol
As for my BM, i seldom use it other than with my teachers & for class purposes if i need to. But now , i think i use BM alot compared to English.

My experience with second learning was both sequential and simultaneously. When I was growing up, I learned my first language, Mandarine and second language, English simultaneously. I pick up both the language from communicating with my parents as well as watching tv programs using both languages. At the same time, communication with my relatives were conducted using either language, due to the fact that my grandparents only speak mandarine, and some of my cousins only speak english.

When I reach primary school level, my Malay language was learned sequentially, mostly only from school curricular and later on when my mother decided to hire help at home from Indonesia. However, my experience in learning the Malay language was not difficult, as I was able to understand the language and use it appropriately in time of needs.

The only time when I find learning another language difficult was when I choose to learn the French language when I was starting my university life. French language was offered as foreign language subject. Although my French language was also learned sequentially, yet the process of learning the language was not as easy compared to learning Malay language back when I was younger. One of the reason could be that I was not in any French speaking community and I do not practice my French as often as I speak Malay, therefore my French knowledge is very little. This could also because I have passed the age for learning another language.

From my experience, I learn both my first and second language simultaneously. I started to learn English when I started to watch English cartoon in the television. From that point, I started to like English more and more. Furthermore, my parents also encourage me to learn English language by teaching me English. They also bought me English book for me to read. Then, I started to improve my English by talking to my sister and also my parents. So, from my point of view, I strongly believe that simultaneous learning is better and have more advantage than sequential learning.

I learn a second language both sequentially and simultaneously in my experience. First of all, in a multicultural based country, I believe most of us are exposed to different culture which gave us an opportunity to learn different language. Personally, I really appreciate it and always proud to be a Malaysian. I learn second languages simultaneously in the environment where I was born since I was young. I spend less effort in learning them and I think it has something to do with the age when I was learning them. Therefore, that's no problem to learn 2-3 languages at once.

I learn second languages sequentially after I entered to Upm. I learn French first then following by Korean. At this time, I face difficulty in learning them and apparently I forgot most of the French vocabulary as time pass by.

In short, I think it's the age issue that matter but not the way you learn a second language.

In my case, my parents are Malay speakers and they speak Malay to me and my siblings but they have the ability to converse in English - they just did not use it in the family. My mother, especially always watch English movies and television programs and I would always watch along with her, so from that kind of exposure is how I learn my second language. People might find it impossible to learn second language from TV shows or movies or music, but that is how I learn the basis of my second language. Having the basic understanding of the second language at home helps me to improve my second language better during my school years later. So, it can be conclude that I learn my second language both simultaneously and sequentially, and to me, both play a part in the acquisition of a second language.

I was born with both parents speaking Malay to me.Being their firstborn, I picked up language only from them, my parents.My father sometimes speaks English to me, but not as the prime means of communication.I did not learn serious English until I went to the primary school.And the only time I speak English was in English class.Other than that, I speak Malay all the time because the majority of friends I have are Malays.I have really bad English after sometimes, that I would sneakily copy my friend's homework.But somehow, after sometimes, it became a motivation to learn English better.Because it was so hard for me to understand a language I did not speak often.Later, English became the number one favorite subject of all times in school, up until now.

In my experience , i was born into a family that speaks malay and our native tongue as our 1st language..they kinda mixed these both language so im not sure which one is my 1st language either. My family speaks mostly in Malay but when my big family gathered, they tend to speaks native language which until now, its still hard for me to speak it. I started to learnt English in my kindergarten since i went to English kindergarten school nearby my house and English were taught by teachers from overseas that time. I learnt English more and more during my primary school and been exposed to English from my mother which working as a tourist guide at that time. she gave me a lot of English books and we watched cartoon more in English than Malay. During secondary school, I scored even better in English than my Malay and others subject and i even spoke better English than my nattive tongue. in conclusion, i guess i learnt my L2 ( English) in both ways, simultaneously and sequentially ..

I was taught English and Malay language since i was very young before i even started my standard 1. These two languages were taught simultaneously. My mom was the one who taught me how to read and speak in English, she bought numbers of ladybird story books especially the ever famous peter and jane. Moreover, i read alot of Enid Blyton books too. ive always preferred using English since young compared to BM probably due to the many English books i was exposed to on top of that i watched many English cartoon show when i was younger. I hardly ever watch any Malay shows or even read any Malay story books. Up till now i'm still weak in my BM both reading and speaking. It was always a challenge for me to score my BM paper but it was quite a breeze in answering my English paper. Eventhough most of the time i speak malay with my peers but English is always much more comfortable when it comes to writing or when im thinking.

sequential or simultaneously

my first language is my mother tongue which is the bidayuh language. however, i have two second languages that i learned when i was small which namely english language and bahasa melayu. my parents used both language in order to enhance their communications with me. both languages were used because they want me to know other languages besides my native language. my family members do not only consist of bidayuh trait. mixed marriages that occurred in my family enable me to learn my second languages easily without attending formal education. i learned my second languages simultaneously as i learned them while i still learning my native language.