it's a beautiful day, don't let it get away

I really loved reading the section from 'Social Investment, Identity, and Language Learning' that related to Martina's journey to learn English in Canada. I find stories about immigrants' experiences in their new countries and their pursuits in learning a new language fascinating, perhaps because immigration is a huge part of American history. Additionally, this story interested me because many of my ancestors emigrated from the Czech Republic and probably had very similar experiences to Martina, not only in the language pursuit.

I think the idea that social identity is a big factor in the manner in which and how quickly a language is learned is an interesting one. I feel like it almost relates to the different types of languages we discussed in the early chapters: library language, auxiliary language, second language, and foreign language. Whichever role a language takes on, it is for a specific purpose. Thus, in using it, the speaker is creating a social identity for his or herself. Although Martina's social identities as a mother, housewife, etc are a little different from the previous idea, it indeed fits the idea of a second language: it is needed for education, employment, or other basic purposes. Martina's social identity as a mother and housewife was her driving force to work hard at learning English.

'Changing Perspectives on Good Language Learners' discusses the idea of 'best practices.' Basically, the way that good learners approach language learning tasks differently from poor learners and what characteristics predisposed (similar to innatism?) them to good or poor learning. I found it really interesting that the idea of best practices was brought up in this article because it is something that we have been studying in my education classes--what are the best practices for effectively teaching students? I believe that the education field side of best practices has more possible solutions that can be considered a best practice. The authors reveal their ideas of what are considered best practices in language learning. Since all of them are primarily academic ('Recognizing and exploiting the systematic nature of language'), language learning, successful language learning at that, is something that needs to be worked dilligently on. As language learners and people who want to understand who others learn language, it is important to understand these characteristics. Martina worked hard, demonstrating the principles of best practice in her experience--most notably taking an active approach in her language learning. Her story is one that we should all learn and gain inspiration from.