Blog 1: Behaviorism in Language Learning & Acquisition
When I was eight years old, my immediate family chose to relocate from my quaint Italian village of Ponte San Nicolo` to Miami, Florida. Thus, I began the third grade without speaking a word of English, aside from the basic "Hello", "How are you?", "My name is Virginia", and so forth. While I struggled with the language barrier the first few months, over time I gradually picked up the language. I began taking ESOL classes and immersing myself in English through media consumption and socialization. By the fourth grade, I could hold a basic conversation with my native speaker friends and write decent essays. By the fifth grade, I transitioned to "regular" classes and even made the Principal's Honor Roll multiple times throughout the year. It's almost inconceivable to look back at the progress I made in such a short amount of time--what I wouldn't do to have the brain plasticity of my eight year-old self again--and yet it was a learning ...