Life of an English Major Part 1: The Language side

            The course Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English has its own pathways when one wanted to tackle it later on as his/her college course. A student will encounter subjects where he/she will study about language. Language is a very wide domain as there are so many things that will be discussed and learned. There will be the time where the student will be reviewed about the parts of speech, the difference between a language and a dialect, how a person will learn their own language upon growing up, is the United States has its own official language or not and much more. There will be things that will be covered here.

        Noam Chomsky (refer to the image on the left) is the proponent of the theory where a person will adopt his/her first language via a system of principles that children are born with which is called as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). A person will adopt their first language on its environment, surroundings, people around and etc. This theory of Noam Chomsky is believed by most people because this can be seen on the growing stages of the child. 

        Some other time a known bulk of what one will be taking into as a lecture lesson inside the classroom when he/she will be working later on will be stumbled upon and it really is relevant for an English Major student to take this; the 8 parts of speech. Well actually it is not only the 8 parts of speech but also everything that is related to Grammar. These includes use of punctuations, the figures of speech and much more. Though it is not actually used in real life scenarios, students will also encounter the Tree Diagramming. 

           For starters, Tree Diagramming acts like a scratch paper for English Major students where a sentence will be "dissected" just like how students do it on a frog. Here, students will determine if that specific word is a determiner, a noun, a verb, adjective and more. As a form of reference, kindly look at the image on the right.

            As we move on, students will be compelled to know the theories relating to Language acquisition and what we have talked about Noam Chomsky is one of those popular theories. Students will also manage to know Stephen Krashen which is also one of the most famous linguists. Krashen inspired many to be proficient on speaking more languages as this can enhance or keep the function of the brain to its optimum. 

             Since the course itself implies that one can be a teacher after the student pursued this course and for being a teacher it is a need to create suitable learning materials, it is also tackled here. To be specific on how to develop suitable language learning materials that can garner the interest of the students. Upon learning and applying this, one can be equipped and prepared for the future. 

               Now as a Future educator, how will these help on someone who is pursuing or who wanted to take this course or how is that even relevant? 

                Well it will actually help a lot. As a one who wants to be an educator, mastery of the lesson is clearly a must so a clear flow of discussion will be implemented. It will also deliver understanding for teachers on what decision must be made in the classroom as they will have a hint where the student originated from thanks to the in born ability to learn and speak language on their surroundings. Students that will finish this course will be able to teach others to write properly as the younger ones of this generation has struggles to write a paragraph or a text. Indeed, this is a course that will benefit both the student who wants to pursue this course and if that student will use this, the younger generation will also benefit. 

            "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart"

-Nelson Mandela