Norton & Pavlenko

               I was not too surprised by what the researchers found from their studies, but I was interested to read about what they found at the end of their study. One thing they found out about language learners was that language teachers need to help them claim the right to speak outside of the classroom. Many students struggle to use their second language outside the classroom because they are nervous to mess up, they do not feel comfortable using it outside the classroom yet; the list goes on and on. It is important for the teacher to help the students feel comfortable to use their target language outside of the classroom. Obviously most of the student’s goals are to use the language in the community so they can communicate with everyone, but they need to get to the point where they are comfortable to do so; and that is where the teacher can come in and help.

            One article talked about the classroom-based social research, which engages the students social identities that will help them use and improve on their target language outside the classroom. Second language learners are able to do this with support from their language teacher. Especially with second language learners, teachers have to play a huge role in motivating and helping the students move forward with their target language. However, in the second article they found that motivation does not translate good language learning. I was interested to read that because usually motivation is a huge factor of language learning.