New Feature Writer for Language Study

Posted by Margaret M. Williams Oct 2, 2008

I am excited to be assigned as the Feature Writer for Language Study here at Suite101. My fascination with learning new languages goes back to high school when I studied Latin and then Spanish. I switched to French in college. Sadly, I never followed through on any of them. But I must have been a good influence on my children, because my daughter majored in French in college, and my son minored in Japanese. Both are fluent in their respective languages. And now I am studying Japanese.

I am also a public school teacher. My first grade classroom combines native English speakers with those for whom English is their second—and sometimes brand new—language. As a result of my recent Japanese studies, and time spent in Japan this summer where I tried really hard (but failed miserably) to make sense of conversations going on around me, I feel that I have a renewed understanding of what my ESL students are going through in my classroom.

While I am in no way an expert on world languages, I am good at asking questions, and I will be contacting experts for insights and information as I write my articles for the Language Studies section. I have lots of experience and access to many resources for covering the ESL topic(s). So I’m hoping that readers will enjoy my articles and find them informative and useful.

Check out some of my first language articles: