Changing Perspectives

This article was very interesting to me in that what I got out of it was not our techniques of teaching a language but how dependent on the learner and their successes/failures is what matters.  This approach takes the focus off of different strategies and ideas of what it takes in SLA and puts the pressure on the learner and their skills of acquiring new knowledge. 
"The questions of interest were how good learners approached language learning tasks differently from poor learners and what characteristics of learners predisposed them to good or poor learning."
This quote from the text explains much of what I understood .  Other than students with some sort of disability, we as students who are future teachers aren't really taught that students are "good" or "poor" learners; we assume that all without a disability should be able to learn with the right strategies.

Accommodation Theory

The Accommodation Theory was very interesting to me.  It describes the social aspect on learning an L2 language, specifically microsocial.  This describes how learners of a second language change their pronunciation unintentionally due to the person they are talking to.  This change in their language is their pronunciation and further, the grammar aspect of a sentence.  In the text, it explains that this theory, "accounts in part for why native speakers tend to simplify their language when they are talking to an L2 learner who is not fluent..., and why L2 learners may acquire somewhat different varieties of the target language when they have different friends" (103).  This struck me because I have volunteered for the semester to speak with a student from the ELI and help in their learning of English.  She is not very fluent at all and I can tell she struggles with certain things because of her responses; they are a lot of agreeing with me instead of responding verbally.  She shakes her head yes even though she probably does not understand.  After realizing the struggle she was having with her English, and especially after reading this, I noticed how simplified my language had become when speaking with her.  I talked slower and tried to use more common, simpler words so that it was easier for her to understand me.