Home Language and Culture are are integrated into our very being. Fortunately, English learners do NOT need to give up these intrinsic values to master English. On the contrary, your home language is the foundation on which you can build a second language, and your home culture helps define who you are as a human being. Learning English as a Second Language is not a zero-sum endeavor. It’s additive. So welcome to the Episode 26 page!
We arrive on the West Coast aboard Amtrak’s California Zephyr, a famous train that was once run by three private railroads. We also leave Chicago aboard another famous train – once the “Train of the Stars” – headed to Los Angeles. I refer to the Southwest Chief. While we explore America’s Southwest, we also explore the importance of maintaining Home language and culture. All this rail action is yours by clicking here for Episode 26.
You can watch Episode 26 in Segments. Choose the segment below by clicking on the link.
Moral Support: Learning a second language requires a great amount of work over a great amount of time. It involves taking risks and learning to accept mistakes, using them as steps to increase language proficiency. A student has to sacrifice perfectionism and a great amount of time to continue growing in the target language. Some feel that you must sacrifice your home language and even your culture to become proficient in your target language. Here’s where I stand up and disagree! Your home language is the foundation for learning a second language, like English, even if your home language has a totally different structure. Your home culture is part of who you are. Episode 26 features a short interview I did with English learners on an RVTV program entitled Adventures in Education. See that interview by clicking here. (See the interview without ads on achive.org by clicking here.) I hope you’ll take their advise and continue to enrich your life with your home language and culture as you add a second language and decide which parts of a new culture you choose to integrate into your own life.
Language Objectives: Use your home language (L1) as the foundation for advancing in your target language (L2).
Academic Objectives: Transportation: Name a railroad company (Santa Fe) that has survived (as BNSF) mergers and bankruptcies to become a major Class 1 Railroad. Understand the importance of rail travel before the era of airplanes and interstate highways. History: Western Expansion: Relate the role of the Santa Fe Railroad in development of the American West, and its importance to tghe entertainment industry. Geography: Name some features of the Southwest American landscape.
During this episode, I told viewers they could see the entire program from which I took this interview. You can watch these English learners on Adventures in Education by clicking here for Episode 26. You can watch all the episodes of Adventures in Education by visiting archive.org/details/roguetv. For the first episodes, just visit the RVTV Page on this website. See the tab above.
Video clips: If you want to re-live the journey on part one of the Southwest chief, just click here.
If you prefer watching the video on Archive.org, Click here. You can also download it.
Bonus Clip: See the entire westward journey on Amtrak’s California Zephyr. Click here for your free bonus video clip. See the same awesome video on archive.org. Click here.
Homework
Watch the video clip listed above on the Southwest Chief. Write a brief description of the journey, including what you learned from the narration and from the visual images you saw in the video. Keep it short – four sentences. Be sure to note the date and the Episode number, which in Episode 26. If you haven’t done homework consistently to this point, don’t worry. It’s never too late to start, and while homework is voluntary, you may find that it speeds up your improvement in English.
Next Episode: We continue our journey west aboard the Southwest Chief in Episode 27. I’ll also share some ideas about English conversation groups. Click here to go to the Episode 27 page.