and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and
across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and
ACTFL Standards Addressed: Communities: Lifelong Learning: Learners set goals and reflect
Rationale:
Marie Antoinette was woefully ill-prepared for her future. She did not learn to read and
write at the level required of a person who would govern a country. This led to her inadequately
reacting to the situations which caused the French Revolution and cost her her life. While the
consequences my students will face are unlikely to be as severe as those suffered by Marie
Antoinette and her family, identifying Marie Antoinettes academic difficulties and how they
may have been alleviated may assist me in my endeavor to identify potential difficulties for my
own students and devise a plan to assure that my students can overcome these difficulties should
they arise.
The first issue with Marie Antoinettes education was she did not learn how to pay
attention. Detection is the major component and is what drives learning (Gass, Behney, &
Plonsky, 2013, p. 265). Students must pay attention if they are to notice and attend to the content
that I teach (Gass et al., 2013). If students are not paying attention to the content, they will not
learn it just as Marie Antoinette did not learn the material that her teachers presented. I can do
comprehension checks to make sure that my students understand and are paying attention since
they cannot learn if they are not paying attention. This alone does not ensure that they will learn;
Marie Antoinettes first teacher did not teach her. Her first teacher spoiled her and had
her copy work when her mother asked to see her work. When her second teacher tried to teach
more content quickly, Marie Antoinette became afraid of reading. This caused the affective filter
to raise, and she continued not to learn. The affective filter is when someone becomes anxious in
response to stimuli (Shrum & Glisan, 2015). Marie Antoinette was unable to learn from her
second teacher because of her experience with her first teacher. As a result, the second teacher
became even more severe with her. This caused her to withdraw even more. This caused Marie
Antoinette to have low self-esteem in an educational setting (Brown, 2014). Her third teacher
recognized this and worked to gain Marie Antoinettes trust before he started to teach her
content. Because he gained her trust, Marie Antoinette worked diligently. Students will often
complete tasks for one teacher and not another because of the relationship the student has with
that teacher (Fay & Funk, 1995). In my endeavor to impart knowledge to my students, I must
remember to build relationships first. When the affective filter is low and students have high
self-esteem in the target language, they will either succeed or keep trying when they falter.
When they are less sure of their abilities, if I have developed a positive relationship with my
students, they will continue to make an effort until they gain confidence and achieve success.
References
Brown, H. D. (2014). Principles of language learning and teaching A course in second language
Gass, S. M., Behney, J., & Plonsky, L. (2013). Second language acquisition An introductory
course (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2015). Teachers handbook (5th ed.). United States of America:
Cengage Learning.