Someone I admire in my field

Someone I admire in my field is the great linguist, Noam Chomsky. He wasn't an English teacher (ESL teacher) per se, but since I studied Linguistics, he's very relevant to me. Besides, he contributed a lot to the modern concepts we have about the language acquisition process.

He was born in 1928, the son of Jewish Russian immigrants in Philadelphia, USA. Perhaps, he became so interested in language as he was fluent in three languages as a child: English, Yiddish, and Hebrew--which he had to study a lot as part of his religious training as a child. It's worth noting here that today he's not a religious man. I mention it because this rigorous training may have formed his academic thinking processes.

In the 1950s he REVOLUTIONIZED Linguistics and our understanding of the language acquistion process. He developed the ideas of Universal Grammar that basically states that all human beings have a kind of language computer in their heads when they're born. This "computer" is programmed by the input received from the child's early environment. Universal Grammar has certain constraints and parameters that are universal. I won't go into any detail, but it explains why a child can learn any language to 100% proficiency, no matter where this child was born. This also explains why adults can learn any human language though, maybe, not as proficiently.

Today, many people take these ideas for granted. However, we he came out with this and worked on the data that proved his theory, it was still controversial. There were many other theories out there that explained things rather imperfectly. He changed all of this.

In addition to his great linguistic achievement, he is also a philosopher, logician, and "all.around" intellectual. He often comments on politics and society.