Hello, and welcome to my second blog! When I asked Audra for permission to interview her, I mistakenly thought she was 3-4 years old when
she and her family moved from the U.S. to Peru.
I first met her a little over three years ago. Since our initial meeting, she has resigned
from teaching high school Spanish classes in a large city in California and
moved to Houston where she and her husband have started their family. She now spends part of her time tutoring ESL
students in English. Before our interview, I sent her a copy of
prospective questions that were based on my assumption that she learned Spanish
as an L2. Imagine my surprise when I
discovered she was only one(1) when her family moved there and only
remembers speaking BOTH English and Spanish her entire life!
Since our time together was limited to one
meeting, I chose to focus a portion of our interview on how and why she and her husband are teaching their young son to become bilingual. I hope you
enjoy watching this video as much as I enjoyed interviewing her.
Interview Reflection
Since my interview with Audra, I have been surprised by the number of connections I
have made with our course readings. I am also amazed at how much my academic curiosity about SLA has been enhanced because of our conversation. Rowland (2014) indicates that simultaneous multilingualism occurs when a
child learns two languages from birth.
Because Audra was only one year of age and not yet uttering words when
she moved to Peru, she only recalls speaking both Spanish and English. I wonder if this qualifies her as multilinguistic? Or, is she simply bilingual? Either way, her proficiency in both languages
appears to be solid.
Admittedly, I have always been a bit envious of bilingual
individuals. However, I know here in the
United States it is not unusual to be monolingual. Audra is actually in good company as the
majority of the world’s “children grow up speaking two or more languages
simultaneously” (Ortega, 2011, p. 4). She indicated that her mother wanted she and
her siblings’ English to be perfect.
Growing up in Peru, Spanish was spoken everywhere she went – in school, in the homes of friends, at
church, etc. However, she was
homeschooled by her mother and was only allowed to speak and write English at
home. In addition, she does not remember
a time in her childhood when she mixed words from both English and Spanish when
speaking, which according to Rowland (2014) would have been indicative of a
unitary language system. I would like to
interview her parents one day and ask them if this is truly the case, or if conversely, she
simply does not remember. Interestingly, Audra now considers English to be her L1.
When they became married and were considering a family, Audra and her husband (who is also bilingual) agreed they wanted to raise their children to be bilingual. They now have a one-year-old son, and recently have decided to follow the advice of their pediatrician and only speak one
language (Spanish) at home. According to Audra, they both agree that this will provide the greatest opportunity for him to grow up to be bilingual. Audra explains that their young son clearly understands both
Spanish and English when they are spoken to him, but at his one-year check up
was not yet uttering words in either language.
It will be interesting to see if he becomes a “balanced bilingual,”
which according to Rowland (2014, p. 176) is extremely rare. Interestingly, Audra did not learn to write
proficiently in Spanish until coming to the U.S. as a teenager. In retrospect, I wish I had asked her how
(and if) she plans to prevent that type of scenario with her son. What factors would contribute to (or hinder)
the success of him learning to read and write in both languages?
Audra is currently spending one day a week tutoring ESL
students who are learning English. In
the Forta.TV (2010) video, Dr. Doidge advocates for total immersion as the best
method for second language acquisition.
Audra also supports the process of language immersion. She tells her students to not be afraid to
engage in conversations with native speakers because “very rarely will someone
look at you weird for trying to learn a new language.” That was helpful for me to hear because fear
is definitely what prevents me from speaking what little Spanish I can recall
around native speakers.
This interview has given me a lot to think about in terms of
my own desire to become more proficient in Spanish. My hesitancy to seek out opportunities to regularly
engage in Spanish conversation comes from my own fear that I have surpassed the
critical age of language acquisition.
Maybe it is not too late after all.
