Alya Muses's Blog
Welcome to the first entry of my blog!
Click here for the link to my introduction video.
Welcome to the first entry of my blog!
Click here for the link to my introduction video.
For this week's blog, I decided to interview my father. Click here for the link to the video! Entry 2 Reflection: For this interview, I decided to interview my father who is from Mombasa, Kenya. Before reading some of Gass and Selinker’s text, I never exactly labeled my father under the term "bilingual." As a matter of fact, I never even knew that English was not spoken to him at home and it was not until pre-school that he learned the language. After gaining some background knowledge, I would classify my father as an early bilingual, which is, "someone who has acquired two languages early in childhood" (Gass & Selinker, 2008, pg. 27). Although my father's family spoke primarily Kiswahili in the household, his pre-school's requirement of speaking, reading, and writing in English greatly contributed to the success of his proficiency in the language. It also helped that he moved to the states at the age of 17 and began his undergradu...
Hi Alya! In my family’s household, my parents also enforced their native language, which is Vietnamese. They wanted for me and my siblings to understand the traditions and customs of Vietnamese culture. I am a little envious that you were able to visit your family’s homeland because I have not had the chance to visit Vietnam. Due to your family’s influence and your trips to Kenya, you were able to learn Swahili as a naturalistic learner. According to Ortega, “naturalistic learners learn the L2 through informal opportunities in multicultural neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, without ever receiving any organized instruction on the workings of the language” (2013, p. 6). Although you are not as fluent as you used to be, I still think it is a notable feat that you can converse in Swahili. I also think it is impressive that you have some knowledge of the Arabic language.
ReplyDeleteHi Angela, thank you for your kind words! I would agree with you that I would fall underneath the category of “naturalistic learners” that Ortega describes in his text. Before going to Kenya for the first time I already had a general overview of the Swahili language. But it was when I went that I became completely fluent, since Swahili was now spoken almost everywhere as opposed to English. It’s definitely a blessing going to the language’s native country to get that eye-opening experience, but I will tell you that having parents that expose you to the culture and language at home is very effective as well. I feel as though that is what pushed me to learn Swahili when I went to Kenya. I wasn’t completely lost because of the exposure my parents had already provided me with. I hope you get a chance to visit Vietnam one day!
DeleteHola Alya, from watching your video I was able to understand that the influence in your childhood from being able to travel to Kenya. I wasn't able to travel to Mexico until this past summer because I wasn't old enough to travel alone. But noticing the difference in language here in the United States and your home country is a great deal. Based of your travels you became like Angela stated earlier "Naturalistic learners learn the L2 through informal opportunities in multicultural neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces, without ever receiving any organized instruction on the workings of the language they are learning" (Ortega 2013). You were able to learn from your multicultural surroundings and neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteHi Bianca! Wow, it's interesting how you travelled to Mexico for the first time recently, yet you speak it very fluently. I'm glad you had an opportunity to go and surround yourself in an environment where Spanish is the native language, in order to experience learning the L2 in a place where the language is primarily spoken. When I went to Kenya for the first time it made the biggest difference for me. I still learned through my parents regardless, but if it wasn't for going to the actual country where the language is spoken, I would have not been as fluent as I am today.
DeleteHi Alya,
ReplyDeleteIt is really amazing that you have the opportunity to visit Kenya and practice the Swahili with your family members and other native speakers of the language. I wish I had been able to learn Spanish for the same reasons, as I have family members who cannot speak English that I wish I could communicate with. I also find it really interesting that you spent a year in Saudi Arabia and can understand a bit of Arabic. Ortega explains why you might have a harder time learning Arabic that you did learning Swahili, “Post-pubertal learners are not likely to perform in the native speaker range, and this holds true regardless of the number of years they have resided in the L2 environment” (2013, pg. 28-29).
Reference:
Ortega, Lourdes. (2013). Understanding second language acquisition. London:
Routledge, 2013. Print.
Hi Marissa! Thank you so much. I do not blame you for not being fluent in Spanish yet wishing you could speak it in order to communicate with your family. It's really tough being consistent with your parent's native language when you've been in a country for so long where we are expected to speak English everywhere. What Ortega explains about post-pubertal learners I think does apply to me. I only resided in Saudi Arabia for one year, and during my time there I went to an American school where English was spoken. Because of this, I was not able to learn the Arabic language for I did not have enough exposure by just hearing it in public places.
DeleteHi Alya,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had the chance to visit Kenya. There are so many emotions when visiting our parents native land. Always going back and re-touching with our culture is always good. When I was younger I used to visit Mexico very often and when communicating with my cousins, I would also take long pauses to make sure I was pronouncing the words correctly. In my culture we often get judge for forgetting our native language. Ortega states that, "Parents who regard elective bilingualism as a social value wonder what the optimal age might be for their children to begin learning a foreign language. If I could go back I would have loved to keep speaking Spanish until a certain age so that my Spanish would not be so broken.
Reference:
Ortega, Loudres. (2013). P.7
Hi Damaris, yes I'm very glad that I was introduced to the culture and the people so early in my life, and got to learn that language when I was still very young. I'm also glad that you have that same experience with going back and forth from Mexico. Going back to our culture's native land is always quite eye opening! I agree with you as well in regards to speaking our second languages at such a young age fluently. Had I been consistent with speaking just the Swahili language while I was young, I feel as though I would not struggle as much with conversing as I do now.
DeleteHi Alya!
ReplyDeleteI totally understand when you were talking about slowly losing the fluency in your native language. To this day, my family speaks only Spanish at home so we are exposed to it all the time. My older brother and I knew English way before my younger brother was even born. He was in the same situation as you, he knew Spanish when he was younger and then slowly began losing it as he spoke English more and more. Now, he only responds in English when we speak Spanish. He can understand it, but will not answer in Spanish because his Spanish is not very fluent and it sounds broken. According to Ortega, "Children acquiring their first language complete the feat within a biological window of four to six years of age" (12) so I think that my brother was not exposed to Spanish as much as my older brother and I were before the age of six so he kind of missed his window of opportunity there. I think this had a big impact on his fluency because like previous comments have said, it is harder to learn a second language when you are past the optimal age.
Ortega, L. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge; 2013.
Hi Joselyn! I am in the same boat as you, I grew up in a home that spoke only Spanish, so my siblings and I were able to acquire the language organically in a naturalistic way (Ortega, 2013, p. 6). Once I started going to school and had to learn English things changed. This is where I can relate to your younger brother, since I only really speak Spanish to my parents I have lost a lot of the fluency that I used to have. Even though I don’t speak Spanish as much as I would if I was in my native land I am happy to be bilingual.
DeleteHey Joselyn! Like you said, I'm very much like your younger brother in this instance. It's quite difficult maintaining the language as you get older if you use English much more often. The first time I went to Kenya when I was around six, my opportunity to soak in the language and speak it fully was openly available, but as I grew older I went less often and therefore didn't have as much exposure to Swahili speaking people. This did have an impact on my fluency as it did to your brother. As a person in this situation though, I can definitely say that it's at least a blessing that we can fully understand the language!
Delete