When I think about what lead me to study bilingualism and second language acquisition, of course that can't be addressed without thinking why I decided to become bilingual myself. Maybe it goes back to childhood perfectionism (I had to hold back tears if I missed a word on a spelling test). A late-acquired L2 is a difficult (if not impossible) thing to perfect, making for a lifelong personal challenge.
As a child, I attended summer language camps at the Concordia Language Villages. First German, which didn't go over so well (I was sick and missed the first day, so I had no friends, and loneliness made it hard to concentrate on the learning), and then Spanish. I had some fun but can't say I learned much. Eventually the costs outweighed the gains, and I stopped going. Then when I was in middle school, my mom bought Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day, a little workbook of ridiculous exercises. I don't think much long-term learning resulted from that endeavor either, surprisingly. So in junior high, I started "language exploration" Spanish classes from scratch. Then I took four years in high school and decided to major in undergrad, because of a nagging irritation: "Why am I not better at this?" My grammar improved, but my conversation anxiety was high, so I started working and volunteering at a bilingual school, where I discovered the awe-inspiring eloquence of the bilingual kindergartener. I got to witness heritage bilingual acquisition firsthand, which sparked my interest in the process itself. After graduation, working with a bilingual literacy program in another school, I had the pleasure of working with those students in both English and Spanish contexts, and was regularly both amused and amazed to watch their development in both languages. They more often than not taught me just as much as I taught them. My personal (and often frustrating) adult second language acquisition combined with my envy of child bilingualism converged into a fascination with the entire process, which I'm lucky to study through my research and promote with my teaching and community engagement.
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AuthorThis is a place where I record thoughts on second language research and pedagogical theory Archives
June 2019
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