Case Study On Being Bilingual In America Essay, Research Paper

The Study

…The participant was my daughter, Amy. As soon as she arrived in Hawaii, USA, from Mainland China in July 1998, I began observing how she reacted to the new environment and how she adjusted to it. Over a five-month period (July-November, 1998) I kept a journal of what she did (about 35,000 words either in English or in Chinese), sometimes on the spot and sometimes upon recollection, and tape-recorded the conversations between us on three tapes. Amy was 12 when she came to Hawaii. She had finished fifth grade with a limited English vocabulary, which included pronouns, names of the seven days of a week, and the four seasons, etc. She had some idea of “be+noun/ adjective,” and the simple present and simple past tenses. But they had never become automatic in her linguistic production. When the study began, she just registered as a sixth grader in a local public school in Honolulu. Since it was the first time she had ever been abroad, I witnessed how she was excited by the new environment, shocked by the new culture, and struggled to learn the new language. I also noticed how her first language (Chinese) and second language (English) interacted with and promoted each other in her daily life and academic study. Some daily happenings and utterances between us were related to purposeful language practice and some were simply every day occurrences in natural settings of transition to a new culture…

The second day after Amy got to Honolulu, we went shopping in a supermarket. Curious about the names and products on the shelves, she asked me a lot of questions in Chinese in a somewhat childish loud voice that drew some glances from other customers. I asked her to be quiet and she didn’t ask any more questions. Later I found that whenever we were in public places, Amy would either keep silent or stumble in English. I thought it was a good way for her to practice English. One day I went to pick her up at school and spoke to her in Chinese while her classmates were around. She became angry with me and refused to say anything. Back at home, she said to me, “You told me not to speak Chinese at the supermarket, but why did you do so at my school? My classmates will laugh at me.” I was surprised. I didn’t expect that she interpreted my advice for being quiet as a signal of no Chinese. “I just wanted you to show courtesy to other customers by not talking too loudly. There is nothing wrong in being Chinese and speaking the Chinese language!” “Yes, there is!” she replied. “In class, whenever my teacher asks who gives this or that incorrect answer, the boy next to me always points at me and says ‘the Chinese girl,’ but it is not me!” Then she burst into tears. This time I was shocked. I hadn’t imagined that she would have experienced this at school.

I thought hard and consulted with my husband in Canada. Since at the time I was the only parent with Amy, my attitude toward our identity, our primary language, and our culture would shape, to a great extent, the ways she looked at them and the patterns of actions she took. I started by ringing the fact to her conscious awareness that there are different races of humankind just as there are different species of plants in the world, and that no particular race or language is inherently inferior or superior to the others. I said to her, “As the Chinese, we should respect ourselves. If we look down upon ourselves, how could we expect others to treat us as equals? We were born and brought up with our language, our culture, and they are part of our identity and our life.” At home, I spoke to Amy in Chinese except for the time allotted for practicing English in the evening or on weekends. We observed the traditional Chinese festivals and sang Chinese songs. We visited friends from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and communicated in Chinese when we met them. Together we read books about famous Chinese people and important events in Chinese history. If we came across a new or less familiar Chinese character or idiom, we would write it down and consult a Chinese dictionary. However, being good at L1 (first learnt language) and familiar with our own culture is not enough. We should also be open-minded, receptive, and respectful to other languages and cultures so that we can look at ourselves and others from an unbiased perspective…

Ever since we came here, we’ve often felt out of place and have had difficulty accomplishing simple tasks because we were not good at the language and because we didn’t know the way we should have behaved. I wanted to be friendly but often ended up embarrassing myself with pragmatic failures. I kept silent when it was better to be sociable and communicative. Amy and I share the same feeling that there is an invisible wall between the outside world and us. Our experience here shows us that to adapt ourselves to the new culture is much more difficult and takes a much longer time than we had thought. As a mother, I have to be realistic about our situation and do what I can to help my daughter’s transition.

One day while I was sorting the laundry by color, Amy said that she didn’t like the way her classmates were dressed because it was not colorful, and that the school lunch wasn’t as delicious as Chinese food. I asked her how a Hawaiian girl would feel if she went to China. Upon this Amy smiled understandingly. By coming to a foreign country we came to realize that it is the way we were brought up that tends to predetermine our likes and dislikes; it is our habits that make us prone to comment unfavorably on those things different from ours. The new language and the new culture helped us know different people, different ways of doing things, and enriched our experience.

While we took buses, I often reminded Amy to observe how Hawaiian people show courtesy to each other and how the surroundings are beautified with trees, flowers, and grass. I also told Amy stories about how friendly Hawaiian people are to wildlife. One weekend, we watched a TV program about the history of Hawaii. Though not good at English, Amy could understand the main idea of it with my help. On November 3 she got up quite early to watch the news about the local election. She became excited whenever she saw a name she had seen posted on the roadside. I was glad that she began to enjoy her new life. We came in July when the fall semester hadn’t begun yet. I asked Amy to keep a journal of what we did every day in English. Actually, she just dictated what I said or copied what I wrote since she knew little English. She considered it a daily burden and preferred to do it in Chinese. I supported her writing in Chinese, but at the same time insisted on her writing something in English every day. It is admitted difficult for the Chinese to learn English because “the Chinese and English languages differ on important linguistic dimensions, some of which question theories about linguistic universals” (Aaronson & Ferres, 1987, p. 75). On the other hand, sharp differences between these two languages can help learners prevent negative transfer from L1 to L2 (second learnt language). I bought Amy a series of English textbooks for children by L. G. Alexander with translation and notes in Chinese. She already had a solid foundation in Chinese and a little knowledge of English, so she managed to learn the text by herself with the help of the translation and notes. At certain times in the evening, I would give some assistance. She was learning English, and at the same time she was maintaining and developing her Chinese. Now she often says that English is much easier to read and write than Chinese but the latter is closer to her mind. In her I find strong evidence that a good mastery of L1 and parental supportive attitude toward L2 is facilitative to a child’s acquisition of L2. In her first school report Amy got an A for both writing and spelling, A -for reading, A + for math and a B for social studies, PE, and music. In the second report, she got straight As. Grades are not the only criteria in measuring her L2 proficiency, but they did encourage her and make her self-confident and interested in learning the new language…

Personally, I find we can’t really know our children without getting acquainted with their school life because they spend weekdays in school with their teachers, classmates, and other school personnel, and because most of their academic activities are carried out in school. I’ve been to Amy’s school at the Back to School Night, for the parent-teacher conference, and for picnics. I’ve also observed the pullout ESL class during a one-week period. Every Thursday I have access to a newsletter, forms, notes, or flyers from Amy’s school. By getting informed about and involved in school-related activities, I’ve come to know the differences between the Chinese and U.S. educational systems and I understand the school’s expectations of the students. And now I have become better equipped to help Amy adapt to the new situation. As a means to know why Amy didn’t like her pullout ESL class, I did the classroom observation. This ESL class was of great help to some children, but not all the LM (language minority) students enjoyed it. First, it was looked down upon by their classmates as a class for the “dumb;” second, the diversity of the ESL students’ English proficiency, language background, age, and grade level made it hard for the teacher to structure the ESL class; third and most importantly, the students missed a lot of content instruction and course requirements in the mainstream class by attending the pullout ESL class, so students lagged even further behind in the grade-appropriate tasks. Upon her own request and on the condition that she passed some oral tests, Amy was exited from the ESL class two months later. Now she does all the work her classmates do without delay. When she needs additional assistance in understanding homework requirements or the meaning of a particular word, she goes to her teacher in school, consults English-Chinese dictionaries, or asks me for help at home. Through the conference with her teacher, I found the teacher had a very heavy schedule. It’s unreasonable to demand anything more from him for a few LM students in his class. Besides, the teacher couldn’t know all the primary languages of these students. So a more practical way to help the LM students become bilingual is the parents’ involvement.

Amy has an American-born Chinese classmate whose parents came to Hawaii from China in the mid-eighties. This girl is biliterate and has helped Amy a lot. At the Back to School Night I had a chance to talk with her mother. When asked why she was taking so much trouble to bring up her child bilingually, the mother said her purpose for a bilingual upbringing was two-fold: to pass down the heritage and to empower the child with what parents can offer so that the child could have more chances of success in her career. When recalling the long and hard process, she said that without steadfast commitment and consistency from her husband and her, the bilingual upbringing plan could have easily flown out of the window. What de Jong (1986) concluded from her study fits very well here: “It always needs a certain commitment on behalf of the parents to see to it that their own language and culture are passed on to their children” and “it always needs an effort on the part of parents to see to it that their children become or remain bilingual” (p. 23)…

Almost every weekday after school on our way home, Amy would tell me in our L1 what happened in her school. I would elicit her views and opinions and she would ask for my advice. Of course, she didn’t always follow it. I would give her a chance to try and fail or to prove that I was wrong. Sometimes when I was too occupied with my own thoughts to listen to her attentively, Amy would feel neglected and keep to herself. Gradually there was a psychological distance between us though we were physically together every day. Realizing the situation, I would try to make it up to her by talking with her and telling her how I felt if we didn’t have heart-to-heart talks. My frankness moved her and drew her closer to me. Our talks minimized the gap between us…

During the first month of Amy’s schooling here, we often read together her text books in English side by side with textbooks in Chinese. Sometimes we wrote home, asking our relatives to mail us relevant books in Chinese. Bit by bit, Amy could do the two kinds of teaching materials by herself, and now she can do the two separately. As she browses the content in L1 first (math, geography, etc.), she often gets prepared for what is to be taught in class. The other day she came home, telling me, “Mom, do you remember the word ‘reciprocal’ you used in explaining the word ‘mutual’ in my success journal? Today I came across this word again in my math class. In dividing a fraction with another fraction, the teacher asked us to multiply it with the reciprocal of the other. I immediately knew the meaning of the word here (upside-down) because I had known how to solve this kind of problem from my Chinese math book.” Apparently Amy’s knowledge in L1 had been positively transferred to L2 in the math content area…

Ever since we came to Hawaii, we have been writing to our home country regularly. We are also lucky to have a very kind American friend who has helped us tremendously, and with whom we correspond by mail, talk over the phone, or have face to face chats. Now Amy is also used to the unstated yet actually practiced family regulation that she has to write compositions both in Chinese and English whenever we go sightseeing or anything important happens around us. By writing regularly in English and in Chinese, Amy puts into practice what she has learned and actually experiments with two languages.

While we are doing house chores, Amy and I often question each other on how to translate a sentence, a phrase, or an idiom from L1 into L2, or vice versa, and what the difference is. One day she remarked: “I find some ambiguity in Chinese if I say ‘wo ai ni ma ma’ which can mean both ‘I love you, mom,’ or ‘I love your mom.’” But in English there is no such ambiguity. When she has problems with English grammar, Amy would ask me in Chinese. Early in October there was a conversation between us:

A: ma ma, zai “often” hou mian I yin gai use “to” plus a verb ma? (Mom, should I use “to” plus a verb after “often”?)

M: bu! (No!)

A: But why after “have” hou mian why yong “to” jia dong ci ne? (But why do we use “to” plus a verb after “have”?)

M: “Have” he “to” yi qi gou cheng zhu dong ci, xiang dang yu “must,” er “often” shi ge fu ci, xiu shi dong ci. (“Have” together with “to” functions as an auxiliary verb, equal to “must,” while “often” is an adverb, modifying a verb.)

Amy’s utterance here is a mix of English and Chinese. She was trying to practice L2 by using L1 to fill in the gaps where she was not yet proficient.

Considering her limited L2 vocabulary, I answered her question in L1, which was helpful in promoting her metalinguistic awareness…

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