Raising a Trilingual Family in a Monolingual Society
Disciplines
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Today people are exploring outside of the borders they were once bound to, and marrying outside of their own race and culture, new problems have been created (Braun & Cline, 2014). They go on and start a family and begin teaching their children their heritage language (HL) and their partners (HL). They also move to new countries that have more job opportunities so that they can support their family, for example, America. Participants from every region of the U.S were recruited to guarantee an evenly distributed number of families that met the criteria. Our participant is originally from Mexico and her first language is Spanish. She is raising her two children to be trilingual in English, Spanish, and Portuguese in America, after they spent their first years in Brazil. The study involved collecting qualitative data through surveys and an interview with the participant. There were both short-term and long-term problems that occurred due to this move, especially with the children being so young. Ultimately the biggest problem that arose was that as the children grew older, they lost the confidence to communicate in their (HL) (Spanish and Portuguese). “My husband feels like they shouldn't be ashamed or afraid of making a mistake. That this is a good, safe place at home to make those mistakes so they can practice, but I understand them as well because I also have that fear of making a mistake in another language...” (S., personal communication, February 7, 2022). It is important to develop strategies to support trilingual families that choose to raise their families in a monolingual English-based society. It is important that the youth continue to have strong ties to their heritage languages so that with time the language does not die out.
Keywords: HL, trilingual families, monolingual society, language ties, trilingual education
Academic department under which the project should be listed
BCOE- Inclusive Education
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Jayoung Choi
Raising a Trilingual Family in a Monolingual Society
Today people are exploring outside of the borders they were once bound to, and marrying outside of their own race and culture, new problems have been created (Braun & Cline, 2014). They go on and start a family and begin teaching their children their heritage language (HL) and their partners (HL). They also move to new countries that have more job opportunities so that they can support their family, for example, America. Participants from every region of the U.S were recruited to guarantee an evenly distributed number of families that met the criteria. Our participant is originally from Mexico and her first language is Spanish. She is raising her two children to be trilingual in English, Spanish, and Portuguese in America, after they spent their first years in Brazil. The study involved collecting qualitative data through surveys and an interview with the participant. There were both short-term and long-term problems that occurred due to this move, especially with the children being so young. Ultimately the biggest problem that arose was that as the children grew older, they lost the confidence to communicate in their (HL) (Spanish and Portuguese). “My husband feels like they shouldn't be ashamed or afraid of making a mistake. That this is a good, safe place at home to make those mistakes so they can practice, but I understand them as well because I also have that fear of making a mistake in another language...” (S., personal communication, February 7, 2022). It is important to develop strategies to support trilingual families that choose to raise their families in a monolingual English-based society. It is important that the youth continue to have strong ties to their heritage languages so that with time the language does not die out.
Keywords: HL, trilingual families, monolingual society, language ties, trilingual education