Hello Nadia! Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself in this video. I am particularly interested in your experience of learning to speak both English and Urdu from early childhood. Do you consider yourself to be multilingual? Also, you stated you now possess better proficiency in English even though you understand 90% of Urdu when it is spoken to you. In the Forta.TV (2010) video, Dr. Norman Doidge explained that the reason so many people struggle with a second language is because “we become better and better at English”, and “brain plasticity decreases.” You may not feel as if your grammar is excellent in Urdu, and therefore hesitate to speak it; however, I sincerely hope that you will not allow that part of your family culture/heritage to be lost. Also, you mentioned that you have a sister and cousins. Do any of them speak Urdu? And, are they multilingual, or bilingual?
Also, you briefly touched upon your journey toward becoming an EC-6 generalist, and the fact that you explored several different career paths before finally settling on education. I can imagine how frustrating that must have been at times, but you did not give up. Your tenacity will most certainly serve you well in your teaching career, and I wish you the very best in your future as an educator.
I would consider myself multilingual because I know I have the ability to speak Urdu even I do not tend to speak it much. I feel like with more practice I would be able to better develop my grammar and feel more confident speaking it. I would agree with Dr. Norman that as I got better at English due to always speaking it at school and with friends, I feel like I started to feel more confident in English compared to my Urdu and maybe this caused me to speak Urdu less. I felt more confident in my speaking English because I was more proficient in it, but also my mom only speaks English so that was the only way to communicate with her.To this day, she has a very limited vocabulary in Urdu. While I agree that brain plasticity might decrease with age I feel like I have a good of enough grasp of understanding Urdu that I still would have any easy time becoming more fluent with practice. I feel like I could improve a lot with practice; it would not be too difficult for me improve my speaking ability. I can speak basic simple sentences, but sometimes struggle for the right tense or word, which I could think of more readily in English. If I just tried speaking it more with relatives I feel like I would improve a lot. As for the cousins I mentioned, they both do not speak much Urdu. They speak mostly English, but will mix in Urdu words here and there into their sentences. They do understand Urdu because their parents still do speak in Urdu to them. My sister is more proficient in Urdu though she does not speak it much, mostly with my grandma and her kids because she wants them to retain some ability to speak Urdu.
Hello Nadia! Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself in this video. I am particularly interested in your experience of learning to speak both English and Urdu from early childhood. Do you consider yourself to be multilingual? Also, you stated you now possess better proficiency in English even though you understand 90% of Urdu when it is spoken to you. In the Forta.TV (2010) video, Dr. Norman Doidge explained that the reason so many people struggle with a second language is because “we become better and better at English”, and “brain plasticity decreases.” You may not feel as if your grammar is excellent in Urdu, and therefore hesitate to speak it; however, I sincerely hope that you will not allow that part of your family culture/heritage to be lost. Also, you mentioned that you have a sister and cousins. Do any of them speak Urdu? And, are they multilingual, or bilingual?
ReplyDeleteAlso, you briefly touched upon your journey toward becoming an EC-6 generalist, and the fact that you explored several different career paths before finally settling on education. I can imagine how frustrating that must have been at times, but you did not give up. Your tenacity will most certainly serve you well in your teaching career, and I wish you the very best in your future as an educator.
I would consider myself multilingual because I know I have the ability to speak Urdu even I do not tend to speak it much. I feel like with more practice I would be able to better develop my grammar and feel more confident speaking it. I would agree with Dr. Norman that as I got better at English due to always speaking it at school and with friends, I feel like I started to feel more confident in English compared to my Urdu and maybe this caused me to speak Urdu less. I felt more confident in my speaking English because I was more proficient in it, but also my mom only speaks English so that was the only way to communicate with her.To this day, she has a very limited vocabulary in Urdu.
DeleteWhile I agree that brain plasticity might decrease with age I feel like I have a good of enough grasp of understanding Urdu that I still would have any easy time becoming more fluent with practice. I feel like I could improve a lot with practice; it would not be too difficult for me improve my speaking ability. I can speak basic simple sentences, but sometimes struggle for the right tense or word, which I could think of more readily in English. If I just tried speaking it more with relatives I feel like I would improve a lot.
As for the cousins I mentioned, they both do not speak much Urdu. They speak mostly English, but will mix in Urdu words here and there into their sentences. They do understand Urdu because their parents still do speak in Urdu to them. My sister is more proficient in Urdu though she does not speak it much, mostly with my grandma and her kids because she wants them to retain some ability to speak Urdu.
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