My Sincerest Apologies

Life has its way of bringing you full-circle, but at times, there is a whirlwind of situations that may have you forget your true passion.  For me, it is language.  Over the past few years, I have been navigating my way through the "New Teacher" experience, and it has been challenging, to say the least. So, I extend my sincerest apologies for not maintaining the blog as originally planned.

In the classroom, I have been attempting to find strategies that work for my particular groups of students, and I have found that encouraging the learning of new languages has been a joy.  I heard Hmong for the first time and it is such a beautiful language.  Although I only learned a few phrases, I have found a friend who I can count on to teach me more.  My daughter prepared to visit Thailand by learning some essential phrases in Thai and I must say that I have also added a bit of Korean to my language diet since my last post.

Some of the pages here, although dated some time ago, still bear information that is timeless and essential to bi-/multilingualism.  I hope my summer blogging and the ideas I have for upcoming research bring great insight into this discussion of helping connect our students to other languages.

I have been inspired by Ava, whose toddler conversations sparked interesting discussions among my sixth graders, this year.  Thus, proving that Sign Language, although not completely universal, has great benefits to those learning it.  The research in bilingualism has confirmed that teaching babies to sign or even having them exposed to more than one language during infancy improves cognition.

Maria Polinsky, professor of Linguistics at the University of Maryland and author of the upcoming title Heritage Languages and their Speakers (August release date) also authored an article that explores Sign Language as a heritage language.  She further shares the advantages bilingualism has on cognition from infancy to the mature years, decreasing or delaying the occurrence of dementia or Alzheimer's.  Her interview can be viewed here.

I look forward to sharing more with you in the weeks to come.

Happy Multi-Languaging!

Ndbesse (2016). Ava (24 months old) British Sign Language Dinner Chat [Video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=655nxnpkkBw

Polinsky, M. (2018*). Heritage Languages and Their Speakers. Cambridge University Press.

Polinsky, M. (2018) Sign Languages in the Context of Heritage Language: A New Direction in Language Research. Sign Language Studies 18: 412-428.

Serious Science (2015). Cognitive Advantages of Bilingualism - Maria Polinsky. [Video] Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ml2dD4SIk

* Polinsky's title is set to be released, this summer.  Check her website for more accurate details.