Add Foreign Exchange Student and Refugee Montegnard family-- 2006

From BilingualWiki

I am, of course, still documenting the language development of Sydney and James, but we have added a "new family member," a foreign exchange student from Brazil, names Mariana. I'm paying attention to her language development in English and to how her speaking Portuguese to the children and me affects our language acquisition.

I have also become involved with a group that is helping a Montegnard family who had to flee Vietnam for reasons of persecution. There are 8 children and most do not know any English. They are from very rural part of Vietnam, the outskirts of the city in the mountains, and are therefore not used to modern conveniences like air conditioning and telephones. I am the "ESL specialist" overseeing their language development, talking with their ESL teachers, meeting regularly with others in the group that tutor the childrean in English. Their story is fascinating, their language development so different from anything I've ever worked with because their cultural context is so radically different. Hopefully this log of my experiences with them will be helpful to others in other situations. I have learned so much from their eagerness and openness to so many things new.

I have had such a wealth of data during this period that I've split this half year by the month.

Feel free to go to the discussion page and add your 2 cents.