Mabou Loiseau question sheet

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California State University, Fresno *

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147

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Linguistics

Date

Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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Valerie Lopez LING 147 Mabou Loiseau 1. Which 7 languages does Mabou Loiseau speak at age 5? Describe her language skills/abilities in each of these languages. If you are the native speaker of any of the 7 languages, make comment on her oral skills. The 7 languages that Mabou speaks is French, Creole, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, English, and Sign Language. Mabou seems to speak French and Creole much more fluently since she is learning those languages from her parents, which provides a more comfortable setting. Mabou shows a little more hesitation in the Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Spanish languages; she tends to take more time to think of vocabulary and the conversation seems less organic than the languages spoken by her parents. As a bilingual Spanish speaker, I think Mabou shows excellent understanding of the Spanish language and I think she has a lot more potential to grow as a fluent speaker. 2. How has she acquired each of the 7 languages? It is not clearly stated where Mabou learned sign language or English, but based on her understanding of her godfather speaking English, I assume she learned them at home. Mabou’s dad taught her Creole and her mom taught her French. Mabou is homeschooled and learned Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Spanish from language teachers. 3. Relate Mabou Loiseau’s case to our reading of Chapter 5, “ The Early Development of Bilingualism ”, what are your thoughts about the routes to and benefits of early childhood bilingualism/multilingualism? I saw how a more relaxed setting such as learning from family members rather than professional language teachers led to more fluent learning. I think learning from teachers created an environment with higher pressure to speak quickly rather than learning in a relaxed, natural conversation such as Mabou had with her parents. Mabou’s parents also spent a lot of extra time reinforcing Mabou’s languages through nightly reading and overall interactive time. 4. What is your own experience with bilingualism, or the lack of it? Have your parents made use of home language resources to raise you and your siblings at home as a bilingual? Do you plan to raise your own children (now or in the future), why? I am a bilingual speaker in Spanish and my parents taught me Spanish through home language resources such as learning from family, books, and doing activities while conversing in Spanish. I understand Spanish a great amount, but I struggle to pronounce many words. This led me to lean more on my English language skills. If I have children, I would like to use the method of one parent teaching the kids English and the other Spanish, so that my children could practice the languages as equally as possible. I saw my cousins raised through the one parent- one language methods and they are more skilled at Spanish than I am.
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