Part 1.3. MEET MY BILINGUALS!
First, before you get to know my bilinguals and find out about their linguistic adventures, lets imagine I asked myself these same questions on my long flight from Paris to Miami on August 21, 2017. This will also be a way for me to introduce myself to those who might not know me while talking about my own language journey that got underway way before I found myself on this plane crossing the Atlantic for the first time in my life.
Me and my life-long commitment to English (Olga, Russia)
Languages spoken: Russian, English, German, some Italian, French, Spanish.
Field of study/career: English teacher, translator, researcher (Linguistics).
I had my first English class at Grade 2 at the age of 8. For months before that «big day», I had been growing more and more excited. As I had learned some of the English alphabet, I thought I would master English when I had learned all the letters and would simply use them instead of the corresponding Russian ones. For example, I remember writing the Russian word for «granddad» (дед in Russian) as «ded» naively thinking that was a proper English word! I had no idea what kind of disappointment I would be in for when my real English classes started!
Back in the 1990s English wasnt a compulsory foreign language to learn in Russia until Grade 5. At my school in a small town in the countrys southwest, it was possible to start taking it earlier as an optional free class. Even though in the post-Soviet Russia English didnt enjoy the same level of prestige as it would around a decade or so later, it still seemed a good idea to start at an earlier age.
It didnt take me too long to start getting disappointed it wasnt about specific difficulties I had, but that was because of the teacher who would spend almost the entire class yelling and screaming at us. She loved to write in huge handwriting and once in Grade 3 she gave me a huge «3- (or a «C-») for a test. I was called «the familys disgrace» by Mum when she found that notebook that I had been trying so hard to hide somewhere in the apartment. I think this phrase stuck with me for years and was part of my motivation to persevere with English. My sister, who was in Grade 8 back then, was doing exceptionally and unbelievably well academically, particularly in the Russian language. She had been winning all sorts of school competitions and was featured in a local newspaper a few times.
Deep down inside, I wanted to be at least a tiny bit as smart as my sister I saw working with huge dictionaries of Russian. Not wanting to be a complete «copycat», I picked up a visual dictionary of English. Somehow I had a gut feeling it was going to be a truly «big» moment in my life. It wasnt large so by the end of the summer, I had studied it from cover to cover. I picked up a few more English books including the legendary (in the former USSR, anyway) English course by Наталья Бонк (Natalia Bonk) and noticed I was getting more and more interested
In the early 2000s music was the only window into a «foreign» (Western) world. Once I heard some songs by a British pop band on a radio show hosted by a Russian journalist living in London (which seemed to be somewhere on the Moon!). They somehow stroke a chord with me and sparked my interest in English even more. What I really loved was reading and translating their song lyrics my sisters friend downloaded from the Internet for me (I didnt even get my first computer till Grade 10). I would keep notes of any new vocabulary I came across.
School classes of English where we did nothing but do boring grammar exercises and translate texts from English into Russian had become nothing but an obligation. I realized that early on I would have to take responsibility for my own learning. So, I ended up with an inconsistent «diet» of whatever textbooks I could get my hands on. I did all the tasks in writing in a thick notebook and used the answer key to check my answers.
Eventually my teacher (the same that would still scream and yell at us) noticed my interest in her subject and I became her favorite. It seemed as if she was occasionally even relying on me for translations! I was hoping I had started to prove I wasnt «the familys disgrace». I cant think of any difficulties I had at that point at all. I loved every minute of my independent learning, which seemed to be the most enjoyable thing unlike all those boring school classes (probably apart from Russian and Literature). Or I might have loved English too much by that point to even start noticing any difficulties.
It wasnt until I participated in regional school competitions in English that I realized I couldnt speak like those kids from the regions capital! I had trained myself quite well in grammar and vocabulary, but it hadnt ever occurred to me what I had been doing all of that for. I had treated English more as a funny game without thinking it was an actual language you had to speak!
As there were still no opportunities to practise speaking, I continued working with the other aspects. For reading I had some classics and a few Oxford readers. Apart from listening to a few audiobooks on my tape recorder and later a CD-player, I studied a video course on CD-ROM after we had finally got a computer. I didnt pay much attention to writing. I only wish I had attempted to write in English creatively while still at high school.
Anyway, I knew well before I had finished school that English would be my future career. I was obsessed with it while my classmates were going on first dates and having fun. «English is your boyfriend», I remember one of them saying trying to make fun of that boring «nerd» I was considered to be. «Probably that was true», I thought to myself and stayed focused on my goals. One of the crucial ones was to pass my university exams to be able to study for free. In the early 2000s English was considered a prestigious foreign language as probably everything which had a word «foreign» in it. So, getting into Foreign Language Departments were very challenging. I chose the teaching path over the translating one, because it was more accessible for kids from small towns like myself who could only afford to study for free.
As hiring a private tutor wasnt an option at all, I prepared for my entrance exams all on my own. I attended a preparatory course at my university of choice, which involved waking up at 3am every Saturday to take an early morning train to get to Voronezh which was 250 km away. However, I wouldnt say I had learned much, but at least I had a chance to start speaking English while talking on some philosophic issues I would be doing a lot of that at university!
When I became a student at Foreign Languages Department of Voronezh State Pedagogical University, learning got insanely intense from the very get-go. «English is going to continue to be my boyfriend», I laughed to myself. Honestly, I didnt mind that as at that point I was deeply in love and was ready to commit. My love grew more intense as at university classes we dived into advanced grammar and had extensive speaking practice. We would joke how after five years at Foreign Languages Department we would be ready to have extended conversations about anything under the sun. The only thing that made me suffer was Phonetics during the freshman year. Somehow I never truly attached much importance to how I sounded in English, because I had zero ear for music
Halfway through my studies we had a course on Writing and that was got me falling for English even more. It was my first proper experience of writing creatively in it and I was feeling all the efforts I had put into writing down and memorizing that «fancy» vocabulary from all possible sources while my university classmates were out dating were paying off! Getting access to the high-speed Internet in my final year was a big milestone. I would stay up listening to a random selection of BBC podcasts or watching some TV shows. I started realizing how «real» this language was. It was then I got to have a Skype chat with a real native speaker I met on a pen pal website. Yes, back then I thought native speakers were walking gods or something!
The first teaching practice that we had in the fourth year of university was disappointing, but honestly, I didnt quite expect I would love it at all. Working with kids had never been my thing and would never be. After that experience, I felt that my English that I had been working so insanely hard to study had been touched with some dirty hands. Of course, I would never stop working on improving my English and eventually had to let go of those feelings, because otherwise I would have gone mad even teaching at my own university where to my astonishment, a lot of students training to become English teachers didnt make any effort to learn at all. Or was I thinking like that just because I had been making too much of it..?
A few months before graduation I got my first job as a translator for a scientific journal in Architecture and I became a teacher at my own department a year after graduation. That was when I first traveled abroad and got a chance to practise English not only on Skype with a few more native speakers I had met. I did German as a secondary foreign language at university. I wasnt enthusiastic about it as I wish I had studied French instead. Inspired by my trip to Italy, I started learning Italian. A bit later I got to see a bit of France, my dream country since childhood. So, I added French to my self-study plan. As a language teacher, I knew I wouldnt be able to master either of these languages reasonably well, but I felt that unlike German that had been forced on me, those two languages were my foreign language «affairs» I would escape to whenever the teaching routine got a bit too exhausting. I also had a quick try at Spanish before a brief conference trip to Spain, but this language didnt get me too interested for some reason. Traveling also inspired me to start a travel blog in English and to let out all the creative impulses I had been suppressing.
Conference trips to Europe really allowed me to feel the power of English as a lingua franca. Even though doing research felt intimidating, I was happy to present as long as I could do it in English. Listening to other presentations, I got exposed to a great variety of accents. Exciting networking events during the conferences gave me the opportunity to use English in more casual environments. What I realized was that real-world communication in English is a lot «messier» than we try to make it seem in the language classroom. Pronunciation or grammar mistakes, which it is part of our job to correct, do not matter that much as long as one is able to get their message across. Most teachers should be aware of that, but unless you travel internationally, it is hard to feel what you teach is completely real and is actually a communication tool.
That kid who started learning English back in the 90s had absolutely no idea she would get to travel outside her country at all. English has definitely been an extremely powerful tool in making something I wouldnt even dare dream of a reality. So, having this power available to me makes me feel different while speaking English. I am naturally introverted and dont feel too comfortable in big groups. But when I speak English, I generally feel more cheerful, friendly and confident as if I were exploring this new side of me I had no idea existed. I am still an introverted me in English as well, but by speaking this language I feel I am embracing internationalism and cosmopolitanism as well as celebrating all the work I have done in order to master English. I also feel my voice sounds different in English, which I had others point out as well. In Russian I feel more vulnerable and even less interesting to myself feeling the exciting new life English has offered me has been snatched away from me. It is easy to take our first languages for granted probably that is the price we pay for the commitment we make to another language, which has been more than just a communicative tool, more than just a job which pays my bills, but a real passion. I am still confused as to how incorporate my «Russianness» into my English (i.e., international) identity. I dont think I have developed any sort of other personality for the other languages I only know some basics of.
As the U.S. is a linguistic and cultural melting pot, I might even get to practise these extra languages (German, Italian, French, Spanish) while Im there. Honestly, I had never expected I would get to go to this country especially for such an extended amount of time. I cant believe I have won a Fulbright scholarship, which my English has certainly played a part in. Actually, as an English teacher, I was expected to go to the UK first, because in Russia we were taught and some say they teach (Im not one of them) the British variety of English. Now I see this language as truly international and not belonging to any specific country. That is how I like to feel when I speak and particularly write in it. Yes, I feel a lot of us (i.e., non-natives) have to claim the ownership of this language.
I know I am going to be in a country where English (there is no official language in the U.S., by the way) is predominantly spoken. However, I am more excited not about linguistic adventures (which I am sure I am in for), but cultural experiences with people all over the world fellow Fulbrighters as well as other internationals living in the U.S. As Fulbrighters we are also supposed to be «cultural ambassadors» of our respective countries, which is a daunting role knowing that you might be the first person from Russia someone is going to meet. Also, given the never-ending political tensions between Russia and the U.S., I realize when I return home, fellow Russians would expect me to be their guide into what life in the U.S. is like. Some might even think I have somehow betrayed my home country by going to America, which some Russians think is our number-one enemy There will be definitely be others wondering why someone would even come back from what might be paradise on Earth All I know is that it is going to be complicated, but exciting as well!
Even though the Russian society is still divided over how the West (how it is collectively imagined) is to be treated, a lot of Russians at least those living in bigger cities have a more nuanced understanding of life abroad due to having been able to travel internationally, which has certainly become more accessible for some. So, the «iron curtain» mindset cultivated in the USSR when overseas traveling was restricted is no longer ever-present. Going abroad is no longer universally seen almost as flying to the Moon. English is no longer seen as something abstract and simply prestigious either. Even though it is not widely spoken in Russia, more active and ambitious Russians treat as a tool that would fast-track their international careers. It is not a secret there are some compatriots who would love to move to other countries either temporarily or permanently, for which English is mostly likely essential.
Finally, to everyone looking to succeed in language learning, I would recommend simply falling in love with the language itself, its culture, people (or a particular person for that matter). Each aspect (listening, reading, writing, speaking) would involve certain difficulties and practice, but you will be able to deal with any problems and find the time you need to build your skills if you are genuinely into this.
Now that I have caught a glimpse of Miami through a plane window, I know my U.S. adventure has finally started! I cant wait to ask my participants these same questions I have just answered and find out their perspective.