Kelsey Morris and Susie Muth

CI 280

October 26, 2017

Pauli Badenhorst

Linguistic and Cultural Biography and Reflection

For our Linguistic and Cultural Reflection, we interviewed Hyunjin Jang, a Penn State

student from South Korea. She lived there until she was 10 years old, attending a school that she

says was like ours in the United States, but also different in many ways. Her school year started

in March, and ended in November. Unlike most schools in the United States, she was required to

take additional language (English) classes every day at school from the very start of her

educational career. This is because the English language is seen as a necessity to live a

successful life in many countries outside our own. Her parents stressed this learning of English

even more, by putting her in private English tutoring sessions in addition to her schooling. Jang

said that the structure of the school was similar to those in the U.S., including classes, lunch,

recess, and homework.

Hyunjin moved to the United States of America when she was 10 years old. She knew

little English prior to coming to the country. She described her knowledge of English at a 1st

grade level of proficiency, while her parents knew little to no English whatsoever. Upon arriving

in the country, she remembers it being hard to make friends due to the language barrier. She tried

to keep in touch with her friends from Korea, through email and instant messenger, but after a

year found herself and them losing touch, as she further immersed herself in the culture of the

United States. However, when she moved here, she already had several family members and

family friends in the country. They really helped her family adjust to the new environment and
adapt more quickly than they would have if they had known no one. They helped them with

things such as where to go to church, what schools to attend, where to shop for food, how to go

about living in the new country. Jang expressed that it was a huge advantage to migrate to a new

country at a young age, because it was easier for her to adapt and take everything in with an open

mind.

In regards to her educational transition, she struggled with some things more than others.

She doesn’t remember being completely lost in class, like the students in the videos we have

watched in class this semester who didn’t know what was being said and therefore didn’t know

what to do for homework and exams. She remembers watching and following along with what

the other students around her were doing, and also following the teacher’s gestures and body

language. She did this in order to figure out what was going on in the class, until her her English

proficiency was better. Something she had a lot of trouble with was writing assignments, which

in class we have seen is common. We learned that emergent bilinguals usually develop basic

interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) before they achieve cognitive academic language

proficiency (CALP), which was the case for Hyunjin. In order to achieve CALP, she was placed

in ESL classes from 4th to 6th grade. In these classes, she remembers having lots of discussion

with the other two emergent bilinguals in the class. One of these students was from Korea as

well, which was very helpful to her academic success in the class. The other emergent bilingual

was from India, which she thought was a great experience to learn about another culture other

than North American culture. Like we talked about in class where we learned techniques on how

to make emergent bilinguals feel welcome in the classroom, Jang participated in cultural show

and tell in her ESL class. To share her culture with the class, she wore a Hanbok, which is a

traditional Korean dress. Through practices like this in her ESL classes, she found herself
developing English proficiency by 6th grade (1 year and 2 months after arriving). At this point

she was taken out of ESL classes.

With this new information in mind, we compared Jang’s experience with our own

(Kelsey and Susie). Our schools in the United States never stressed the importance of a second

language. Before high school, if a language class was even offered, it was an elective or a very

trivial class. A second language did not seem like an important thing to gain until high school,

and still then a lot of students were not driven to become bilingual. Being bilingual, even today

in America, is not seen as a necessity. Unlike Jang, we always knew the language that our

teachers were speaking, and we could count on students in our classes speaking our same

language. We didn’t have to rely on observing body language nor relying on context clues to

figure out what was going on. Our academic success was not dependent on our language

proficiency. In Jang’s ESL classes, in addition to helping her get used to all English classes, she

also learned all about different cultures and their values. In comparison to our regular classes, we

learned very little about cultures other than our own. Learning about cultures of the world can

give you a holistic perspective that others don’t have. This more developed outlook and

acceptance of new experiences leads emergent bilinguals to be more open minded when it comes

to other cultures. This is a big advantage as a result of being bilingual. Because of this, Jang’s

mind is most likely more developed and knowledgeable about culture and language than we

are.

In closing we asked Jang how it was for her being an emergent bilingual in the United

States of America. She expressed that there are some benefits and disadvantages for being one.

She feels that the combination of coming here at a young age and also being an emergent

bilingual has made her a more open minded individual in regards to accepting other people’s
languages, cultures, and differences. However, she feels that her move to America has had some

negative effects. As we talked about in class, the learning of a second language usually costs

them much of their knowledge about their heritage language. This is a result of the American

education system not supporting continual practice and taking them out of ESL classes as soon

as they are “proficient” in English. Since the beginning of her educational career in America, she

has been a translator for her parents between the English and Korean languages. She has

developed a good foundation with translanguaging through school and home. Jang has said that

she has started to notice a slip in her Korean proficiency, and feels the language is not as easy as

it once was. She finds herself having trouble thinking of words in Korean when trying to

translate words from English to her parents. Overall, Jang feels like she is stuck in the middle.

She feels as though she isn’t fully a part of the English culture, but also feels like she is losing

sight of her heritage culture and language. She has talked to other emergent bilinguals, and they

agree with this frustrating situation.

With us being monolingual, and not having lived in another country/culture, we may be

less open minded to new cultures and languages than Jang. By not having the same exposure to

culture and language that she has had, our minds are not as open to new things and changes in

our everyday language and values. So, what are we supposed to do about this? We think that

ESL classes should continue even after the emergent bilingual is “proficient” in the minds of

their teachers. They should continue to take those classes in order to help them gain more

knowledge on their new culture and language. We also think that in general there should be a

requirement to take culturally informative courses in school, from a young age in order for

students to gain a more full experience and knowledge of culture. This will ensure a more
educated and well rounded future generation, that is more accepting of different cultures and

languages, since our country is so diverse.

As future teachers, we saw this interview as very eye-opening because we were able to

hear a first hand experience of what it was like to migrate here and be an emergent bilingual in

the U.S.. With these struggles and benefits in mind, we can now accommodate as future

educators and understand what is going on in the mind of our students. To be a successful and

effective teacher, we must be knowledgeable of all cultures and languages, and know how to

teach these diverse students. Every emergent bilingual has a different story, and it is our job to

make sure every student is successful no matter what that story is.