I am a South Korean, who grew up in the
Philippines speaking English and Tagalog, attending a Chinese school. I have
also studied Spanish and have lived in many Latin American countries. When I
was a child, people have told me that I was fortunate that I was exposed to a
multilingual environment and that I was able to learn many languages all at the
same time. I learned and spoke four languages at the same time as a child and
decided to study Spanish in college. However, looking back, when I was younger,
I did not appreciate knowing more than one language. To me, language did not
seem like a tool of communication to form relationships, but it felt like a false
key to make connections with people and surrounding. Even though I spoke
Tagalog fluently with no distinguishable accent, Filipino people did not fully
accept me as part of their community because I looked different. At my Chinese
school, I spoke Chinese fluently like a native speaker and I also looked quite
similar to them. I sang Chinese songs and participated in all kinds of cultural
activities at school for 10 academic years since kindergarten. However, I still
was not accepted as part of that community despite my proficiency in the
language. The worst dilemma during my childhood was when my parents took me to
Korea to visit my relatives. Everyone viewed me as Korean because I spoke the
language fluently. Even though the Korean community accepted me, my inner self
did not accept my full identity as a Korean. Therefore, when I was younger, I
believed that language was a hindrance in my identity formation. As a child,
language felt like a false hope to me to make connection to the community that
I was in.
However, as time passed by, this sense of
belonging falsely slowly subsided, especially when I came to the United States
at the age of 16. At this age, I began to develop my worldviews and I slowly
began to realize and to appreciate the benefits of “multiple memberships”
(Canagarajah, 2007, p. 930). I also found that this whole time as I was growing
up, whether intentionally or unintentionally, I was using language to build identity and establish relationships with people.
Growing up, I tried to speak the native
language of whomever I was interacting with, because I wanted them to accept me
as part of their community through my language use. I even used certain language
forms and vocabulary words to adapt to different groups to reflect my identity
as a “full-native” as a Korean, Filipino, or Chinese depending on the context.
Although growing up, my knowledge and ability to use multiple languages created
a complex identity, nevertheless, I was able to relate with and understand many
different people and cultures. This was possible because I was affiliated with
all the language groups. While living in the Philippines as a foreigner, I felt
the need to maintain my Korean language and culture. When I visited Korea, I
was proud to share the Filipino and Chinese culture and language.
Aside from identity development and
relationship formation with people through language, I have experienced what
many linguistics researchers would refer to as code-switching, interlanguaging,
or language transfer. Since I was
younger, I have constantly used “mixed” languages, combining or replacing
Korean, English, Tagalog, and Chinese words, whenever I could not think of a
specific word in a particular language when speaking to someone. Newmark and
Riebel (1968) say that second language (L2) speakers switch to their first
language (L1) when they are faced with communicative problems. However, my language
situation is unique. I have not exactly been “switching” from my L2 to L1 or
vice versa, because until this day, I cannot clearly distinguish my L1 or my
heritage language (HL). As Canagarajah describes (2007), “people develop
simultaneous childhood multilingualism, making it difficult to say which
language comes first” (p. 931); he adds that for these multilingual children,
“it is difficult to identify one’s mother tongue or native language” (p. 930).
On the one hand, because I have these different languages available for use and
for switching, I have a broader range of words to choose from whenever I want
to transfer languages. On the other hand, I feel like I was not able to fully
master one language. I am also not able to exactly indicate my L1 or my HL,
because to me, I acquired these languages all at the same time, and I
personally value all these languages equally and as part of my identity.
Since determining the order of my
language acquisition is challenging, I decided to focus on evaluating my
language competence. Specifically, I began to search for language assessment
tools to examine HL competence, such as comprehension and production skills. I
decided to focus on HL instead of L1 or L2, because I found that there are not a lot of studies done on HL
assessment. In fact, there is a lack
of materials in testing HL competence; there is no standard assessment tool
developed to specifically target HL proficiency. Moreover, there is not enough
research conducted to examine the relationship between HL speakers’ language
performance and their academic performance. The American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and other foreign language tests could be
used to test HL competence, but I wonder about the relevancy of using these
tests to truly assess HL speakers’ language performance. In addition to
insufficient research on how to examine HL competence, there is a great need in developing materials
and exploring the impact of learning and maintaining heritage language on
learners’ social and academic life.
Once
I receive my MATESOL degree at the Monterey Institute of International Studies,
I hope to do further research on heritage language assessment. My goal is to
develop a language assessment tool designed to examine HL competence (separately)
and possibly the combined competence
of two languages (HL and another language). My vision was inspired by my recent
test review on Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (BVAT), which attempts to assess
individual’s verbal cognitive ability of two languages combined (Muñoz-Sardoval,
Cummins, Alvarado, & Ruef, 1998). Many
monolingual tests only measure a person’s ability in one language at a time, but
the BVAT tries to examine the full bilingual verbal ability of individuals
(English and another language). This test attempts to address some of the
equity issues in educating bilingual students in the U.S., specifically to make
sound placement decisions of bilingual students to avoid misplacing them into
special education programs because of their lack of knowledge in a particular
language. Although BVAT examines two language proficiencies of individuals, I
believe that HL competence should be addressed differently and separately,
because it involves other sociolinguistic factors.
Everyday,
the number of children with one or multiple HL skills increases due to
globalization and migration. As an applied linguistics and sociolinguistics
researcher, as well as a speaker of many HLs, I not only envision designing an
HL assessment tool, but I also hope to investigate the
academic and social impact of HL. For example, I want to know how learners
perform at school and in society when their HL competence is emphasized.
Through my language assessment graduate education
at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, under the guidance of Dr.
Kathleen M. Bailey, I am equipped to design a language assessment tool and to
conduct various statistical studies to strengthen the test. Recently, I created
an original placement exam with scoring criteria for the ESL Department of my
alma mater, which includes both objective and subjectively scored tests,
addressing five language constructs (listening comprehension, reading
comprehension, grammar, writing skills, and oral skills), as well as conducting
validity and reliability statistical tests. Not only do I have the knowledge
and experience developing different types of tests and methods of scoring, but
I also have the skills to analyze washback, test bias, and the components of language
tests using various frameworks, such as Weshe’s (1983) four components and
Swain’s (1984) four principles of communicative language test development.
References
Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua franca
English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition.
Modern Language Journal, 91, 923–939.
Muñoz-Sardoval, A. F., Cummins, J., Alvarado, C. G.,
& Ruef, M. L. (1998). Bilingual
Verbal Ability
Tests, Comprehensive Manual.
Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing.
Newmark, L., & Riebel, D. (1968). Necessity
and sufficiency in language learning. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching,
6, 145–164.
