March 22, 2011
What a joy to have a conversation partner. Her name is Anwar and she is from Saudi Arabia. For several months I have been learning about Middle Eastern culture, since I traveled to Kuwait and am looking for a job there. My husband tells me about learning from a man’s perspective being invited to dewaniyas. A dewaniya is a gathering of men discussing business. The women there generally are not invited, so I am finally learning about a woman’s life.
Anwar has a Master’s degree in financial mathematics. We could not be more mismatched in our professional backgrounds. She wants to learn to speak English more proficiently, so she can converse with international colleagues when she completes her Ph.D.
Anwar and her husband have a nineteen month old son which is my favorite age child. She had questions about his development of language. She says he no longer uses Arabic words and she is concerned that he will forget his native language. I was able to help her understand that he is using his “new” language words and not saying his Arabic words, as he learns to “fit in” at his new school. He will not forget if she keeps saying them to him. I was able to suggest ways she and her husband could promote his Arabic and English language. Children who hear more than one language lag behind American development standards as young children, but are bilingual by Kindergarten if they continue to hear both languages.
I wish people in the United States would learn more than one language as they grow up as people in other countries do. I look forward to helping Anwar and learning from her.
What a great opportunity to learn more about life from an Arab woman's perspective. It is nice you can provide some counseling about her child as well. What a cultural adjustment this is for her and her family!
ReplyDeleteI think that your Conversation Partner Anwar sounds fascinating and incredibly intelligent. I like your ideas on incorporating language into the development of small children, aiding in the pursuit of bilingual ability at an early age. It would make a profound difference in our country if we implicated similar traditions of educational development. In my opinion, we'd all be better off in the future if our country would take similar steps towards educating the youth in idioms at an early age.
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