Keeping in mind the parental goals, motivations, and positioning of the HL, I now focus
specifically on the language practices of parents and children, examining first parental efforts to provide HL exposure (Chapter 5) and then parental efforts to make their children use and further learn the HL (Chapter 6). I attempt to answer questions such as: Considering their resources, are the parents able to maintain any aspect of the HL for their children? What practices do they use? Does HL loss occur? What does it look like? Are there differences between all-‐immigrant and mixed-‐marriage families? What roles do children, parents, schools, peers, and other people or institutions play? What conditions contribute to HL retention and HL loss? Does transnationalism of these parents encourage HL maintenance?
Research shows that exposure to HL is one of the major factors in HL maintenance (Baker, 2011; García, 2009; Nesteruk, 2010). In an ideal case, children are exposed to the HL in multiple contexts, such as at home, at school, and within a wider community of HL speakers (in an ethnic neighborhood, church, and other public spaces). Providing children with sufficient exposure to the HL, with the use of multiple strategies, was a major pursuit of the parents in this study. Milada, for example, believed that the children’s proficiency is “almost 100% related to the time they spend... speaking one or [the] other language.” Similarly, Lucie saw the major hindrance for the HL learning being “not exposing [the children to the HL] enough.” In mixed-‐marriage families, this endeavor constituted a major challenge because the mother was typically the only source of the language for the children. In all-‐immigrant families, this task was generally easier because both parents were able to use the HL language at home. Instead, the all-‐ immigrant families faced the dilemma of whether to seek an early exposure to English for the children
question of whether it was possible to secure sufficient resources to teach and practice the language; it also involved the dilemma of whether it was desirable to focus fully on the HL within the family.
The methods of providing HL exposure included mainly 1) parental use of the HL, 2) taking transnational trips and bringing grandparents to visit in the United States, 3) arranging playdates with friends from the same linguistic background, and finally 4) other strategies for additional exposure to the HL, such as reading books, watching Czech and Slovak movies, listening to songs in the HL, and using the Internet. Each one of these strategies presented specific challenges, generally more profound in the mixed-‐marriage families.
Parental Use of the Heritage Language
Home was the most important place of exposure, both for mixed and all-‐immigrant families. Naturally, the task of HL learning and retention was more easily accomplished in families where both parents were of Czech or Slovak heritage, if they used the HL. In all but one family (Stanislav), the immigrant parents started using exclusively the HL with the children. However, not all the parents continued using only the HL with the children, although it was the original plan for most of them. Different parents voiced different reasons for using English in addition to, or instead of, the HL at home. In addition, the choice of day care venue affected children’s HL fluency. Some parents deliberately stayed at home with their young children in order to increase children’s exposure to the HL. Taken together, these factors combined – the type of family, the usage of the HL by the parents, and the choice of childcare – helped explain a great deal of the differences in children’s HL use. Since family composition played the largest role in the home language use, I first discuss HL use in all-‐immigrant homes and then in mixed-‐marriage families.
All-‐immigrant Families. In all-‐immigrant families, the task of HL maintenance was easier simply because no English was generally spoken at the homes, at least in the beginning, supporting the literature claiming that children from intact families have greater chance to retain the HL (Alba et al., 2002; Lee & Suarez, 2009; Portes & Hao, 1998). Five families in the sample were all-‐immigrant, where both parents were either Czech or Slovak (Jarmila, Bohdana, Diana, Anděla, and Helena). In all of these families both parents started out using exclusively the HL at home with their children. Jarmila, for example, shared that it was natural for them to speak only Slovak at home: “We just do what feels natural… but I would never force him to [speak Slovak].” However, each family mentioned the dilemma of how much English to introduce for their children and when. Bohdana, for example, shared her earlier concern that too much focus on Slovak might be negatively affecting her sons’ English.
We were saying with my husband that… we perhaps need to stop this [focus on Slovak] so the children can start developing their English more… well… but many people point out to us that… (…) English comes naturally to them… and if we want to keep the Slovak language… we should… speak as much Slovak as possible. So we are trying to do that. (Bohdana)
The responses to the dilemma differed widely across the families: In some cases parents enrolled the children in a half-‐day preschool, in some cases they let them watch TV in English, and still other parents began using English with the children themselves. Altogether, however, these efforts to aid children with English resulted in less exposure to the HL, affecting the children’s HL proficiency.
All-‐immigrant families that limited the children’s exposure to English. Parents in three traditional immigrant families (Jarmila, Bohdana, and Diana) kept using the HL exclusively even as their children grew, while at the same time limiting the children’s exposure to English. In all three families the parents decided to provide children with some – but not overwhelmingly too much – exposure to English prior to kindergarten, maintaining daily conversations at home strictly in Slovak. Diana explains why some English for the children was necessary:
You know… I cannot keep [the children] in a vacuum and not teach them any English when I know they are going to school. I can’t have them be behind, you know? Like I know they can learn fast but I didn’t want to throw them into school with no English! (Diana)
Bohdana and Diana stayed at home with their small children until about age 3 and then opted to enroll their children in a short-‐day preschool as the first and only strategy of exposure to English.
Similarly, Jarmila and Juraj’s son had a strong early exposure to Slovak because the parents came to the United States when their child was 4 years old. Upon their arrival, they didn’t feel comfortable enrolling their son in day care because he had no previous experience with English thinking the transition would be too hard for him. Instead, the father stayed at home with the boy for one year prior to kindergarten to let the son familiarize himself with English in a less abrupt way. Juraj explains: “So he only learned the English… like at playgrounds, in contact with other children and… he watched TV in English, of course, the children’s programs.” Juraj also read children’s books in English to his son at that time, which supplied the boy with just enough English that he could participate in kindergarten the following year.
In all three cases, Slovak was the language children used and heard most often every day until age 5, and they all became fluent in Slovak prior to encountering English. The process of learning one language first and then adding another one is called “sequential bilingualism” (Baker, 2011; García, 2009), as opposed to “simultaneous bilingualism” where both languages are learned at the same time. Today, children from these families now belong to the most fluent in the HL in the sample.
The initial limited exposure to English resulted in the children’s lack of fluency in English when entering kindergarten. In each of these families, at least the older child (each one now 7, 9, and 15 years old) had qualified for ESL classes. The situation with the younger children was different, because they picked up and used more English at an early age from their older siblings, supporting the literature on birth order as a factor in HL maintenance (Fillmore, 1991; Shin, 2002). Still, the first-‐born children mastered English within a few years, perhaps with the assistance of their HL. They have developed
concepts in both languages. For Jarmila and Juraj’s son, the transition was quite easy. Even with just one year of a “playground exposure” to English, he took ESL for only one year and today (when 15 years old) English is his dominant language. Juraj added: “Yes, he takes honors English… and gets straight A’s.”
In the case of these three families, limiting exposure to English early on seems to have had a positive effect on HL maintenance, while it did not have a detrimental effect on the children’s English language acquisition and proficiency. What is more, the results suggest that in cases where the two languages have differential power and prestige (Fishman, 2001; Tse, 2001b), the HL requires a major head start if it is to be maintained. In these three cases, the children reached fluency in the minority language prior to any major exposure to English, the dominant language. The initial focus on the minority language allowed children develop concepts in Slovak firmly, helping them to retain the language longer. When the opportunities to learn and use the two languages are unequal, as is the case of Slovak and English in the United States, strongly limiting the exposure to the dominant language is beneficial for HL maintenance while not detrimental to English learning and acquisition.
All-‐immigrant families that provided more exposure to English. Parents in two all-‐immigrant families (Anděla and Helena) have used some English with the children, resulting in a much lower fluency in these children compared to the three families discussed above. Anděla and her husband began using a mix of Czech and English to the children early on for two major reasons. First, Anděla often used the language in which the word was easier to pronounce and to understand for the child; she would insert English words into her Czech sentences when speaking to her children. Anděla explains:
When the word contained things like ‘ř’… when they were small I didn’t want to use it because I just knew that they couldn’t pronounce it and that… simply that they wouldn’t remember it anyway if they couldn’t say it… (…) So I always just skipped the word… and said it in English.
them, let them watch TV in English, and play English computer games. Neither one of her daughters attended ESL classes, but Anděla thought it possible that at school, “in case they didn’t know [the answer in English] they perhaps just kept quiet or something, rather than saying it in Czech.” Today, the parents still use a mixture of Czech and English to the children, perhaps speaking more English than Czech at home. Anděla explains further reasoning for their current approach:
It’s also because… they don’t know all the words, and... because when one is in a hurry or wants to say a lot of things at once then I don’t have time to stop and explain to them what the words mean… in Czech. (Anděla)
Helena also used English to her son. Her story reveals the possible impact of an abrupt transition from one language to another. Helena and all other family caretakers spoke exclusively Czech to the son (now 12 years old) until he reached about age 2. Then, Helena recalled:
I placed him in a day care because I had to go to work, and he stopped speaking entirely. He stopped communicating… and I… for the fear he would be behind and… started speaking English to him. (…) I was afraid he… simply that he might fall behind! (…) I don’t know, I think I
panicked… that I just didn’t want him to have… any gaps (…) I simply made an effort to get him to the same level [of English] with his classmates in the preschool, you know? So I actually practiced only English with him. (Helena)
At that time, Helena and all other family members began speaking exclusively in English to the boy and this practice remained until present. Helena shared other immigrant mothers had told her they never spoke English to their children, suggesting that English was a task for schools to take care of. However, Helena is aware of the difficulties children may face in schools if they do not know any English. She says: “Then, you know, I talk to with some of them… and they have problems! And the kids get placed into ESL because they are behind [in] English! And I didn’t want it because I went to ESL class.“ Helena was the only immigrant in this study who arrived in the United States as a teenager. She
attended an ESL class in high school and experienced the difficulties of trying to master a subject matter while still struggling with English. She wanted to make her son’s schooling easier. Unfortunately, as she
admits, her son does have difficulties with English today, which is something she had tried to avoid in the first place by sacrificing the HL entirely for that purpose. Helena reflects:
It’s hard... I am always telling him: ‘You don’t even have an excuse [for the low grades in English]… that you would speak Czech! You don’t even speak Czech!’ Like… you know? He understands but does not speak [Czech]. (Helena)
Although the son never spoke Czech, he can understand a general topic of conversation. Helena and Hynek speak Czech with each other, but they switch into English when the conversation involves their son or when they speak directly to him. Helena recalled that her son would at times say to the parents: “You think that I don’t understand you, but I know what you are saying!” Other times, he would ask for the meaning of a particular Czech word they just used.
In both these families, parents used certain amount of English when speaking to the children, mainly to help their children become proficient in English. In neither case did these children attend ESL classes, but today they are much less fluent in the HL than children in the immigrant families that avoided the use of English at home. Anděla’s children typically speak a phrase or a specific word in Czech, while Helena’s son does not speak Czech at all. In addition, Helena’s situation demonstrates that an abrupt abandonment of a language prior to its full acquisition may have severe consequences for the child’s language development in both HL and English. Linguists define “semi-‐lingualism” as an
insufficient command of either language (Baker, 2011).
Summary of all-‐immigrant families. The experiences of all-‐immigrant families document the parents’ struggle of balancing the two languages. All families opted for some exposure to English prior to kindergarten, although the degree of exposure differed widely among participants. In general, parents perceived a rivalry or opposition between the two languages. In some cases, English was not used at home and exposure to English was generally limited so as not to interfere with HL learning; in other
Parents made decisions based on their priorities but also based on their beliefs as to how long it takes to acquire the dominant language and how. Helena herself experienced learning of English as a difficult process and she wished to make life easier for her son. Diana and Bohdana, on the other hand, believed the children would learn the majority language easily. This confidence led them to focus on the HL.
At the time of the fieldwork, the children in families that focused more on the HL retained the HL better than in the families where parents switched to English. The differences among the all-‐ immigrant families are displayed in table 7. Parental HL use and a choice of day care provide a strong explanation for the children’s fluency. Jarmila’s son is the most fluent child in the sample, and Helena’s the least fluent. Both Bohdana’s and Diana’s children still have a strong command of Slovak, while Anděla’s children are not especially fluent in Czech.
Table 7. Home HL exposure in all-‐immigrant families When speaking to children,
immigrant parents use: No preschool Half-‐day preschool Full-‐day day care
Mostly HL Jarmila
Helena (first 2 years) Bohdana, Diana
Both HL and English Anděla
Only English Helena (after son
turned 2)
Although al parents deem some exposure to English necessary, many of them deliberately chose to wait with introducing English as long as possible. On one hand, a strong focus on the HL has led to the initial lack of fluency in English and enrollment in ESL classes. However, as documented in the case of Jarmila’s son and to a lesser degree in Diana’s children, it did not prevent the children from excelling in school over time. In fact, the impact of the monolingual environment is so strong that for all children English has become or is becoming their dominant language, supporting previous findings about a rapid shift to English among second-‐generation immigrants (Kouritzin, 1999; Portes & Hao, 2002; Rumbaut, 2009). It appears that a major head start in the form of a strong early foundation in the HL, or the route
of “sequential bilingualism” (Baker, 2011), is necessary in order to maintain the HL in the face of the dominant language (Tse, 2001b). This is especially true for minority language with a lower prestige and opportunities for use, such as Czech or Slovak.
On the other hand, more emphasis on English early on has led to a sharp decline in the children’s HL use and to an even earlier shift towards English. Anděla and Helena markedly prioritized English development over the HL and their children now have a limited vocabulary in the HL or do not speak the language at all. It might be only a coincidence that the first three families are all Slovak, while