Interview with a Bilingual
INTRODUCTION
This report presents an interview with a bilingual called H.D . H.D. is a daughter of a Turkish immigrant family who lived in Australia for 12 years .H.D. gives examples from her personal life about how she became bilingual background , the challenges of second language acquisition , benefits and the role of languages in her life.
H.D was asked the following questions : (a) Could you please explain how you became bilingual? (b) Could you describe the bilingual environment you grew up in? (c) Which language do you feel more confident in speaking? And why? (d) How did you develop your reading and writing skills in both languages and what kind of challenges did you face during the learning process? (e) How did you feel as a bilingual child ? Did you ever feel special or have any negative feelings ? (f) Could you please compare your fluency and accuracy in both languages ? (g) In what ways do you think being raised bilingual has made you different from others who were raised monolingual?
AN INTERVIEW WITH A SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL
Bilingualism may be defined as having some ability to use two or more languages. However, there are degrees of bilingualism and various ways to become bilingual. According to Halsband (2006), infants who are exposed to two languages from birth will become simultaneous bilinguals. In contrast, consecutive or successive bilingualism refers to the learning of one language after already knowing another. This is the situation for all those who become bilingual as adults, as well as for many who became bilingual earlier in life.
Crystal (1997) estimates that there are about 235 million bilingual people worldwide and that two thirds of the children in the world are raised in bilingual environments.
H.D is one of those who was born and grew up in a bilingual environment. As our interview commenced the first question was about H.D’s bilingual background focusing on what kind of bilingual environment she grew up in and
This report presents an interview with a bilingual called H.D . H.D. is a daughter of a Turkish immigrant family who lived in Australia for 12 years .H.D. gives examples from her personal life about how she became bilingual background , the challenges of second language acquisition , benefits and the role of languages in her life.
H.D was asked the following questions : (a) Could you please explain how you became bilingual? (b) Could you describe the bilingual environment you grew up in? (c) Which language do you feel more confident in speaking? And why? (d) How did you develop your reading and writing skills in both languages and what kind of challenges did you face during the learning process? (e) How did you feel as a bilingual child ? Did you ever feel special or have any negative feelings ? (f) Could you please compare your fluency and accuracy in both languages ? (g) In what ways do you think being raised bilingual has made you different from others who were raised monolingual?
AN INTERVIEW WITH A SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL
Bilingualism may be defined as having some ability to use two or more languages. However, there are degrees of bilingualism and various ways to become bilingual. According to Halsband (2006), infants who are exposed to two languages from birth will become simultaneous bilinguals. In contrast, consecutive or successive bilingualism refers to the learning of one language after already knowing another. This is the situation for all those who become bilingual as adults, as well as for many who became bilingual earlier in life.
Crystal (1997) estimates that there are about 235 million bilingual people worldwide and that two thirds of the children in the world are raised in bilingual environments.
H.D is one of those who was born and grew up in a bilingual environment. As our interview commenced the first question was about H.D’s bilingual background focusing on what kind of bilingual environment she grew up in and
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