Contents

Оlga Litvinova

SHINING MY LIGHT

ON BILINGUALISM AND FULBRIGHT

© Litvinova Оlga, 2023

PREFACE

December 1, 2022

Yerevan, Armenia, 2:58pm

Back in 2017 when I started my Fulbright journey in the U.S.,

I had no idea I would begin writing my first-ever book based on a part of my research project here in the Armenian capital where I have been living for almost two months now. Bilingualism is indeed such a tricky and mysterious phenomenon that you genuinely never know where in the world you would find yourself thinking (and writing) about it. Actually, Armenia is a good place for writing about bilingualism as you are exposed to it in different corners of the capital. As I am in the post-Soviet space, one of the languages I (happily) see in Yerevan’s streets making this city and country feel so emotionally and linguistically accommodating is my «language of the heart», which is Russian. There is also English, the language that I have been teaching for more than 10 years now.

I am writing this foreword here in Mirzoyan Library, a 19^th century building now functioning as an art gallery and a cafe, enjoying this perfect quiet setting for doing what would definitely be my dream job. My current soundscape is multilingual as I can hear Armenian, Russian, and some English being spoken. Sitting at a vintage sewing table, I feel like a seamstress who is about to start working on putting together all the ingredients of this book. Honestly, I am terrible at sewing, but hopefully I am better with words than I am with a thread and a needle.

As much as I love putting words on paper (or rather typing them on my keyboard), I have always been too scared to even think of writing a book. I grew up as a humble kid in the post-Soviet Russia in a family that was neither noble nor rich. Probably the idea that writing was something only privileged wealthy people could afford to do was drummed into my brain at school where we were told that it took an enormous level of geniusness (matching those of great classical Russian writers) to even dare contemplate doing this.

As a kid, I also thought bilingualism was not something people like us (living in a small town not far from the Russia-Ukraine border) would ever contemplate either. Just as with writing, I used to believe bilinguals were some privileged individuals who traveled a lot and lived generally exciting lives and as some great Russian writers, mostly came from noble and rich families. Growing up listening to my parents and grandparents speaking a dialect, which was a mix of Russian and Ukrainian, I never realized my mundane linguistic experiences were at least a tiny bit similar to those of bilinguals. Now here I am –– writing a book about bilingualism in my second language!

In 2017 I won the Fulbright scholarship to collect data for my PhD research project on second language writing which involved the use of a mix of quantitatitve and qualitatitve methods. The interview project that I will be presenting in this book was meant to become part of this «bigger» study. However, in the process of interviewing bilinguals and listening to their stories, I realized that «smaller» project was a lot more interesting to me. Probably that was because deep down inside I wasn’t sure I felt totally comfortable with quantitative research methods, while this qualitatitve project was a way to embrace my long-standing passion for journalism.

It really takes crises of varying scale for some ideas to materialize and for others to be put on hold. Due to some internal and external uncertainties, my «bigger» research project hasn’t materialized into a PhD paper yet. As for the «smaller» project, even in the process of working on it, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to this material presenting it in the impersonal tone of research papers. Living in Armenia amidst a political turmoil in my home country in 2022, I got inspired to make this «smaller» interview project part of my debut book.

What you are going to read is my «diplomatic» way of marrying storytelling and research. If we think about the first part of this book as a painting, all the 51 bilinguals and the summaries of those interviews I conducted with them back in the U.S. are in its foreground, while my reflections on how I met each of my «cha­racters» (who would have been impersonal Participant 1, Participant 2, etc. in a PhD paper) as well as on my time as a Fulbrighter in the U.S. are in the background. In the second part of the book I dwell on the issues surrounding language learning and teaching and present some research studies in this area. In the third part I discuss some problems related to bilingualism which are not directly associated with language learning and teaching but are central to it as well. These are the topics concerning identity, culture, and politics.

I am perfectly aware of all the challenges of bringing a book into this world in the current situation when as a Russian, English teacher, translator, researcher, writer, and a Fulbrighter, I am really struggling with how to position myself in this rapidly changing world. On the other hand, what the insanity of the last couple of years has taught us is that life is so fragile and we never know what tomorrow brings. So, now at the age of 34 I finally have enough courage to put into a book all the ideas informed by all the research reading I have done over these years as well as those inspired by my personal experiences and interactions with like-minded individuals.

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK?

The book is organized into chapters. The first one includes the interviews with 51 bilinguals that are presented in the chronological order they were conducted in. Readers can study the summaries of the interviews in any order they wish.

The second chapter presents the analysis of the interviews as well as some studies on the topics that came up in my talks with the 51 bilinguals. The first part deals with some issues regarding language learning and teaching. The second one looks at some «non-linguistic» problems that have to be dealt with while discussing bilingualism. These are related to identity, culture, and politics.

Each of the chapters and their parts can be read separately or in any other order.

WHO IS THE BOOK FOR?

First of all, if you are reading this, you are most likely bilingual. So, I hope that this book will be interesting for bilinguals and everyone interested in language learning. I would also like to think fellow language teachers and linguists will be able to reflect on the issues I cover in the book. As they are mostly interdisciplinary, it would be amazing if fellow researchers with the background in social sciences are able to examine how closely interrelated our fields are. Last but not the least, I hope that fellow Fulbrighters (with any background) will enjoy this book and will be invited to reflect on their own experiences.

The research project presented in this book was funded by a Fulbright grant from the United States Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of State.

This study has been approved by the Montclair State University Institutional Review Board, study no. FY17-18-800. Prior to participation, all the participants were informed of the purpose of the research and signed a consent form allowing the researcher to make the recordings of the interviews publicly available as well as to use the collected data in other studies.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1. INTERVIEWS WITH BILINGUALS

PART 1.1. WHO DO WE CONSIDER BILINGUAL? 11

PART 1.2. HOW WAS MY DATA COLLECTED? 14

Interview questions 14

Interviews as a research method 14

PART 1.3. MEET MY BILINGUALS!

Me and my life-long commitment to English (Olga, Russia) 20

A charming and super educated bilingual (Apoorva, India) 26

A humble and a hard-working bilingual (Masumi, Japan) 30

A level-headed bilingual full of determination to succeed

(Sharifullah, Afghanistan) 33

A European’s experience with English (Milena, Austria) 35

Inspired by a teacher (Geetanjali, India) 38

A multilingual and multicultural future psycholinguist

(Jonathan, Malaysia) 39

A Latin American with an American accent (Pedro, Paraguay) 42

A brave researcher willing to make sacrifices

(Jelena, Montenegro) 44

A smart and polite bilingual gentleman (Naseer, Afghanistan) 47

A fellow linguist on a thorny journey to English

(Julia, Hungary) 49

Sophistication, intelligence, and style (Dania, Jordan) 52

Navigating the multilingual New Jersey (Alejandra, Colombia) 54

A routine life in Spanish and English (Samantha, USA) 56

A researcher experiencing bilingualism in Asia and the U.S.

(Suqin, China) 58

A dreamy bilingual with lots of stories to tell

(Angelo, Timor-Leste) 60

Being a bilingual in «the Windy City» (Cristina, Mexico) 63

Bilingualism as a family tradition (Marcus, Malaysia) 65

Building a life between two different languages and cultures

(Shazia, Pakistan, USA) 66

Balancing two languages and cultures as a heritage speaker

of Spanish (Natalie, USA) 68

Attempting to be a heritage speaker of Russian in the U.S.

(Rebecca, USA) 70

A translator living with two languages back home

and in the U.S. (Marta, Spain) 72

Slow but consistent adjustment to living in the U.S.

(Carmen, Peru) 74

A Pole and American at a time (Joanna, Poland, USA) 75

Building relations with each of your languages (Krisha, USA) 78

A Russian integrated into the American student culture

(Anna, Russia) 81

An American exposing some prejudice against bilingualism

in the U.S. (Alana, USA) 83

Neither totally American nor totally Latino (Genidi, USA) 85

Adopting a businesslike approach to bilingualism

(Saffet, Turkey) 87

An articulate and outspoken heritage speaker of Spanish

(Rebecca, USA) 89

A colleague from my former job and her bilingual experiences

(Yekaterina, Russia) 92

Methodically becoming bilingual (Lyu, China) 95

Friendships as a path to bilingualism (Jorge, Peru) 97

Postgraduate studies and bilingualism (Saeed, Iran) 98

Bilingualism with a Sicilian flavor (Francesca, Italy) 100

Four Nashville Interviews 102

A strategic way to deal with a foreign language

(Bashir, Afghanistan) 102

Living in between indigenous and foreign languages

(Ruzza, Indonesia) 105

An empowering male teacher of English (Wilson, Colombia) 106

Living a bilingual life in Africa (Ahmed, Sudan) 108

Bilingualism encouraged by family (Juan Manuel, Argentina) 110

A male dreaming of bilingualism and foreign language

teaching (Jorge, Spain) 111

A strong bilingual female forging an international career

(Kristi, Georgia) 113

A lady with ambitions of becoming a polyglot

(Mariam, Syria) 116

An American forming mindful connections

with foreign languages (Tristan, USA) 119

Talking to three native speakers of French,

la langue de l’amour 122

A French-Conglosese lady set to make a global difference

(Estelle, France) 123

Bilingualism as a utilitarian and geopolitical tool

for building international bridges (Magda, France, Algeria) 124

Legally bilingual (Cathy, France, Senegal) 127

A bilingual «chica» who knows her way around the world

(Erika, Ecuador) 129

Using a foreign language at work and in the household

(Nina, Russia) 131

Successfully overcoming the fear of embracing bilingualism

(Minsun, Korea) 134

An American about to experience a new language on another continent for the first time in her life (Natalie, USA) 136

A reflective English teacher on bilingualism

(Candelia, Argentina) 138

CHAPTER 2. ISSUES SURROUNDING BILINGUALISM

PART 2.1. LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING AS A JOURNEY

What is the right age to start learning a second language? 141

What kind of difficulties do learners have at different stages

of learning? 143

How do learners feel as they are learning

a second language? 145

Does it take something special to become

a successful language learner? 146

Doing it on your own 150

Why do people even bother to learn languages? 152

What other languages (apart from English)

are popular ones to learn? 155

What are the benefits of learning a foreign language? 156

Language learning tips from the participants 157

And what about language teachers? 160

How do language teachers teach? 161

What did the participants say about their language teachers? 165

What is it like to be a language teacher and what is expected

of them? 169

What does the future have in store for language learning

and teaching? 174

PART 2.2. IDENTITY, CULTURE, POLITICS AS «BIG» TOPICS

Who are bilinguals and where do they belong in the world? 177

My own story with the concept of identity 177

Defining identity 179

Types of identity 182

Accent as an identity marker 190

Identity and L2 writing 192

Do you feel like a different person when you switch between languages? 195

A few thoughts on culture and politics 199

Culture (more ambiguous than it might seem) 199

Politics (more than just a passing interest for linguists) 205

Life after Fulbright: how much bilingualism is in it? 211

Epilogue. Looking into the (increasingly uncertain) future 216

Acknowledgments 219

References 222

CHAPTER 1. INTERVIEWS WITH BILINGUALS

Part 1.1. WHO DO WE CONSIDER BILINGUAL?

As there is a word «bilingualism» in the title of this book, it would make perfect sense to start by explaining what it is. Answering this question in a straightforward ways seems difficult. Put simply, bilinguals are those individuals who speak two or more languages. But obviously, there are two questions that arise –– how do we define «knowing» a language and secondly, how well is one supposed to «know» it to be called bilingual?

Modern linguists do not agree on the definition of bilingualism. The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003) proposes such a definition: «having or using two languages especially as spoken with the fluency cha­racteristic of a native speaker». There is a question of whether this proficiency level is achievable and whether individuals using a second language but not being so fluent can be considered bilingual (Liddicoat, 1991). A more diverse definition is set forth by A. Fantini (Fantini, 1985) who sees the following as essential in describing bilingualism: the number of languages used by an individual; types of relations between them; their functions; degree of proficiency; alternation of languages and interaction between them. Haugen (Haugen, 1953) attempts for an even more precise definition by classifying anyone capable of producing coherent ideas in another language as bilingual.

A rather liberal definition is suggested by Diebold (Diebold, 1964) and J. MacNamara (MacNamara, 1967) where anyone with a minimum competence in any of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) is classed as bilingual. So, as opposed to a widely held belief, beginner language learners in formal academic settings of educational institutions, or e.g., tourists with a working knowledge of a few spoken phrases can be called bilingual. Edwards (Edwards, 2006) holds that almost anyone finds themselves having to be bilingual as in order to be able to travel and take advantage of the benefits of the global world and they have to speak a language rather than their own. The same researcher (Edwards, 2003) dismisses monolingualism as a disease that has to be cured. Attempting to embrace the complexity of the term, Yuko G. Butler and Kenji Hakuta (Butler & Hakuta, 2004) believe that bilinguals are individuals with various degrees of communicative skills (in oral and/or written lan­guage) enabling communication in two or more languages in a cer­tain linguistic community.

As we can see, bilingualism has not only a linguistic but also a social nature and involves more than individual speech production but also cognitive skills, psychological features and a particular social (as well as ethnic, gender, age and cultural) identity. Most of current conceptions and studies of bilingualism are taking a variety of its social and psychological aspects into consideration. Grosjean (Gros­jean, 1989) cautions against viewing bilinguals as a sum of two monolinguals. In modern literature there is an emphasis on the fact that while working on improving their linguistic skills, bilinguals develop a whole new linguistic behaviour, which is distinctly different from that of monolinguals. Сook (Cook, 1992) speculates on a wide range of bilingual competences including cultural ones that are to be paid attention to as part of studying bilingualism.

The complexity of bilingualism led to a variety of classifications of bilinguals according to different criteria: language competences, spheres of use, balance in the use of languages, development of linguistic skills, age of learners, context of language use, etc. E.g., Peal and Lambert (Peal and Lambert, 1962) classify bilinguals into balanced and unbalanced. However, Fishman (Fishman, 1972) thinks this is an idealized view. George Steiner (Steiner, 1992) argued that he was equally good at English, French and German, i.e. he would hardly say which of the languages he would use in a particular situation, which is quite exceptional.

There are also classifications of social groups of bilinguals. Fishman (Fishman, 1972) speaks of folk bilingualism (e.g., slaves were made to learn basic Greek to talk to their masters) and elite bilingualism (e.g., in the Tsar’s Russia members of high society were taught French while growing up). Additionally, Lambert (Lambert, 1974) suggests that interactions of previous language systems and new ones cause what he calls additive (in societies where one is encouraged to learn a second language for gaining better prospects) and subtractive (an individual has to lose touch with their first lan­guage as its use is not endorsed in a particular community).

It should be remembered that bilingualism is not a static but a very dynamic category and individual bilingual profiles might shift as personal or social circumstances change. E.g., an individual might lose oral skills in a previously learned language as they start using another one more frequently instead, etc.

Originally, I was looking at interviewing bilinguals with a high (self-reported) level in the four language skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking). All of the fellow Fulbrighters I have interviewed obviously fit this description as all Fulbright candidates are expected to take the TOEFL test and get a certain overall score (depending on the requirements specified by particular host universities in the U.S.). There have also been a few English teachers from different countries whose occupation alone equalled them to the level of a confident language user.

Throughout the course of this project I realized I had to adopt a more liberal approach to who qualifies as bilingual if I wanted to get more varied perspectives on individual language learning histories. I was able to interview a few first-generation Americans who spoke their heritage languages with a varying degree of fluency, immigrants to the U.S. as well as Americans who self-reported different levels of proficiency in other languages. I felt these people’s insights would be valuable for this project as well. Everyone who participated had had prior experience of learning a foreign language and showed a great interest in the topic of bilingualism. Every participant’s interview was included into this project and I am sure each one contributed to it in its own unique way.

Part 1.2. HOW WAS MY DATA COLLECTED?

Interview questions

— Introduce yourself (your name, country of origin, what you are studying in the U.S.)

— When did you start learning English?

— What kind of difficulties did you have at different stages of learning? What did you find easy/difficult?

— Did you have a chance to use English outside the classroom?

— What was the main focus of your language instruction?

— What is your general opinion of the language instruction in your country?

— What are the attitudes to language instruction in your country?

— Would you agree that one might feel like a different person while speaking other languages and switching between them?

— How are you planning to use English in your future life?

— What tips would you give to anyone trying to learn another language?

Interviews as a research method

As I said, one of the reasons why I chose to conduct this interview project was my love for journalism where being able to talk to your interviewees effectively and reporting facts in the manner fit for a specific target audience and publication is key. Being exposed to various types of journalism (particularly political) facilitated my learning in my senior years at university to such an extent that I was secretly dreaming of pursuing a career in this domain. This never happened, but every once in a while I would pick up books on journalism.

In the attempt to become a better interviewer for a couple of projects I had in mind, I started reading one by a journalist Dean Nelson called Talk to Me: How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone Like a Pro (Nelson, 2019). One phrase he used stuck in my mind, «Asking good questions keeps us from living in our own echo chambers». What the author means is that in investigating other people’s perspectives on some issues we revisit and reevaluate our own. Nelson goes on to say that one doesn’t even have to be a professional journalist to interview others as asking questions is essentially what we do almost on a daily basis. If we are trained to formulate our questions correctly, that would be able to «draw out personalities and understandings».

Actually, interviews («qualitative interviewing», Rubin and Rubin, 2005) are a popular qualitative research tool in social sciences, including applied linguistics. This is especially the case for studies «that aim to investigate participants» identities, experiences, beliefs and orientations’ (Talmy, 2010). In the late 1960s and early 1970s narratives became an object and «a legitimate means» of doing research in history, education, anthropology, etc. (Briggs, 1986). Interviews were thought of as an effective way of eliciting different types of narratives to be investigated. This process is referred to as narrative inquiry. Of special interest have been so-called «personal speakers experiences» which draw on stories about «real, imagined, or possible events» (Pavlenko, 2007). Linguistic autobiographies as a subtype of such narratives have been one of the most common tools to study bilingualism. Different groups of bilinguals have been studied over the decades and there are a lot of papers presenting an overview of such research (e.g., Mann, 2010).

Among a huge number of studies, there were two books that I found truly inspirational for my own research into bilingualism. The first one was by a British linguist David Block called «Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories» (Block, 2006). What I loved a lot about this book that despite being rigidly structured and presenting an extensive literature review on bilingualism and second language identities in particular, it had some storytelling elements as well following different individuals (immigrants, students, teachers, etc.) as they were living through their own unique linguistic experiences with London as a platform for their adventures (with obvious ups and downs). The author was able to provide the context for all the interviews and grouped them either according to the participants’ country of origin or occupation. To me, this research appeared to be an engaging attempt to humanize bilinguals while still examining their life stories through a research lens.

Another book that fascinated me was by Alastair Pennycook and Emi Otsuji titled «Metrolingualism. Language in the City» (Alastair, Otsuji, 2015). Metrolingualism «describes the ways in which people of different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language» with the focus being «not on language systems but on languages as emergent from contexts of interaction». Sydney, the city where the research is undertaken, acts as a backdrop for new language identities transformed by «global and local practices». The authors draws a lot of attention to their diverse par­ticipants’ everyday experiences making these individuals seem like actors on the vibrant multicultural Sydney stage where multilingual street signs also serve as an essential element of the action.

Besides being a linguist and a language teacher, I am a keen traveler as well. So, I instantly fell in love with the idea of analyzing bilingualism as it is incorporated into a city’s texture as well as its soundscape and landscape. As I knew I would be living very close to NYC, I couldn’t help thinking about using its multiculturalism as a platform for my own explorations of language practices there. For sure, I would not be the first person to have attempted that, so in order to make my work more original, I wanted to incorporate my future home state, New Jersey, and my host university town into the picture. As I was hoping to be able to travel to other places across in the U.S., that would make sense to include them into my narrative as well.

Even before starting this project I had an idea to make it into something not purely scientific. I agree that autobiographic narratives «are interesting and thus have aesthetic value and can engage the readers. They are accessible and thus can appeal to larger audiences» (Pavlenko, 2007). So, the purpose of my interview project was to collect linguistic autobiographies of individuals I would be meeting during my time in the U.S. in order to learn more about their language learning experiences. As I said in the previous section, originally I had adopted the stricter version of bilinguals and interviewed only fellow Fulbrighters who all had a high level of proficiency in English. Later on in the project, I realized that the more liberal definition of bilingualism (i.e., various degrees of language skills enabling communication in a certain community) would allow me to access more participants and make my narrative more varied and engaging.

After designing the interview questions, I thought would enable my interviewees to help me and my potential readers gain a better understanding of what being a bilingual is like, I started recruiting participants while in the U.S. The recruitment process was not as smooth as I had expected. It was my first experience of trying to collect data for an interview project. Looking back, I am not sure if choosing one focus group (e.g., Fulbrighters, English teachers, PhD students, heritage speakers, etc.) would have made this collection more much smaller but a lot more comprehensible and easier to write up. Eventually I decided I would attempt to make this unexpected element part of my own unique narrative made up of these individual language autobiographies.

For this project I conducted semi-structured interviews. In this type of qualitatitve interviews participants are offered a series of open-end questions on a specific topic. According to lots of social science scholars, the reason why this specific kind of interviews is routinely studied in narrative inquiry is that it allows both the interviewer and interviewee a high degree of flexibility as the former can «gently» guide the latter to elaborate on certain points depending on the answers provided. These interviews are also called «exploratory», as despite its general directions given before the interview a researcher can «go deep for a discovery» modifying their line of inquiry (Magaldi and Berler, 2020).

As for the participants, it was obvious that all of them would share some sort of interest in linguistics (the topic of bilingualism specifically). Some of them might have imagined what to expect in the process before getting the interview questions and the guide. What is more, at some point of their own learning/teaching careers, they must have contemplated similar or the same issues I asked them to dwell on in their talk. The individuals who were helping me recruit the participants and the interviewees themselves were professors of Linguistics or their students. The other part were fellow Fulbrighters coming from a range of backgrounds that I knew to a varying extent. The remaining part were individuals who were also interested in linguistics and responded to my social media posts about my project.

As for a few factors that have to be considered while conducting such studies, I am perfectly aware of how the effect of «prior relationship» (Mann, 2010) as well as power balance with the interviewees has to be taken into account in this type of a qualitative study. It certainly determined the participants’ motivation to be interviewed. Some (mostly Fulbrighters) were my friends and willing to help. Others (those with no background in Linguistics) found my research idea interesting and were curious to reflect on these issues. There were also a few students who agreed to be interviewed so that their professors would give them some extra credits. That for sure had some sort of effect on how the interview was going and the rapport between me and the participant. Being recorded might have made some individuals more self-conscious.

As I was watching back all of these interviews while working on this book, I realized how much «the voice of the interviewer» (Mann, 2010) (i.e., mine) was present in interviews. I faced a sort of a dilemma while thinking of ways to analyze and present my interviews. Instead of providing the transcripts as researchers often do in their research papers, in this book I decided to present the interviews as narratives told through my own lens as I was trying not to distort the original message and quote some of the parts that were formulated in the manner I found unusual. To show my own personal touch even more and to take advantage of that not being a PhD paper, before each story I decided to include the information on how I met each of the parti­cipants and how I myself was navigating through associated linguistic, cultural, political issues at the time. In scientific terms I was examining «a larger sociohistoric context of narrative production» (Mann, 2010). After each interview I also provided some reflections on what I heard and some further thoughts that this particular participant inspired in me.

There are different ways to analyze interviews that are commonly used by linguists (e.g., content analysis (Gheyle & Jacobs, 2017)). In the section following the interviews I will be classifying those issues into groups (i.e., language learning and teaching, identity, culture, politics). I am aware of «the temptation to carve out those more quotable parts that serve our purposes» (Pavlenko, 2007). However, as much as I will be trying to stay objective, I agree that as a writer at this stage I am bringing some of my own biases into the project.

I am perfectly aware of the possible limitations of such studies and possible criticisms of some methods of collecting qualitative interview data and analyzing it addressed in scientific literature. For example, as part of this project I have been focusing only on the oral narrative data obtained from the participants. Besides, as my stay in the U.S. was limited, I had no opportunity to conduct longitudinal studies. Another crucial factor is the language of the interviews. All of them were conducted in English. Even though all of the participants are confident English users, it is obvious that they might have faced some difficulties getting their message across and making it more nuanced, which native speakers did not. Finally, as I previously said, I did not attempt to target any specific groups of bilinguals and included individuals with various levels of language competence into the project. I hope that despite all of these obvious limitations, my readers will be able to benefit from the following 51 interviews that are to be read either individually or in the same order they are presented in the book.

Part 1.3. MEET MY BILINGUALS!

First, before you get to know my bilinguals and find out about their linguistic adventures, let’s imagine I asked myself these same questions on my long flight from Paris to Miami on August 21, 2017. This will also be a way for me to introduce myself to those who might not know me while talking about my own language journey that got underway way before I found myself on this plane crossing the Atlantic for the first time in my life.

Me and my life-long commitment to English (Olga, Russia)

Languages spoken: Russian, English, German, some Italian, French, Spanish.

Field of study/career: English teacher, translator, researcher (Lin­guistics).

I had my first English class at Grade 2 at the age of 8. For months before that «big day», I had been growing more and more excited. As I had learned some of the English alphabet, I thought I would master English when I had learned all the letters and would simply use them instead of the corresponding Russian ones. For example, I remember writing the Russian word for «granddad» (дед in Russian) as «ded» naively thinking that was a proper English word! I had no idea what kind of disappointment I would be in for when my real English classes started!

Back in the 1990s English wasn’t a compulsory foreign language to learn in Russia until Grade 5. At my school in a small town in the country’s southwest, it was possible to start taking it earlier as an optional free class. Even though in the post-Soviet Russia English didn’t enjoy the same level of prestige as it would around a decade or so later, it still seemed a good idea to start at an earlier age.

It didn’t take me too long to start getting disappointed –– it wasn’t about specific difficulties I had, but that was because of the teacher who would spend almost the entire class yelling and screaming at us. She loved to write in huge handwriting and once in Grade 3 she gave me a huge «3-” (or a «C-») for a test. I was called «the family’s disgrace» by Mum when she found that notebook that I had been trying so hard to hide somewhere in the apartment. I think this phrase stuck with me for years and was part of my motivation to persevere with English. My sister, who was in Grade 8 back then, was doing exceptionally and unbelievably well academically, particularly in the Russian language. She had been winning all sorts of school competitions and was featured in a local newspaper a few times.

Deep down inside, I wanted to be at least a tiny bit as smart as my sister I saw working with huge dictionaries of Russian. Not wanting to be a complete «copycat», I picked up a visual dictionary of English. Somehow I had a gut feeling it was going to be a truly «big» moment in my life. It wasn’t large so by the end of the summer, I had studied it from cover to cover. I picked up a few more English books –– including the legendary (in the former USSR, anyway) English course by Наталья Бонк (Natalia Bonk) and noticed I was getting more and more interested…

In the early 2000s music was the only window into a «foreign» (Western) world. Once I heard some songs by a British pop band on a radio show hosted by a Russian journalist living in London (which seemed to be somewhere on the Moon!). They somehow stroke a chord with me and sparked my interest in English even more. What I really loved was reading and translating their song lyrics my sister’s friend downloaded from the Internet for me (I didn’t even get my first computer till Grade 10). I would keep notes of any new vocabulary I came across.

School classes of English where we did nothing but do boring grammar exercises and translate texts from English into Russian had become nothing but an obligation. I realized that early on I would have to take responsibility for my own learning. So, I ended up with an inconsistent «diet» of whatever textbooks I could get my hands on. I did all the tasks in writing in a thick notebook and used the answer key to check my answers.

Eventually my teacher (the same that would still scream and yell at us) noticed my interest in her subject and I became her favorite. It seemed as if she was occasionally even relying on me for translations! I was hoping I had started to prove I wasn’t «the family’s disgrace». I can’t think of any difficulties I had at that point at all. I loved every minute of my independent learning, which seemed to be the most enjoyable thing unlike all those boring school classes (probably apart from Russian and Literature). Or I might have loved English too much by that point to even start noticing any difficulties.

It wasn’t until I participated in regional school competitions in English that I realized I couldn’t speak like those kids from the region’s capital! I had trained myself quite well in grammar and vocabulary, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me what I had been doing all of that for. I had treated English more as a funny game without thinking it was an actual language you had to speak!

As there were still no opportunities to practise speaking, I con­tinued working with the other aspects. For reading I had some classics and a few Oxford readers. Apart from listening to a few audiobooks on my tape recorder and later a CD-player, I studied a video course on CD-ROM after we had finally got a computer. I didn’t pay much attention to writing. I only wish I had attempted to write in English creatively while still at high school.

Anyway, I knew well before I had finished school that English would be my future career. I was obsessed with it while my classmates were going on first dates and having fun. «English is your boyfriend», I remember one of them saying trying to make fun of that boring «nerd» I was considered to be. «Probably that was true», I thought to myself and stayed focused on my goals. One of the crucial ones was to pass my university exams to be able to study for free. In the early 2000s English was considered a prestigious foreign language as probably everything which had a word «foreign» in it. So, getting into Foreign Language Departments were very challenging. I chose the teaching path over the translating one, because it was more ac­cessible for kids from small towns like myself who could only afford to study for free.

As hiring a private tutor wasn’t an option at all, I prepared for my entrance exams all on my own. I attended a preparatory course at my university of choice, which involved waking up at 3am every Saturday to take an early morning train to get to Voronezh which was 250 km away. However, I wouldn’t say I had learned much, but at least I had a chance to start speaking English while talking on some philosophic issues –– I would be doing a lot of that at university!

When I became a student at Foreign Languages Department of Voronezh State Pedagogical University, learning got insanely intense from the very get-go. «English is going to continue to be my boyfriend», I laughed to myself. Honestly, I didn’t mind that as at that point I was deeply in love and was ready to commit. My love grew more intense as at university classes we dived into advanced grammar and had extensive speaking practice. We would joke how after five years at Foreign Languages Department we would be ready to have extended conversations about anything under the sun. The on­ly thing that made me suffer was Phonetics during the freshman year. Somehow I never truly attached much importance to how I sounded in English, because I had zero ear for music…

Halfway through my studies we had a course on Writing and that was got me falling for English even more. It was my first proper experience of writing creatively in it and I was feeling all the efforts I had put into writing down and memorizing that «fancy» vocabulary from all possible sources while my university classmates were out dating were paying off! Getting access to the high-speed Internet in my final year was a big milestone. I would stay up listening to a random selection of BBC podcasts or watching some TV shows. I started realizing how «real» this language was. It was then I got to have a Skype chat with a real native speaker I met on a pen pal website. Yes, back then I thought native speakers were walking gods or something!

The first teaching practice that we had in the fourth year of university was disappointing, but honestly, I didn’t quite expect I would love it at all. Working with kids had never been my thing and would never be. After that experience, I felt that my English that I had been working so insanely hard to study had been touched with some dirty hands. Of course, I would never stop working on impro­ving my English and eventually had to let go of those feelings, because otherwise I would have gone mad –– even teaching at my own university where to my astonishment, a lot of students training to become English teachers didn’t make any effort to learn at all. Or was I thinking like that just because I had been making too much of it..?

A few months before graduation I got my first job as a translator for a scientific journal in Architecture and I became a teacher at my own department a year after graduation. That was when I first traveled abroad and got a chance to practise English not only on Skype with a few more native speakers I had met. I did German as a secondary foreign language at university. I wasn’t enthusiastic about it as I wish I had studied French instead. Inspired by my trip to Italy, I started learning Italian. A bit later I got to see a bit of France, my dream country since childhood. So, I added French to my self-study plan. As a language teacher, I knew I wouldn’t be able to master either of these languages reasonably well, but I felt that unlike German that had been forced on me, those two languages were my foreign language «affairs» I would escape to whenever the teaching routine got a bit too exhausting. I also had a quick try at Spanish before a brief conference trip to Spain, but this language didn’t get me too interested for some reason. Traveling also inspired me to start a travel blog in English and to let out all the creative impulses I had been suppressing.

Conference trips to Europe