Multilingualism As a Global Force

When we decided that language was going to be our focal point of the research, I immediately drew connections to my own experiences with language at an elite boarding school in Massachusetts. Students were not only required to study a foreign language, but also encouraged to join language clubs and jump at opportunities for global adventure when they arose. During my junior year of high school, an opportunity arose and I jumped faster than you can say opportunity. I went with two Spanish teachers and fourteen peers to a small, impoverished town in the Dominican Republic. We spent a week working with a nonprofit organization that brought us to a local school where we taught students the English language. The philosophy behind this organization is to enable these students to “live a life of choice.” That is to say, by learning English, a world of possibilities awaits outside of their small town. While I enjoyed my time spent there, looking back on it now, there was definitely a “westernized” ideology present; it was as if the only way these children could live successful and fulfilling lives was if they learned English.

Additionally, it is now obvious to me why my school pushed this opportunity on us: an international service trip? What better way to maintain our eliteness! As a seventeen-year-old high school student barely able to hold a conversation in Spanish, it is difficult for me to say that I was qualified for the position. Learning more about eliteness and elite schooling through my classes with Adam has made me hyper-aware of my own privilege, especially in relation to my schooling experience. As a white student from an elite prep school in the United States, my expertise certainly did not lie in the realm of international education for disadvantaged children. The presence of globalization, even in an impoverished town on the small island of the Dominican Republic is evident; the emphasis of multilingualism is becoming an increasing global force.

I fostered a love for the Spanish language during high school that I brought with me to Colby, but unfortunately I lost it. For the first two years of my Colby career I was a Spanish major, thrilled at the idea of studying the language in a foreign country. However, the department requires Spanish majors to spend a minimum of a semester abroad, strongly encouraging an entire year. This policy threw a wrench in my plans – as a captain of the women’s ice hockey team (a winter sport overlapping both semesters) I could not imagine missing out on one of my four precious seasons here, even if it was for an amazing educational opportunity. After all, hockey was a deciding factor for me in choosing to attend Colby and is a significant part of my identity, and I was not ready to give that up and let my team down. I hoped that I would be given the chance to study abroad during the summertime to work around my conflicting commitments and interests, but based on the few conversations I had, it seemed like a compromise was not a possibility, and even if it was, I lacked the drive needed to fight for this opportunity. I ended up dropping my Spanish major and I have yet to take a Spanish class since. I am thrilled to return to studying language by examining the theories behind the emphasis placed on learning language, especially as we work on a global scale.

Although I fell off the path to bilingualism in my own schooling experience, I hope that this research project will reinvent my understanding of the importance of language in schooling. Our group is focusing on the influence of language at our school in Taiwan (TES), specifically English as the language of instruction, as well as foreign language curriculum and the role of Chinese inside and outside of the classroom. As an elite international school, some aspects of globalization are immediately evident, such as language diversity and the emphasis placed on multilingualism. One of my group members, Xavier, visited Taiwan this summer and worked specifically with foreign language curriculum in Spanish classes.  I am interested to learn more about how language affects the schooling experience of these students, especially how the ideologies supporting multilingualism have manifested in the institutional structure.