Mi Familia/My Family Language Inventory

Michelle Olvera Dart

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

ECE 5133: Language and Discourse Development in Preschool-Primary Children

Spring 2011

The following blog page will focus on a Language inventory which addresses issues related to language loss/maintenance/acquisition.  It is part of a class project which explores someone’s language from a wide perspective.  I will present this project based upon conversations with family members regarding our family languages.  I have asked some of the following questions:

1.      What language(s) do you speak?  What language(s) do you read?

2.      What local, national, political, or academic influences your language use?

3.      What influences your preference of language use, growing up and now?

4.      How do you feel about your language ability? 

5.      Where did you grow up and attend school? 

6.      How has your culture influenced your language use?

7.      Was it easy or hard to learn a second language?

8.      Why do you think you lost your first language?

9.      Why don’t you think you lost your first language?

10.   Which language do you primarily use today?

11.   Which language do you use to “think”? 

12.   Do you switch back and forth between multiple languages during conversations?  Why?

I will share aspects of our familiy languages through this blog.