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As I was walking home from the TESOL & Learner workshop, my mind was still processing on the information on Language Learning and this incident which happened when I was 7 years old.

 

When I was about 2 – 7 years old, I was home-trained in the English Language and Malay Language. Before I proceed any further, I have to state that I am a Chinese. So if going by Language Acquisition Theory – my L1 should be Mandarin and my L2 would be anything else besides Mandarin.

 

The reason why my mum (who is a teacher, just not a language teacher,) made sure my eldest up to my 4^th sister all spoke fluent and accurate English and Malay was because of the Education Policy at that time where Malay and English were deemed important to land a place in a good school, university and get a career. My mum definitely has great vision.

 

It happened in my 1^st year in primary school where my class teacher was dividing us into races. She went, “Ok, the Malay will stand here, the Indians here and the Chinese here.” I didn’t stand up to join any of the groups. My class teacher was baffled and asked me why didn’t I join the group. I nonchalantly told her, “I am English.” Her eyes went really wide and she of course told me that I wasn’t English.

 

Perhaps you can deduce from the above that Mandarin was never my L1 and in fact in reality that my L1 is the English Language and L2 is Malay followed by Mandarin.

 

At such a young age, as a child, I came to a conclusion that I wasn’t Chinese because I didn’t speak Mandarin. I was thinking in English, communicating in English, and reading in English. I was lucky at that time as most of my friends were speaking in English as well. It seemed to be the ‘in’ thing at that time to be able to speak English fluently.

 

What is language then? Yes language is a process or system which is made of many layers which helps/aids the individual integrate into the community.

 

But then why wasn’t I aware at that time that I was a Chinese?

Could it be, as a child, we have a certain innate instinct to categorize oneself according to the language we communicate in?

Perhaps as a child, I had a different competence structure compared to other children?

 

To me language is more than just a process or a system; I think a language gives you an identity to classify oneself which community h/she belongs to. It gives you a sense of familiarity and belonging to a particular group or society. Of course, we acquired all the necessary layers of a language to be able to interact with people from the same community but it has a more fundamental role of creating an identity for a speaker to be able to fit into that particular community.  

 

I am still puzzled by this enigma till this day and it has always become a ‘ribbing’ topic among my friends.

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