We have the luxury of interacting daily with an amazingly diverse community of students. In my 200-level French class, students are heritage speakers of Tagalog, Ukrainian, Tamil, Polish, AAVE, French, Yiddish, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Gujarati, English, Hindi, Sango, and Kanuri. In addition to French, they are also learning Korean, Arabic, Greek, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian, and hoping to learn languages to recover what has been lost (Punjabi, Hebrew).

While in Chad, where my grandmother is from, I became fluent in Arabic and even picked up some Fulah along the way. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to retain as much since there weren’t many people around to practice with. When I moved to the U.S. about nine years ago, at the age of 13, with my mom and three siblings, I focused mostly on improving my English, which became the predominant language spoken in our home. Looking back, I regret that shift because I lost fluency in some of the languages I once spoke, like French, Kanuri, and Arabic. I can still speak them to a certain extent, but not nearly as well as before. As a result, English has become the language I often use to express myself and the easiest to use when communicating with my family here in the United States. However, I still switch between languages, especially when talking to relatives back home, despite it being a broken version. My mom and I sometimes mix Sango, French, and Arabic when we speak. 

Learning these languages again is important to me, not just personally, so I can reconnect with my culture and communicate more easily, but also professionally as a pre-law student majoring in Information and Decision Sciences. I’m interested in working with an international humanitarian aid organization, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as an advocacy and awareness volunteer. Given my own experience of having to find refuge in another country, I want to help others navigate similar challenges, whether through legal advocacy or policy work.

Let’s make it clear that languages are important: encourage your own UIC students, classmates, colleagues, alumni, and everyone in the UIC community to tell their language stories, and put their language(s) on the UIC Language Map! Go to the UIC Speaks page, proudly created and maintained by LCLC.

Registration starts this week: let’s spread the word! Starting today, LCLC staff and YOU (LCSL volunteers) are publicizing all LCSL programs in SCE: we were there today from 10AM to 1PM, and we will be there again on Monday, April 7, Wednesday, April 9, and Monday, April 14 (all 10-1). Volunteer here, and let all your colleagues and friends in other departments and in Chicago-area high schools know: languages enrich your life, broaden your horizons, and make you a stronger job candidate. You and students can see testimonials from UIC language students on the LCLC Career Opportunities page!

Dolly and the LCLC Team: Marissa, Sabra, Brian, Hanna, and Colton

Above (top to bottom): Events in GH 308 – cannoli making organized by Italian Club, and a South Asian language workshop hosted by the AARCC; Spanish tutors/LLAs Daniela and Brett work with language students in Grant Hall; Spanish LLA Valerie and French LLA Roman work with students in 100-level language classes.

"[...] My mom is half-Ukrainian and grew up speaking Ukrainian with her paternal grandmother. Though she is not fluent, she thought it important that I learn to read Cyrillic to connect with my heritage and expand my mental horizons. Last semester, I opted to take Elementary Russian, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Knowing the Cyrillic alphabet going into it was indispensable, as reading is half the battle when learning Russian as a second language. My dad’s side is Ashkenazi Jewish, and his grandparents came to America in the 1900s from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Their native tongue was Yiddish, but they also all spoke Russian. Though my father grew up hearing his grandparents speak Yiddish, he never learned it conversationally. In the large Jewish community I grew up in, everyone peppers Yiddish into their speech, and I definitely picked up that tendency. French has definitely been the most constant foreign language in my life, as I learned the basics from my mom, who has studied it independently over the years and has been to France several times. My mom’s love for French sparked from her mother, whose family line in Québec goes back centuries. [...]"

You can read Natalya’s full language story here, and check out dozens of others at this page on our website. We are eager to hear your own language stories, as well as those of your students and colleagues, too: here is the link to share!

Language and Culture Learning Center

301 Grant Hall, 703 South Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607

Email us! lclc@uic.edu