Strategic Contemplation as One Saudi Mother’s Way Of Reflecting on Her Children’s Learning Only English in the United States: An Autoethnography and Multiple Case Study of Multilingual Writers at the College Level

Author

Razan Alansari, Eastern Washington University

Date of Award

Winter 2018

Rights

Access is available to all users

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA) in English: Teaching English as a Second Language

Department

English

Abstract

This thesis is two single case studies that represent the emic and etic views of the parenting choices of the researcher as well as 12 multilingual writers who were not parents but who offered their opinions in simulated journals that appear unedited in the thesis. The mother/researcher of two boys discusses the challenges she faced when trying to introduce the heritage language, Arabic, to her children, one of whom was born in the United States. Both were raised in the United States outside their home country for almost seven years while the parents were government scholars earning degrees. This is also autoethnography and literacy narrative in which the researcher traces her education in a Quranic girls’ school in Dammam, Saudi Arabia and her experience as an English Literature major in her home country. In raising her children as monolinguals in the United States, she reflects on the consequences her decision not to teach her children Arabic. She explains that they identify as American and have only American friends, resulting in the non-acquisition of the parents’ heritage language, Arabic. The researcher’s parenting and teaching philosophies do not include an Arabic-only rule at home or punishment for not speaking Arabic, as some of the 12 subjects recommended.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Alansari, Razan, "Strategic Contemplation as One Saudi Mother’s Way Of Reflecting on Her Children’s Learning Only English in the United States: An Autoethnography and Multiple Case Study of Multilingual Writers at the College Level" (2018). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 469.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/469