I have always been so grateful to my parents for preserving Romanian in our family by teaching it to my sister and me. I recently talked with my mom about how my parents chose to teach us Romanian, and she said that she knew if we weren't completely introduced and immersed in the Romanian language before we began learning English through formal schooling, the possibility of us speaking Romanian would be incredibly miniscule. I whole heartedly agree with this sentiment as even today I can see differences in my Romanian language abilities compared to close family friends of similar age and upbringing setting. It sheds light on just how crucial it is to be aware and proactive within the critical period of development. It appears the material for this week corroborates the importance of language in childhood development very well.
The Crash Course Video perfectly elaborated these linguistic focuses I am expressing. Domain-specific vocabulary, receptive bilingualism, and continuation of a heritage language are all elements that factor into my own personal assessment of my linguistic portfolio. It’s interesting to reflect on how these factors influenced my perspective on language, especially as English was introduced later through schooling.
This leads me then into Cummins’ distinction between Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). When I started school, I quickly began to pick up conversational English, but the academic side developed through structured exposure in the classroom. As Cummins emphasizes, maintaining my home language supported rather than hindered my acquisition of academic English, because the literacy and cognitive skills I developed through Romanian transferred across languages. In other words, parents who focus on strengthening the home language are providing their children with a solid linguistic foundation that enhances, not competes with, English learning. My mom’s choice to immerse us in Romanian perfectly reflects this principle, trusting that English would naturally follow through school. By keeping the use of Romanian at home (instead of switching to imperfect English) Cummins points support that long-term academic success using academic English would follow under the BICS and CALPS structure.
Reflecting on both the research and my experience, I realize how intentional my parents language choices were. Preserving Romanian wasn’t just about communication, it was about identity, connection, and long-term success. Learning English through an academic setting, while maintaining Romanian at home, ultimately allowed me to develop deeply in both languages rather than losing one to the other.