forgotten Russian - how to restore it?

[Nola]

I saw this with a child adopted from El Salvador during the 1980's. She had had horrible experiences and was rescued and taken away, adopted by a kind family in the US at the age of 4 or 5. They did not speak Spanish. I met the girl when she was about 8. I spoke to her in Spanish, and she absolutely froze, would not look at me, and acted as if she did not hear. It terrified her to hear it and she just refused to acknowledge it. It is probably a good idea to be very cautious, unless you know that the child's background was happy.
Nola


-----Original Message-----
>From: Natasha Yefimov <n.yefimova at GMAIL.COM>
>Sent: Mar 14, 2011 7:48 AM
>To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] forgotten Russian - how to restore it?
>
>Dear Katya,
>
>Just a note of caution: Because your student was adopted at a fairly advanced age and the Russian orphanages and families from which adoptees hail are often abusive, it's possible that she's accumulated some pretty unhappy memories. Trawling for linguistic tidbits in her subconscious could dredge up unexpectedly strong, negative emotions, like the heart-wrenching example in Marsha's story. As a heritage speaker, I'm fascinated by the mind's ability to store away language learning, but I'm guessing that exploring this with an adopted child requires an extra level of care. Here's a resource page on children and trauma from the Dart Center, a respected research organization for journalists who cover violence: http://dartcenter.org/topic/children-trauma. It's a bit off-topic but may lead you to useful studies or advice.
>
>All the best,
>Natasha
>
>
>On Mar 14, 2011, at 12:10 AM, Katya Burvikova wrote:
>
>> Dear Seelangers,
>> 
>> I have a young student who is trying to learn Russian. She was adopted from 
>> Russia at the age of 8, she is 14 now. Her Russian is absolutely gone, all she 
>> remembers are few basic words like hleb, maslo and oy. I noticed that some 
>> things she would say automatically - for exmple, we didn't learn construction "U 
>> menya net..." and Genitive case yet but she said "u menya net akvariuma" using 
>> the right ending. Has anyone had  students with same problem and how did you 
>> make them remembering forgotten things? Are there any know strategies to take 
>> out things from lingsuitical subconscious? 
>> 
>> Thank you!
>> 
>> Katya Burvikova
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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