Recently, I had a great pleasure to read the first novel written by Jelena Angelovski, entitled \u2018Mika’. This novel left a huge impression on me, given that I am a mum raising two bilinguals away from my home. I found many parallels in my family life and Mika\u2019s family life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jelena and I had a beautiful conversation in Serbian that is now published in the videos section of my blog<\/a>. I’ve also asked Jelena to answer the questions in the written format, so that I can translate them into English*. I believe that what Jelena has to say will be interesting and useful to many parents raising bilinguals away from home, regardless of the languages involved in their children\u2019s upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jelena, thank you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> I was born and raised in Pan\u010devo, Serbia. I graduated in Serbian literature and language with generalliterature from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Having graduated, I returned to Pan\u010devo where I taught Serbian in the elementary school I myself attended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simultaneously with the teaching job, I continued my studies in literature. Both my MA and PhD are on the topics of Serbian 20th century prose. At the same time, I regularly followed contemporary literature, wrote summaries for literary magazines and worked as a mentor to talented youngsters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from work, this was the time when my children were born, two daughters and one son, whose age difference is three to four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five years ago, I applied for the job of teaching Serbian language abroad. I got a job post in Zurich. Ever since, my family have lived in Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Serbian language school abroad is organised in mixed groups. Each group has lessons once a week and they usually comprise of six to seven students. Our teaching programme is organised in chunks. Us teachers, by following the existing curriculum, have the freedom of shaping the classes to fit our students. The contents of the classes always revolve around the three school subjects that are part of the curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> The novel is about a boy, Miroslav Anti\u0107. His nickname is Mika. He is born in Serbia, but is growing up in Switzerland. As it is often the case, his problems are not getting resolved and are piling up \u2013 first he has a problem with his best friend, then the school bullies, his teacher and her requests, his mum and dad who are going through their own crisis, and finally his grandma and grandpa who are organising an uprising in Serbia. His problems will eventually be resolved, in the same way they emerged. However, during the process of resolving his problems Mika will learn some important things. I was primarily interested in those things he learns along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> Vladislava Vojnovi\u0107, the editor in chief of the edition Azbu\u010dnired<\/em> (Alphabetical order) in the publishing house Slu\u017ebeni glasnik<\/em>, our prominent writer and playwright, asked me to write a novel about a Serbian child who is growing up abroad. She did this knowing that I know these children really well. Indeed, my three children share Mika\u2019s destiny in many ways. In addition, I am in daily contact with another twenty boys and twenty girls of Mika\u2019s origin, who are growing up in a similar environment to Mika\u2019s. To reword Mika Anti\u0107, the poet, Mika is in all of them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> I wanted to write a novel for the most demanding audience \u2013 teenagers. As an audience, they are not demanding in the same way they are as children. When it comes to literature, they are demanding because parents can no longer easily influence their reading choices. At the same time, their own literature taste is not formed yet and they haven\u2019t found what they like. Therefore, they often decide they do not like \u2013 anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While writing this novel I also thought about myself as a parent. I like reading to my children, however, I am horrified by boring books for children. The time we dedicate to reading to our kids before they fall asleep, is the time when us parents need some additional stimulation to successfully go through this last task of the day. Even turn it into something enjoyable. This is why I put a lot of references, jokes even, that will communicate with parents more so than with children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> By talking about Mika\u2019s parents\u2019 problems, I also wanted to start talking about the challenges immigrants of my generation face. I consider this killing two birds with one stone. On one hand, I wanted to show to my young readers that what may be happening in their home is neither too unusual nor the end of the world. I wanted to show that this can happen and is happening to many families. On the other hand, I also wanted to show to my grown-up readers that they are not alone and that the experiences of the new immigration wave are slowly going to start being present as a topic in the contemporary Serbian literature. I would like to think that the novel \u2018Mika\u2019 is a small part of this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To answer your question directly \u2013 Mama is generally satisfied with her choice to move countries. She unambiguously sees advantages of this decision for the whole of her family, including herself. However, she has one set of values many of us share, that is not easy to simply transplant into the new environment. She has difficulties in recreating her own life. I tried to avoid the clich\u00e9 of her feeling as a foreigner \u2013 on the contrary, she doesn\u2019t feel like one. However, she is the professor of Latin. For the whole of her life she has been studying and earning new diplomas and certifications, thinking this is enough and that everything else will fall into its place. When she found herself in the new environment where she needed to start from scratch and invest all her life\u2019s potential into her family\u2019s welfare, she somehow got blocked and carried on repeating the phrases she learnt in seminars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n L:<\/strong> Recently, I realised I am raising not only bilingual, but also bicultural and biliteral children. However, a person can be bilingual without being bicultural and biliteral. You incorporated all of these three things into the novel: the names of the chapters follow the letters of the Serbian alphabet<\/strong>; some common expressions as well as slang of the Serbian language<\/strong> are present throughout the book \u2018\u0160ta te se ti\u010de?<\/em>\u2019 (And why do you care?); \u2018(Vrisnem) ko Damjanov zelenko\u2019 (<\/em>Shout loudly**)<\/em>, \u2018\u0106ale i Keva su u \u0107orci<\/em>\u2026\u2019 (Serbian slang for \u2018Mum and Dad are in prison\u2019), and finally culture<\/strong>: the poet Mika Anti\u0107, the band Partibrejkersi, the instrument tambourine, activism and protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> The answer depends on what the end goal of language learning is. If a person is learning Serbian as a foreign language, for the same reasons they would learn any foreign language, that person doesn\u2019t necessarily need to be familiar with the culture. However, when it comes to Serbian children who are growing up and being educated abroad, I personally do not see the point of learning a language separately from its alphabet and the culture. Our aim is to enable the children to \u2019navigate\u2019 successfully through their language of origin in different contexts \u2013 from everyday family life, \u2019small talk\u2019 with family based in Serbia, creation of deeper bonds with other Serbs, the ability to follow the plot of the movies, literature, as well as media in Serbian and finally, the ability to engage in scientific discourse. All this is impossible without being familiar with the culture, as well as aforementioned contexts in which language can be used, and vice versa. I often mention a student of mine, a boy who is 15 years old and two metres tall who says: \u2019Boli me tiba\u2019<\/em> (My tummy hurts) \u2013 he is familiar with the word \u2018tiba\u2019 (tummy<\/em>) for stomach because he heard it from his mum. What he doesn\u2019t know is that if he uttered that word in front of his friends in Serbia, he would not sound so cool. All this is related to culture, another thing that is learnt, as well as the language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> This is a very interesting question and there is no single answer to it. In early puberty, Mika\u2019s age, children start caring a lot about who they are. It is as if they feverishly start looking for the outlines of their own identity, and these need to appear ASAP. In these situations, national identity can be something that distinguishes them from their peers, in the same class for example, and many children will eagerly embrace this distinction as a safe<\/em> one. Someone will put on the \u2019Nirvana\u2019 T-shirt, while someone else will put on a sports jersey with the Serbian coat of arms, this is how it usually goes. However, this is not the only answer to the question. Another, very real and frequent scenario is for the children to hide their national identity in order to fit in, not to be different, and this is also something Mika is often afraid of. National identity attitudes can vary between these two extremes and will be heavily influenced by the way the parents see their identity, and further the relationship the children have with the values that are promoted within their family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n J:<\/strong> Exposure, exposure and again exposure to the language. This is the key. The child needs to bathe in the language, literally. The language parent(s) speak is only one face of that language and it is an invaluable resource. However, as we have seen in the example of two-meter-tall student with aching tummy, that sole language source is not comprehensive. The African saying about the whole village raising a child can be transferred on the language acquisition – all close and far members of the family, from little cousins to grandmas and grandpas, peers, teachers, books, films, music. These are all the resources that a parent raising children abroad needs to put, sometimes artificially, into the language greenhouse, so that the language competences of their child blossom.<\/p>\n\n\n\nL: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: Could you tell us a little bit about the novel?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: How did you create Mika’s character? Was he inspired by anyone?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: Personally, I think Mika will be liked by people of different profiles and different age groups. Who did you have in mind as Mika\u2019s target audience?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: The relationship of Mika\u2019s parents left a strong impression on me. However, the question I want to ask the most is: Why is Mika\u2019s mum dissatisfied?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: How important are the alphabet, the language and the culture to you and to what extent do you think they are connected?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: One of my favourite chapters of the book is the one that is named after the letter (& sound) \u2019I\u2019\u2013 identity. Do children you teach identify themselves as Serbian?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
L: What can we as parents do to help our children who are growing up abroad learn and preserve the language of our \u2019home\u2019 country?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n