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Taleen and I met in January of 2023 and have been best friends since. She was born in Salem MA, and grew up in North Reading MA. Taleen's parents are from Mtein, Lebanon, and came to the US for grad school in their 20s. Her parents are both fluent in English, as well as Arabic and French, so Taleen and her little brother grew up speaking Arabic and English at home, as well as learning Spanish through extended family members and public school in MA. Taleen and her brother both have the MA Seal of Biliteracy for Spanish. In her everyday life, Taleen speaks Lebanese Arabic with her family at home or on the phone. She does not use it at school or work. She speaks Spanish with friends, her brother, and her uncle. She does use it at school or at work, but pretty rarely.

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Taleen learned Arabic through her family, but as she got older, she realized the importance of keeping her oral proficiency as it is a connection to her culture and her family. She was motivated to learn Spanish because it is widespread in the United States and would be useful to her throughout her life. She was also frustrated with the holes in her knowledge of Arabic, and wanted to learn a language from the ground up and truly master it.

Arabic and English weren't difficult to learn because Taleen grew up speaking it. She doesn't have to think to translate things, it is innate knowledge to her. However, learning new things in Arabic is incredibly difficult for Taleen. The language is incredibly different from English and is generally a difficult language. The most difficult thing for Taleen to learn in Arabic is reading and speaking. Reading and listening, however, come easy to Taleen. She never lost the ability to understand Arabic and Lebanese Arabic, comprehension is something ingrained in her.

Taleen found Spanish very easy to learn. The sounds and accent came naturally to her. The structure mirrors English, and the vocabulary mirrors English or Arabic, so it was easy to pick up new things.

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Taleen's favorite thing to help her brush up on Arabic and Spanish is to have a conversation with someone in that language. Sometimes, she challenges herself to speak or think in one of the languages for the entire day. Movies and TV are helpful because hearing the language in conversation helps her understand slang. Reading is helpful, but it can be boring and time-consuming, and more elegant language she finds difficult as she isn't perfectly fluent.

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Taleen lived in Lebanon for a year when she was in 2nd grade and went through the Lebanese school system. Taleen struggled with learning to read and write Arabic, as Lebanese Arabic is a very specific dialect that is very difficult to write, and transferring the skills wasn't easy. She says, "The real only way to learn [Lebanese Arabic] is to speak it with other Lebanese".

Other than living in Lebanon for a year, Taleen traveled there every summer when she was a child to visit her extended family and learn about her culture. She also has experience with Spanish culture. She says that Spanish culture is "oddly similar" to the Lebanese culture that she grew up in. She finds that she can relate to her Spanish teachers and Latino friends very easily, and loves any opportunity to embrace and share their culture.

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Taleen's entire extended family lives in Lebanon. Because the education system in Lebanon has students learn English, French, and Arabic, Taleen's extended family speaks English- with the exception of Taleen's uncle, who only speaks Spanish.

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Taleen has never felt judged or treated differently because she speaks multiple languages. She was born in the United States and speaks perfect English, so people don't usually realize she speaks multiple languages unless they hear her speaking Lebanese Arabic on the phone or at home. I, for one, didn't know Taleen spoke multiple languages until I heard her talking to her brother in Lebanese Arabic, months after we started being friends. For English learners, she says, "I think we all just need to be less judgemental. We

need to stop treating accents as a sign of intellectual inferiority." She continues to say that we need to be kind and patient with people who may be struggling with learning English. "We need to treat people learning

English with appreciation for taking the time to learn an entirely new language and respect for having the ability to do so in the first place."

Taleen says that she loves being a multilingual person. She finds that learning new languages is easy for her. She says that "My brain feels primed to pick up new vocab and grammar structures", and that she has a lot of support to find familiarity in new languages with her multilingual background. She enjoys being able to communicate with more people in her life, and she finds that people treat her as more intelligent when they learn that she can speak several languages.

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I think Taleen said some really great things that we need to keep with us regarding multilingual people. We need to be appreciative and patient with people who are taking their time to learn our language. A lot of these people have been forced out of their circle of comfort to be here and exist in an unfamiliar environment where no one speaks their language, and they are expected to adjust as quickly as humanly possible. These students are already under a lot of pressure to learn a new language, as well as keep up with course content and curriculum, and the best thing we can do for them is be empathetic and patient. She talked about how many people treat those with accents as intellectually inferior, and I think that is a really important stigma we have to recognize. Just because people don't speak fluent English doesn't mean they are any less smart. It actually shows that they have the ability to pick up another language, usually later in their lives, which most English-speaking Americans will never have to do. As educators, it is our job to recognize how we think and how we treat multilingual students, and to reflect on this. Is what we are doing the most helpful and productive way that our students can learn? Are we offering them every opportunity to learn and grow? Are we inhibiting them because of our preconceived notions? Taleen's experience as a multilingual student who then went on to learn a third language is very inspiring to me. It gave me a lot of insight into what it is like to learn a new language, and what educators can do to help.

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Taleen's experience as a multilingual person connects back to how a student's native language proficiency can affect their ability to learn new languages. Taleen finds that she can pick up new languages easily because she is fluent in both English and Lebanese Arabic. Learning Spanish was easy because she could use her knowledge of English grammar to support the new Spanish grammar, and her knowledge of English and Lebanese Arabic vocabulary to support the new Spanish vocabulary. This connects back to chapter 1 of the textbook and the discussion on native-language knowledge, specifically that "those who have developed a rich repertoire of knowledge and concept comprehension in their native languages have better opportunities for learning English because their knowledge can be transferred to English" (5).

Along with this, being receptive to student's cultures is incredibly important. Taleen was never made to feel othered, and she loved being a part of new cultures. as well as seeing her own culture in the classroom. This connects back to the SIOP techniques we learned about in Chapter 3. SIOP is designed to make content comprehensible, while also keeping students engaged. Using relatable sources helps students feel seen in the classroom while also increasing their understanding. This could include realia familiar to specific cultures, pictures, or multimedia (58-59).

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She continues her thoughts on how we treat people who speak multiple languages. Teachers need to be patient and respectful. She says that English Learners, especially at younger ages, have been uprooted from familiar surroundings and forced to readjust at an overwhelming pace. She says, "Anything teachers can do to comfort ELs, to cheer on their successes, to push them through their failures, and to be kind and understanding would

be helpful."

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Echevarria, J. I. & Graves, A. (2015). Sheltered Content Instruction: Teaching English learners with diverse abilities (5th ed.) Saddle River, NJ: Pearson