feel neglected and keep to herself. Gradually there was a psychological distance between us though we were physically together every day. Realizing the situation, I would try to make it up to her by talking with her and telling her how I felt if we didnt have heart-to-heart talks. My frankness moved her and drew her closer to me. Our talks minimized the gap between us During the first month of Amys schooling here, we often read together her text books in English side by side with textbooks in Chinese. Sometimes we wrote home, asking our relatives to mail us relevant books in Chinese. Bit by bit, Amy could do the two kinds of teaching materials by herself, and now she can do the two separately. As she browses the content in L1 first (math, geography, etc.), she often gets prepared for what is to be taught in class. The other day she came home, telling me, Mom, do you remember the word reciprocal you used in explaining the word mutual in my success journal? Today I came across this word again in my math class. In dividing a fraction with another fraction, the teacher asked us to multiply it with the reciprocal of the other. I immediately knew the meaning of the word here (upside-down) because I had known how to solve this kind of problem from my Chinese math book. Apparently Amys knowledge in L1 had been positively transferred to L2 in the math content areaEver since we came to Hawaii, we have been writing to our home country regularly. We are also lucky to have a very kind American friend who has helped us tremendously, and with whom we correspond by mail, talk over the phone, or have face to face chats. Now Amy is also used to the unstated yet actually practiced family regulation that she has to write compositions both in Chinese and English whenever we go sightseeing or anything important happens around us. By writing regularly in English and in Chinese, Amy puts into practice what she has learned and actually experiments with two la...
