Raquel Ramos

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VBmTTsXVMPEKc3PT9FZUBQ_3d_3d

Dear parents and mailing list administrator,

I have been part of this list and I enjoy every experience shared...cannot
wait for sharing mine once the baby who is growing inside of me comes to be
part of my life. I will surely have so many challenges! I am in a learning
stage now, so I have been keeping quiet and this is my first post.

A bit about me and th ereason for this first post.
My name is Raquel. I come from rural Northern Spain. I have been living in
Shanghai,China for the last 8 years and abroad since 1992.
As a child I had an interest about what was going up out there, on the other
side of the mountain... and always longed to travel and know new cultures.
Learning English changed my life. Through the years, many other worlds and
experiences have been opened to me, in which the acquisition of new
languages played a key role. For some is music, for others business...I get
my pleasure from listening and understanding other cultures' choices and
thoughts.

I am currently pregnant with my first child. I have been reading a lot about
unschooling and it makes so much sense to me, that I cannot wait for my
child NOT to start school. Language learning has brought much joy in my
life. Being brought up in a remote area in a time where there were no
foreigners in my hometown, 2 TV channels and no exposure to foreign
languages, I was lucky to be pushed into a foreign language by the standard
national curriculum. So when I reflect on my own experience I feel grateful
for having had the chance of going to school. It is difficult for me to
grasp that what worked well on me 25 years ago is not the best option TODAY
for my future child's development.

At age 35 I am still looking for my passions (you know I was too busy
studying what I was supposed to be studying during 20+ years so my academic
background and my passions are definitely NOT in line....working on that
now). One of my passions is foreign cultures (languages, traditions,
beliefs, religions,...) and the other one is knowing more about how our
brain learns. Taking those into account I decided to follow a master's
degree in teaching Spanish as a foreign language.

As part of the course I will do a research. This research will help me
address several questions in my mind regarding my future maternity/raising
of unschooled children: how do unschoolers learn languages? where is their
motivation coming from? what methods/ means do they use?

If you have time (where do parents get time from?) please take a few moments
to reflect on your child's foreign language learning by filling up my
research survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VBmTTsXVMPEKc3PT9FZUBQ_3d_3d

Fell free to send the link to friends who might be willing to share their
experiences with me.

I will be posting this link in several unschooling/parenting lists. I hope
it is not against the mailing list rules.

I wished I could contribute to the unschooling community now with my
research and later with my own experiences as a mother.

Many, many thanks for your help.

--
Raquel Ramos


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