Leslie Moore, graduate student in applied linguistics, spent last year keeping an eye on a bunch of first graders in the provincial capital of Maroua in Cameroon. No ordinary tots were these. At home, they learned folktales in their native Fulfulde. At Koranic school, they learned to recite the Koran in Arabic. Finally, at the public school, they studied dialogues ("Bonjour Monsieur, je m'appelle Abéna. Bonjour Abéna!") to learn French.

"Leslie's study will be the first to document African children's socialization into and acquisition of multiple languages," says Professor Elinor Ochs, her dissertation chair, "illuminating the strategies used to help children become competent communicators in radically different educational settings." Professor Ochs is one of the "founding mothers" of language socialization theory, Leslie says, which was "the lens that I needed for my research. . . . The questions it poses, and the methods it uses, helped me answer the questions I had."

To gather information, Leslie visited the seven children she had selected at home and followed them to Koranic school and public school, often with a video camera recording their participation in routine, language-centered activities. The focus of second language education in the first years of learning "is on pronouncing things correctly," she says. "Comprehension is not the issue." Despite similarities across the two types of schools, she found that "even little kids" understand that reciting the Koran as it was revealed to the Prophet is a very different endeavor from performing everyday speech acts in French.

In all three settings, "memorization is a big deal," Leslie says. There is a long local tradition of using memorization to pass along information, she explains: "You store knowledge in your brain rather than books." Leslie was surprised to find that "these kids like memorizing-they are comfortable doing it and often have fun with it."

And they are also comfortable switching from language to language during the course of their day. Leslie first observed this phenomenon when she was a Peace Corps volunteer working on a project to eradicate Guinea Worm in Cameroon. "By chance, I'd been sent to one of the most densely multilingual places in Africa," she says. "Seeing so many people who knew five or six languages-and that was totally normal-that was the seed for me. I wondered how they did that so easily." In the region where Leslie worked, children learned two or three Central Chadic languages, as well as Fulfulde for purposes of trade, Arabic for religious practice, and French for dealings with government agencies.

Leslie's experience in Cameroon brought together three long-time interests: education, language-in her family, "you can't have a dinner conversation without a dictionary being brought to the table"-and Africa. As an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, Leslie wanted to study in a French-speaking country that wasn't France and landed in Togo. Taking classes at the University of Benin, Leslie enjoyed her environment. "It was different and it was stimulating but I didn't feel overwhelmed or out of place," she says. "As a white person, you stand out and you never blend, but for the most part, people are really welcoming."

Her post-graduation enlistment in the Peace Corps had a lot to do with wanting to return to Africa, and graduate studies seemed to offer the same opportunity. In addition, "I was craving a chance to study in a book way what I'd been experiencing in a life way," she says. UCLA was a first choice because of its program in applied linguistics.

One of Leslie's advisers, Professor Russell G. Schuh of Linguistics, met her not long after her return from the Peace Corps. "She was already full of ideas for research, and she has made good on those ideas," Professor Schuh says. "I predict, even before it is written, that her dissertation on socialization and development of linguistic skills among Cameroonian children will become a classic of its type."

Professor Schuh also notes that "Leslie has been a poster child for graduate programs in terms of her aggressive and successful pursuit of extramural funding for her graduate study." Her last trip to Cameroon was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award, a Fulbright Student Award, and an ISOP Fieldwork Fellowship. A Spencer Dissertation Fellowship for Research Related to Education provides support while she writes her dissertation.

Leslie says that when she applied to graduate school, "I assumed that I wouldn't have to pay for it" because she had been told that non-professional graduate students did not pay to study. A variety of factors helped her find financial support, she says: working in an unusual field site, having experience, displaying a commitment to the scholarly and social issues, and putting significant time and effort into the writing of proposals. "It doesn't hurt that the people who write my letters of reference are big names," she says. Also, "money attracts money. Once you have a couple of grants, that increases the odds of getting the next grant you apply for."

But the most profound factor may be her attitude. "I go for everything," she says. "I don't fear being told no-I've been told no." Leslie is mystified that talented graduate students look at fellowship or grant applications and "don't think they're in the running," she says. "I've never had that attitude. I'm always in the running. As my mother always said, let them tell you no, don't ever tell yourself no."

Published in Spring 2002, Graduate Quarterly