Jenevieve M. Nelson

I married Jenevieve on June 23, 2001 in Silver Run, Maryland, near her hometown of Westminster.  We met in Beloit College and started dating during our junior year.  Jenevieve has been teaching English just as much, if not more, than me.  She taught English for 2 years in a different branch of the same school as mine in Japan.   As I was taking graduate courses, Jenevieve paid the bills by teaching at a community college and a private institute for Koreans in Maryland.  Afterwards, we both taught English in Korea, with Jenevieve teaching at a teacher training institute for schoolteachers and later at Sookmyung Women's University teaching freshmen English.  After three years in Korea, we were in Russia where she spent most of her time writing a cultural/fiction novel, teaching English on the side of course.  Now we are in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where she is working as an online rater for oral proficiency interviews. 

Autumn Cecilia Coulee Nelson Slagoski

Jenevieve and I welcomed our first child into the world on September 28, 2008.  She was born 24 days premature but about as healthy as a full-term baby. 

 

My Multicultural Family

I am the oldest of 5 children and the only biological child of my parents, Daniel and Patricia.  Two of my brothers and my only sister were born in South Korea, and my youngest brother was born in the Philippines.  They were all adopted at separate times.  My sister, Kate, was my first sibling adopted in 1980 at the age of 9 months.  Four years later, I gained my first brother, Joshua, in 1984 at the age of 3 years.  Two years later, the Slagoski family adopted Paul from the Philippines in 1986 at the age of 16 months.  Last but not least, the oldest of the adopted siblings at the age of 10, Lee was adopted in 1988.

I grew up in this multicultural family with very little thought about my family being different from any other family.  All of my friends and family in our hometown of Kenosha knew about my situation, so I never needed to explain it.  It wasn't until I was in college, that I got surprising reactions after explaining my family.  Some people didn't believe me, but most were impressed.

I often believe that my curiosity in other cultures came from my unique upbringing.  It is no doubt that this was a strong impetus for me to become a teacher of English to speakers of other languages.  I remember teaching my siblings English as a child because I was concerned about my siblings' linguistic development.  Of course that was secondary to the fact of me playing the role of the authoritative big brother.

I know I am lucky when I realize that I have been learning about different cultures since I was 4 years old and I have been teaching English since I was 10.  Not many people get to see their life's path appear in front of them so easily.