Billingual AF
Bilingual
AF
As
I sit at my computer preparing for my day, I receive a most unwelcome email.
Before opening it, I look at the subject and feel my heart began to sink. The
subject line reads, “New Student.” As I open the email I think to myself, oh
please be a well-behaved student. I am already under so much pressure.” I open
the email and read. “Ms. M you will be receiving a new student, Cruz Lopez
(name was changed) who speaks only Spanish. He will be a car rider.” My heart
sinks further. I look for another teacher to vent to. “I’m getting a new
student who is ESL,” I say to my colleague. “Oh boy,” she says with a look of
sympathy. “I sure hope not.”
These conversations take place among many teachers at my
school, including myself. It is so interesting that when many monolingual
teachers get new students, we are secretly hoping for a mirror of ourselves and
of the students we think we like most: monolingual, well behaved student. After
all, hanging over as teachers is the expectation that the State Board of
Education expects that we teachers must not only make prompt a year’s growth
with our 162 students, but also get them to pass IREAD-3 and ILEARN. These
expectations are only increased by the presence of the monolinguistic student
whose language is not the same as one in which the exam is given.
Of course, I am embarrassed horribly to admit my reactions,
and those of many excellent teachers, to the arrival of Cruz Lopez and other
students like him. Why do I bring up these embarrassing thoughts and
conversations amongst the teachers? At one level, they are honest reactions. It
is often difficult, especially during the first weeks, to have students in the
class who do speak the English language or whose skills in English are minimal
They take more of the time of the teacher and the aid. Other students must
sometimes translate for them, thus distracting the other students from their
own work. They sometimes cause tempt bilingual students to retreat into their
own cultural enclave speaking their own language which, I as a teacher, may not
understand.
On the other hand, we teachers are committed to the
education of all our students. The reading
prompts to think about the advantages that bilingual students have, and,
consequently, the importance of me working as a teacher to encourage all
students in my class to bilinguisticality; There are many more benefits than
students who are easier presences to have in the classroom than the
monolinguistsic student who only speaks a language other than the dominant
language in the room. The reading points to the cognitive advantages of being a
bilingual student. In the reading, some of the benefits of being a bi-lingual
student include: strengthening the control of mechanisms in the brain, greater
creativity, and greater mental flexibility. We have such an amazing opportunity
as educators to help grow our English Language Learners. The text says that
students who speak two languages are able to perceive the world from two
different perspectives. It astonishes me that we, as teachers, still get so
anxious about getting English Language Learners in our class. Even more, once
we have English Language Learners in our class we tend to have low expectations
of their abilities. Based on the readings, ELL students who have the proper
instruction are able to learn and understand English at a much higher level
than we give them credit for. In the reading it said that bilingual education
can be subtractive and additive. Based on schooling most time our education is
subtractive.
So, as I think about my own practice the first questions I
would pose are:
How do we make bilingual education is an essential part
of the educational process so that as many students as possible can receive the
benefits of bi-linguistically?
In adding ESL and other approaches to becoming
bi-lingual, how do we take as many steps as possible to limit the damage that
could occur to students’ use of home language as they learn a new language?
A quote from Educating Emergent Bilinguals states, “Being
multilingual means you understand the world from different perspectives and are
more likely to devise creative and innovative solutions: it’s “good for the
brain to have to learn how to work and think in [multiple languages]””
Other questions I had based on the reading include:
·
How can we get teachers to shift from
decontextualized language learning to a contextualized language learning?
·
How can we use translation in our classrooms as
a tool to help students better understand language?
Below I have included a YouTube video that discusses the
benefits bilingualism has on the brain.
Sabbath,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you expressed true feelings and emotions of many teachers about their feelings toward specific students, more importantly bilingual students. I don't believe that teachers purposeful are fearful of having students in their classrooms that speak another language other than English, but that they don't understand fully how to support emergent bilingual students. Without courses in teacher preparation programs, not much information is shared with teachers about bilingual students and their capabilities. I know personally before this course, I have never been educated about emergent bilingual students although I have had many within my classroom. One of the articles this week spoke about professional development around instructing emergent bilingual students. I think there needs to be more professional development and courses in teacher preparation programs to better support teachers to allow emergent bilinguals to flourish in their classrooms and use their home languages to support their education.
I agree, I did my undergrad down in Alabama and we didn't have a single course on linguistically diverse learners. Better preparation I think is key, but I also think it is a greater awareness. I loved how one professor made her students take classes in Mexico in order to truly understand what it's like to be a language learner and bring empathy back into their classrooms. I think if more teachers understood the immense task of learning a new language we would have more compassion when we get ENL students.
DeleteI completely agree! Even if teachers couldn't go into another country to realize the amount of work that is involved in trying to communicate and comprehend in a foreign language, they should have to take a foreign language course of some sort where their primary language isn't spoken at all.
DeleteInterestingly enough, that actually happened to me when I was in my undergrad in the education program. I was in block one and the professor, who was originally from an African country (I forgot which one) told us we were going to do something different in the next class. When we came in, he started speaking to us in his native language. We were so confused. We had no idea what he wanted us to do, or what was going on in class. He just taught the class as he normally did, but we were all completely lost. Looking back on that, it made me realize that the ENL students that are in my class are probably as lost as I was that time in class. I had a true feeling of what they must be going through everyday in class. It was very humbling.
DeleteI agree it's such a humbling experience and really helps you get a small glimpse into the lives of our ENL students.
DeleteSabbath,
ReplyDeleteFor your question, although I barely know history and current situation of ESL education for young kids in America, I think bilingual education is a hard subject especially for our teachers. I believe that if you want to learn how to use a language, the best way is to live in this language environment. I talked with one of my friend in China yesterday, she is an first grade elementary teacher in Xinjiang, the largest province of China that has a large population of Uygur minority people. In her class, more than a half students have no idea about Mandarin when they started school. For her, a Han nationality, she do not know anything about their nation language either. It is a hard time for her to accomplish local education department's requirement of teaching Uygur students Mandarin and make sure they can pass the test. Fortunately, her school has Uygur teachers and textbooks in Uygur language. Those helped her a lot. Nonetheless, I feel like for teaching bilingual kids, no matter whether you know their home languages or not, first step to make a connection between teachers and students is to show kindness, encouragement, understanding and belief. It is also a good way to find bilingual teachers or textbooks to help with. I believe for young kids, the best way to promote learning is showing your understanding and belief.
Thank you for sharing this post. I think sometimes, we forget this is an issue across the world! There are immigrants and refugees in all parts of the world which experience this in places such as markets, grocery stores, and schools. The connection you point out regarding kindness and encouragement alongside understanding are something, I think all humans can relate to. We all would like to feel connected and respected, so providing an environment where it's modeled is critical to helping our students that do not yet speak the language of the country or school they are in to those first attempts at using the language, to feeling fluently bi-lingual.
DeleteI agree that teachers making a connection with bilingual students is important as well as having respect for their language and culture. When working with bilingual kids I have had to brush-up on any skill or knowledge that I might have previously acquired, or learned some new ones. Sometimes it been easier said(thought) than done. However, consulting with other teachers is important and cultivating and utilizing the help of other students in the classroom, bilingual or not, has been key for me in the past and even now as a substitute. For any student showing "kindness, encouragement, understanding and belief" goes a long way in their success. Yet for me, maybe not so much for my attitude towards bilingual students, but any student who might be "different" or not fitting my notion of the world, it takes more self-reflection, and being on guard for biases,
DeleteSabbath,
ReplyDeleteI understand exactly how you feel. I know that I feel that way about most students, but when it comes to ENL students, I will say there is more anxiety than if the student spoke just English. When I taught third grade I had a student that came to me from the Dominican Republic and she spoke no English at all. It was good that some of the girls that spoke Spanish helped her, but I can say that she was a lot smarter than she let on. She used the fact that she could not speak the language to her advantage sometimes. I wills say that it would help to have some teacher preparation programs. I got most of the bilingual students in my grade because in Lawrence township you have to have one teacher in each grace level that is SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) certified. It is an instructional model that is used to help ELL students all over the country. So helping these students were a little easier for me than someone who has not had the training. Even so, I still felt like I did not know what I was doing most of the time. I think that no matter how much training you have, there will still be that little bit of trepidation when it comes to students being in your classroom that do not speak the "dominant" language.
Sabbath, your comments and reflections to the reading really hit home with me...so many of our teachers are afraid to admit this. I believe it's hard when something is new or different and as you said, teachers are under so much pressure for test scores, passing students, behavior it can and does feel overwhelming.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I've been in a classroom for 10 years and in only one of my schools (the one bi-lingual/bi-cultural school I worked in) have I ever had any training on how to show respect, be open to multi-lingual students, and how to work with those that have little language. In my time in public schools I have never had a training on how to connect with or educate students from other countries or ENL students. I wonder if you have that at your school since you have such a large population of students using more than one language?
In a previous response I replied to Sabbath's question and I don't know what happened to it. The gist of the response was, however, that my experience with receiving new bilingual students was not as frightening as it might of been because I was in a core setting. As a team of teachers we were able to help each other with various issues that arose. We also had various levels of bilingual speakers and they also helped with new students. Also, regular students were also willing to interact, especially in group settings with me walking the room. As a team of teachers we could also discuss the student's progress in different disciplines. From the video I can also add that even a small effort can be beneficial.
DeleteI feel like the younger kids are, the easier to teach them in a bilingual environment. Young kids are always sensitive and care about their parents and teachers attitude. They justneed time to learn, and as long as they can receive positive massages of their learning, they will feel confident and have more dynamics to keep improving. There's nothing to be afraid of teaching and learning, but we should afraid of missing care and connection.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we can use translation as a tool in the classroom to better understand language by providing a translator that can support the teacher with students who may need a little extra help. Teachers can also write instructions in English and then write the Spanish translation above or beneath the instructions.
ReplyDelete