Teaching Emergent Bilinguals

Teaching Multilingual Children

I liked that this article broke down the information into 7 "guidelines".   The guidelines helped me understand what I should keep in mind when teaching my bilingual students.  These will serve as a reminder when I am planning my lessons and activities in class.  The "caregiver speech" was interesting in that it also connected to the second reading, Aria.  Caregiver speech is a type of speech that is commonly used in the home and that students can relate to.  It has 6 features.  Primarily, the focus is on communication, and the caregiver is mindful of how speech is presented.  In Aria, Richard Rodriguez talks about how the speech used at home (his native language) was exciting and meaningful.  Talking to his parents in his native tongue brought about rich conversations filled with laughter and intrigue.  However, once they began strictly using English at home, that feeling was gone and replaced with alienation.  

"We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed.  No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness."

Using caregiver speech, we allow students to feel comfortable and intrigued to learn.  It is a disservice to them if we ask them to use English only and punish them when they do not.  My greatest struggle, teaching Science, is that it is "context-reduced and intellectually much more demanding".  I need to find that "happy medium" where they can use their conversations to learn but still meet standards.  I do allow them to use their native language often.  I feel that they can express themselves more meaningfully.  This was validated in the videos, which I watched all 5!  I also learned from the article that "academic skills developed in the first language tend to automatically transfer to the second language".  

3. Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language.

The city in which I work uses a Transitional bilingual approach where students are pulled out for English class but remain in all other content classes with the respective teacher.  This is why I feel that it is important to allow students to use their native languages to fully express themselves.  When we do not allow students to use their native language, they will instantly be considered at risk.  I found number 7 intriguing because our district is moving towards a model where they would like to see the domains, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, incorporated in our learning objectives.  This should have a big impact on our MLLs.  

"There are two ways a person is individualized... they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality."  

While reading about Richard Rodriguez, my heart was breaking.  At first, I could empathize with his parents and why they wanted Richard to improve his language.  They know the language of "dominance" and wanted their son to be successful.  However, as the story went on, I was filled with sadness.  To lose oneself because of the need to be heard and "fit in" is heartbreaking.  We increase the chances of that loss of individuality when we do not allow students to express themselves in their native languages at school.

As stated above, I did end up watching all 5 episodes!  It was interesting to see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms that I might be able to incorporate into mine.  We need to leverage their linguistic background to help them with their learning and enrich our classrooms.  Although it might be scary and uncomfortable to allow them to use their native languages, it is imperative.  I liked the book choices that were presented in a couple of the episodes as well.  They relate to the students' cultures and communities.  I resonate with the guidelines that one teacher set for encouraging students to "use English for what has already been taught".  They will need to practice that to become masters.  Something I would like to look into more is the idea of using home language practices to be able to tell if they are proficient in that language.  We might be attempting to teach a second language with the assumption that they are fluent in their own.  After reading and listening to the teachers in the videos, I am motivated to make some changes so that my classroom is more culturally aware of who is in my room.