"To have LANGUAGE is to be in the PROCESS of BECOMING and BEING. It is not a final end point, but rather a VEHICLE for MAKING SENSE of the WORLD around us." - Cinthya Saavedra
Have you ever been placed or IMAGINEd being placed in a world where NO ONE spoke the same LANGUAGE as you? Or, how about this, where NO ONE spoke? If you haven't, give it a go! You will learn pretty quickly that it is SCARY and LONELY! WHO DO YOU TALK TO when you have really EXCITING news? Who do you talk to when your WORLD SEEMS TO BE FALLING APART? Can you even YELL at someone you are MAD at and have them UNDERSTAND WHY you are mad? Then do you get even MORE UPSET because they do not understand? What about them yelling at you and you don't understand? FRUSTRATING, right? This happened to me...TWICE. The first time was learning SPANISH. My companion, though she knew English, REFUSED TO SPEAK to me in ENGLISH so that I would learn Spanish. Needless to say, I DID NOT TALK much, but I eventually learned Spanish. The second time, I was thrown into a WORLD OF SILENCE known as the Sign Language Program. My companion was deaf and my sign was really bad. I could sign what I needed to teach, but other than that not much. I WITHDREW into myself because I COULD NOT EXPRESS myself through my hands. I kept it all in because I did not know how to bring it out. IMAGINE again that you are a student coming to America and everyone tells you that you MUST SPEAK ENGLISH and not your home language; the language that gives you VOICE, that allows you EXPRESS yourself, the language that is a PART OF YOU. In schools, we tell students this all of the time. ENGLISH ONLY. Essentially we are telling them to FORGET a part of who they are. But, DON'T WORRY! There is HOPE. I have had the chance to work with some of these students who are SILENCED because they don't speak English and I am not the only one. Teachers are finding ways to CONNECT with ESL students by allowing them to express themselves in their home language and then find ways to say the same in English so that we can connect with them. One of the greatest things that I have seen in the classroom is when I sit next to a student whose home language is Spanish. They have been silenced and are lost. When they hear me speak Spanish to them, SOMETHING CHANGES. Now I don't only speak to them in Spanish, but I teach them in English. But just knowing that I can UNDERSTAND them when they really need to be HEARD makes them LIGHT UP! They get EXCITED! They LISTEN! THEY LEARN!
It is so empowering to operate in our native language. Our primary discourse is our native and natural way of understanding. If we can help our students learn in a way that they are comfortable, then they are going to be more open and engaged when they are presented with a new activity. I liked your post. I need to learn some Spanish.
ReplyDeleteNice work, Marti. Your post ties well into what we talked about in class last week. I think, in addition to being accommodating to ELL students, we can use the same approach with students who are native English speakers but are struggling in the learning process. We may be speaking the same language, but teachers' levels of understanding are often different than students' levels, so we need to meet them on their level first (like speaking Spanish with native Spanish speakers) and allow them to express themselves. Once they express themselves on their level, we can help them improve and progress and teach them on our level. They simply need to know that we understand and care about where they're coming from.
ReplyDeleteI love what you said about giving voice to the silenced. I completely agree with you on how important it is for these students to feel like there is someone that will actually listen to them. Your own experiences have shaped a very kind and caring teaching philosophy style already. This empathy can carry you far as you begin teaching I think.
ReplyDeleteI love the experience that you shared. The fact that English is well known all over the world sometimes makes us forget how it feels to be, as you say, silenced. Your quote from Professor Saavedra also drew me to your blog as it, in a sense, extended our ESL class discussion from last week. Minoring in ESL has made me feel ashamed that I don't know a second language. I admire that you are able to communicate with your ESL students in that way. It is always essential to feel understood, especially to succeed in school.
ReplyDeleteI think your posting raised some really interesting questions that I have been discussing with Clark in our class, who will teach French. He said that in his program, he was taught never to speak English in class at all and to encourage his students to speak ONLY French. In a way, I can see what he is talking about because the best way to learn French is to be immersed in it (like you learned to speak Spanish through your companion).
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, however, if you never allow students to speak their home languages, then you block their medium for thinking and you block a medium for the expression of their identities.
I think POWER is also an issue here too. To many in America, English is considered to be the language of power. (Newt Gingrich even said that Spanish was "the language of the ghettos.") An English-speaker learning French might not face the same issues of power and the devaluation of their native language as a Spanish speaker learning English. So maybe history teachers such as yourself need to value students' home languages as a means of valuing their identities, but French teachers do not face the same issues? I don't know...just thinking outloud here in response to my conversation with Clark...
Thanks for a thought provoking conversation!