Teachers
will encounter many different languages in their career, no matter what career
is chosen there will be a variety of languages. There has been a good bit of
debate in if children should learn a second language earlier than high school
or not. The truth is many students that we will, or have already started to
encounter already are in the process of learning a second language, English.
The most appalling thing I read in this chapter was on page 63, "by 2030,
40% of the school age population in the Unites States will be English language
learners... A major concern is that about 85% of the country's teachers speak
English only." English
only. I see a problem with this, not to say that these teachers are
not qualified or wonderful teachers, but it creates a language barrier between
the teacher and student as well as the teacher and parents. When students speak
another language at home there is more than just the language being ignored at
school.
A
bigger part of language is the culture it comes from; language is only a small
piece of culture. Why are teachers ignoring this part in the classroom? Last
semester in the program I participated in we talked a lot about being
culturally relevant and accurate. Most if not all teachers should really strive
to be both of those, because it is a part of being a STAR teacher, I believe. As
future teachers this is heavily emphasized in every classroom, we are all told
to be culturally relevant but how can we do that if there are five different
languages in one classroom? How can teachers provide a unique comforting feel
to those students that come in knowing almost nothing in English, and we have
no idea how to communicate with them? Most teachers consider these children
difficult or hard to work with, and some may not understand the difficulty that
the student is going through. Some may not know how the student feels when they
cannot explain in the most used language, it is a frustrating feeling on the
student’s end and could be on the teacher’s.
The
second most shocking part of the chapter was when it said that the students
that are learning English as a second language was for some part due to the
lack of inclusion or understanding of a home culture. So my real question at
the end of reading this, is the same question I thought hard about last
semester, what is culture? Can you honestly define culture? What affects it?
How was it created? There is no one strict definition of what culture is.
Culture is an ever-changing concept as people go through life. Culture is a
piece of every person’s life, because we all have culture. Culture is who we are, and it explains why we do what we do. As teachers we hope to be very open minded, but how can we do that when 85% of us do not try to immerse ourselves into a completely foreign culture? Below are: a video from youtube (What is Culture?) and a picture that simply sums up what makes it up.
This post was interesting and really got me thinking! I agree with your discussion about "what is culture?". I personally think that each individual's definition of culture can be different and can include different aspects of life. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is hard to know how to teach if we can't even "agree" on definitions such as this. Another part of your post I found interesting was that by 2030 40% of school age students will be ELL and 85% of our teachers speak english only. This is definitely going to be a barrier in future classrooms and it will be important for future educators to be very willing to learn new things, adapt to their students, and to understand that without being flexible in your teaching styles your students could have difficulties being successful in your classroom.
ReplyDeleteI also found the statistics about 40% of students will be ELL is very surprising and I also was interested in the question of should children learn a second language before high school. I think this is a great question and one that should definitely be addressed. I personally have always wished I would have learned a language at an earlier age, I took four years of high school starting in 8th grade and I do not feel like I retained any of it and do not feel like I can speak it fluently. The whole first paragraph was very insightful and that fact that most students will be ELL and most teachers will only speak english is really something to take notice of.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with your entire post! How are we to have a culturally sound classroom when we have students who are not able to communicate, and in turn, teachers who are not able to communicate with those students? This is a barrier in our classrooms, especially for the future as more and more students come in who don't speak English as their first language. I also really enjoyed your video, it was quite informative. I feel like your model would be a good way to teach students about culture as well!
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more with what you are saying! The part that stuck out to me the most was the fact that by 2030 40% of the school aged population will be English Language Learners. Also, that 85% of the teachers will only be English speaking. Like you, this really bothers me. Not only for the fact that the children will not have a clear understanding of the lesson or what is going on in the classroom day in and day out, but that the communication between the teacher and parents will not be there. As educators we have learned that communication is key to having a happy functioning classroom. To insure the best form of communication I think a good idea would be having a critical-needs groups, a workshop or parent outreach in their language since they are so far removed from the mainstream. It would just be important that if this happens that they wouldn't be excluded.
ReplyDeleteSo it seems that you all agree on communication and culture, so if I may pose a question: How are you changing this?
ReplyDeleteI will also answer this question. I am changing this by becoming one of the 15% of teachers that speak multiple languages. I am still learning Spanish, since it is my minor, and I hope to start taking sign language classes next semester!
That's wonderful, Shea!
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