Language and Power

Talking Points

"Aria"

By Richard Rodriguez

1. The quote "Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home" immediately connects to the culture of power that Delpit is stressing!! This power struggle is even experienced by EL learners, who are grappling with the acquisition of TWO languages (bilingualism), let alone the various injustices they deal with in the classroom because of an uneducated or biased teacher's disposition toward them. This speaks to my heart deeply, since my classroom is the one that services the ESL kindergartners who arrived in August. I constantly seek ways to include their diverse backgrounds and languages, and set up my classroom with bilingual books, labels, signs...anything to encourage a sense of familiarity and comfort, especially because they are so new to this concept of "school" already! I hurt for Richard, the author having to endure this misunderstood challenge in his classroom alongside his peers and teacher, who don't seem to recognize it. It was so difficult to read about the nuns coming to Richard's home and proposing that the parents only speak English at home to the children. This huge opportunity of learning BOTH his home language as well as English to engage with his family and gain bilingualism as a skill-set was stripped away in an instant because of their privileged, self-interested demands. 

"Teaching Multilingual Children"

By Virginia Collier

2. I enjoyed reading this article by Collier, since it was practical and helped me to see ways and new perspectives of families with EL's and how multilingualism works in the classroom, which I could try to incorporate with high intention in my own ESL classroom to advance their skills. I was so inspired by those who teach in bilingual classroom, which is clearly an even greater challenge as seen when she states "Being a bilingual teacher seems to multiply the complications of teaching. One must teach in two languages, affirm the cultural values of both home and school, teach standardized forms of the two languages but respect and affirm the multiple varieties and dialects represented among students in class, be a creative and flexible teacher, serve as a catalyst for discovery as students learn to operate effectively in their multiple worlds, be able to mediate and resolve intercultural conflicts, keep students on task and on and on." I had never really reflected on this before, and (as privilege tends to do) I just assumed that people who accept this role would carry out these added responsibilities. Only until my classroom this year, did I see the extra struggle these families and students of different languages/cultures ACTUALLY go through. Talk about the flexibility of this rare breed of bilingual teachers!!! I loved reading about her advocacy for the significant role teachers play to provide their students with both a balance of academics and attention to the social-emotional and cultural aspects in their learning. I truly appreciate her 7 guidelines to better understanding.

Argument

Collier and Rodriguez both argue that educators must raise awareness about meeting the specific needs of English-language learners in their classroom practice, and make language teaching as well as learning as culturally relevant as possible for the students. 

"New Rules Hurt Bilingual Students"

By Sarah Hesson and Rachel Toncelli

3. This ProJo article written by two professors at RIC discusses the change in RIDE's regulations about ESL services provided in schools being detrimental to the educational experience of these students. By limiting or cutting service periods entirely, it shows that our state does not value this significant need for one of the fastest growing student populations to date to assimilate fluidly into our society's "culture of power" to be successful linguistically and academically.  

They nail it quite well: "It’s not fair to students to lose out on instruction with a certified ESL expert, nor is it fair to expect content teachers to provide this language support without appropriate training. But the new regulations allow for this exact scenario." Even schools in NY have collaborative models with both teacher roles co-teaching in the same room. So why is RI pulling back on this critical need? How can they justify this is equitable at all for the bilingual or ESL population?

Argument 

These two professors argue that English learners deserve to be in regular, direct contact with highly qualified, certified ESL and bilingual teachers.

I did some Internet rabbit holing again...and felt that this was a great article by NPR that explains WHY people code-switch....it isn't just something we see in the more dominant Spanish-speaking communities, but also occurs in Black English culture as well...  NPR website link

Also, this YouTube video was short but eye-opening about how honest Black people are about their cultural preference of code-switching as well:

Code-Switching