Monday, February 18, 2013

Rodriguez's Argument On Behalf Of Bilingualism

After reading Rodriguez’s text, “Aria,” many thoughts popped into my head about bilingual education. Richard Rodriguez was a young boy raised in a Spanish family with his siblings and parents. The children went to school where they were taught english, the public language, while at home they mostly talked spanish, the private language. This was definitely a struggle for Richard Rodriguez, being only seven years old, he needed to be practicing english inside and outside of the classroom. At first Richard’s parents agreed to learn english, but then the father failed because he was not confident in knowing what he was saying, but the mother proceeded to learn the new language for the sake of her children. “It was still then ingles, a language foreign to us, so we felt as strangers drawn to it.” The Rodriguez family were strangers to the language, but with their children being American citizens, and needing to know the english language in their schools, it needed to be practiced. 

This text opened my eyes to how a child explained what it was like for him to learn a new language, with not much help from his parents. For my service learning project, I am stationed in a bilingual kindergarten classroom, and work with four students who need extra help with letter sounds, reading, and math skills. My first impression when I walked into Mrs. Rodriguez’s classroom (name coincidence... weird) was oh my god, this is one crazy atmosphere. The students were all over the place, which I did expect since their all five years old, but the teacher is talking in english then saying things in spanish, and their I am thinking to myself I can’t speak spanish. The reading specialist did tell me that the reason why so many will respond in spanish is because that is what they are taught at home, and many parents don’t know the english language. Once I met the students I was working with I felt a little more reassured because three out of the four were very good at speaking english, but one struggled and I could not really understand him. Since it was only my first time meeting with the students, I know it will only get better from their and I am so excited to help the students grow with their english skills. “Aria,” displayed the struggles of Richard in and out of the classroom with language, and shared how he grew, so I am hoping it will go the same for the students I am working with at Lillian Elementary. 

* I can't stand families being broken into pieces because of the sacrifices they don't want to make to help their children succeed in life. Parents most importantly should be willing to learn the language their children need to be taught in school. 

1 comment:

  1. I totally agree with you that children should learn the English language in schools and that practicing does make the children know it better. I was the same way in my first day of service learning i have an ESL class first grade, and the teachers speaks English in the class. But some of the students i could not understand, I had to tell them to repeat what they were saying a couple of times. I kind of felt bad for them because I could tell they were getting a little frustrated with having to repeat what they were saying to me. But after a while they started to love me and some of them are starting to learn English and they getting very good.

    ReplyDelete