Laura Wollpert- Language and Identity
While reading the introduction and the first two chapters of this book, a couple of experiences came to mind. In the early 1990s, I worked for a public school system in the Bilingual Education Department outside of Detroit. It was a nice community with a diverse student population. There were about fourteen different languages represented with most of them coming from Middle Eastern countries. I felt fortunate to work with such an interesting diverse group of people.
The goal of the department was to teach English as a Second Language while further developing the home language. The school of thought was that if the student was fully educated in the home language, English could be learned more efficiently without deficits developing in either language. This approach sounded perfectly logical and natural, but the program was constantly at risk of being eliminated. The director had to be a politician and fight for funding, validity, and recognition.
I worked mainly with Japanese students at the elementary level. Many of the teachers were caring and understanding, but there were some that insisted that because a student could do a math worksheet he or she could understand everything and would become very angry when a student did not answer a question. These teachers would not listen to anything I had to say either about the culture or the language acquisition process. Some of the teachers were down right mean. I remember an incident when a teacher asked a student if he was dead because he did not respond when I went into his room. The boy was only in first grade. In what culture is it appropriate to talk to anyone in that manner?
If I remember correctly it was also in the 1990s that there was talk of making Ebonics an official language. I remember thinking that it was very natural to do this after all I worked for a very progressive school system that tried to promote bilingualism. I was very naïve to believe this country was progressive enough to embrace the West African culture and recognize Ebonics as a language. If we look at the history of this country we can see that most of the people that settled this land striped themselves of their language and culture to assimilate and that is what we expect people to do today.
The problem is that language lives in culture and culture lives in language. You can not experience one fully without the other. People who are striped of their language are also striped of their culture. The end result will be a person who is left in pieces, and he or she will spend many years trying to put the pieces back together. As in the case of Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, her childhood would have been much different if she could have experienced her own culture in her own language instead of the language of her suppressors.
Another example is when I was tutoring a little Japanese girl. She was happy and completely unaware that both of her languages had deficits. Her mother would speak to her in broken English and sometimes a combination of Japanese and English. Therefore neither her Japanese nor her English was fully developed. If her mother would have spoken to her only in Japanese, the little girl would be better in both languages. I could not convince the mother that this was the appropriate approach to take.
When this country begins to value other cultures, more families will feel comfortable encouraging their children to actively engage in their own culture and language. When this occurs, everyone will benefit from the sharing of cultural traditions and values.
Comments (4)
I dislike it when teachers do not try to understand that it is difficult to acquire another language and try to learn a new way to read and do math at the same time. Many educators are unaware of how language acquisition occurs and that social language is easier to develop then academic language. I am not sure if this is the appropriate term, but what I mean is when ESL students learn the language they are better at using it in social settings and when teachers hear this they automatically think the child has proficient language development and should be able to display this in the classroom setting. When they do not they call them lazy, unmotivated, etc. This is not the case. In order to understand children who are ESL learners and children who have not learned Standard English we have to understand a little about the way they learn and/or their culture.
I remember very little about the Ebonics debate. I am not sure if I agree with it being an official language, but in order to relate to the children we have to know what they are talking about and what they experience in their culture. We cannot think that one way is the right way. You wrote, “If we look at the history of this country we can see that most of the people that settled this land striped themselves of their language and culture to assimilate and that is what we expect people to do today.” This is true and we cannot expect that everyone will get the language right. We are fortunate to only know one language and was able to learn English with little effort, but when another language is embedded in you and you try to learn a new language it sometimes get confusing and you speak a little of both. Many people my not have learned the rules of grammar or how to say words correctly as they were learning them and when they used these same words around their children their children learned to speak the same way. Even from the times of slavery, many blacks learned words the wrong way and I believe it has been passed down from generation to generation for some families. It is all about what environment you live in and what you are being taught.
Posted by Danielle Griffin | May 23, 2007 10:48 PM
Posted on May 23, 2007 22:48
I thought it was very interesting that you have encountered ESL parents who want their child to acquire and speak English more than their own home language. I too have encountered this and have stressed to the parents many times that the children need to know who they are and where they come from, this includes learning their own language. I am pleased when I know that a parent is trying to learn English and help their child, even though sometimes they teach them incorrectly, but I wonder how much time and energy are they spending making sure their child knows their own language. It amazes me that teachers and parents have such different ideas of what will make the child successful. These parents think if the child learns English then things will be fine, while we know as teachers you cannot erase who you are and where you come from, nor should you.
I completely agree that it would be better for the child to concentrate learning their home language before attempting a second language. I have encountered quite a few kids who simply did not have a language because their parents were busy trying to make sure they learned English. I know enough Spanish to translate some basic nouns for my students (I teach K, so it is always basic stuff) and it is so sad when I encounter one of these children who does not know enough Spanish to understand when I am trying to help them compare the English word to the Spanish word to increase their knowledge base. I guess I will never completely understand this burning desire from the parents to essentially abandon their culture for another since I have never had to walk a mile in their shoes.
Posted by Lisa Outland | May 24, 2007 4:13 PM
Posted on May 24, 2007 16:13
Laura,
You brought up two of the major themes of the course: the intimate relationship among culture, language, and idenitity and the urgency of dispelling the difference=deficit paradigm that permeates our schools. You have some unique experiences from which to draw to make some important knowledge claims about each of these current issues in literacy education.
BTW -- there is TONS of research, as you probably know, that backs up the language acquisition model that you practiced at your school. I wonder how much of that research was available in the 90s!
Posted by Prof. Alecia Jackson | May 28, 2007 10:23 PM
Posted on May 28, 2007 22:23
I too believe this country needs a good quick kick in the butt for thinking that English is the only language. Yes I believe that English should able to be spoken if you live in a country where that is the National Language. But at the expense of saying that the language you currently have is wrong is not the way to go about doing it. We need to learn to embrace these new languages and show them we are willing to understand them if they are willing to understand us. We need to show them how to speak our language at the same time they are teaching us how to understand and speak theirs.
Posted by Kristen Billings | May 29, 2007 4:15 PM
Posted on May 29, 2007 16:15