The article Trilingualism focuses on African American language and the loss of idividuality in the classroom. Students of a minority definitely are at a disadvantage in the social and academic world. As a teacher I must try to meet the needs of all students reagardless of whether Hispanic, African American, or Hmong. Why should we cater to the majority? Does this make our job easier by making minorities learn another culture's dialect. I like the code switch idea but how many children are prepared for formal language when presenting or job seeking? I find that self expression is a must and children should be allowed there own language of which adults should accept to a certain extent. It's like when I was growing up my mother used to correct me when I used what I thought was a word,"ain't." My mother would say," Don't say aint" say "I'm not" or "I won't do that"etc. This is minimal compared to the Trilingualism article where cultures are subdued due to enunciating words. It's sad that somenone can be brilliant in an area of theier own expertice but be subdued because of a language barrier or conflict of interest.
In the Ladson-Billings article, no child should be overlooked or excused from learning in the classroom. It is the teacher's responsibility to reach all Ell learners as well as inviting them to share their culture and language with the class. Teachers should accomadate all forms of language barrieres by introducing new and engaging games, visuals, and hands on matereials in the classroom. Each student regardless of race should feel a part and the teacher should be the mediator and creator in making this happen. I know we all have our objectives we have to follow but when students do not feel apart of the process, then we will have more drop-outs and social problems will always be at rise.
Everything new we can introduce from the world around us will help all cultures to better understand each other and maybe one day everyone will leave the prejudice behind and get on with collaborating with each other on working out solutions to these problems.
Robin Hand