Teaching Bilinguals – Case Study. Video 1: Getting Acquainted.
Question 1. Due to globalization, communities worldwide increasingly become multilingual and multi-ethnic, with Florida not being an exception. It has a long tradition of speaking and using Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, and Portuguese, Spanish, and Native People languages, among many others. During my study in Florida, I realized that native students are willing to interact with bilingual students and learn the basics of foreign languages. However, I also noted that peer teams in schools formed on an ethnic language basis were mostly recent migrants with settled students speaking English with their associates regardless of their home language practices.
The state has over one hundred bilingual education programs whereby two or more languages are used as mediums of instruction to study academic content such as mathematics and sciences (Coady et al., 2015). It could be argued that Spanish and English are the most popular languages in bilingual education programs, with English taught as a new language. Similarly, students in bilingual learning programs achieve high bilingualism levels without jeopardizing their first language or academic success in subject areas.
Question 2
The advocates of English language learners in Florida were represented by a Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy, Inc. (META) coalition. It was composed of civil rights and educational organizations such as the ASPIRA of Florida, the Haitian Refugee Center, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) (Coady et al., 2015). Other groups included the Haitian Educators’ Association, the Spanish American League against Discrimination (SALAD), the Farmworker’s Association of Central Florida, and the American Hispanic Educators’ Association of Dade (AHEAD).
Florida’s concession injunction lays out the protocols for identification and assessment, enrolling students in the English as a second language program, exiting learners from the program, and tracking students who have left the program (Coady et al., 2015). It also offers a framework for impartial entry to suitable categorical and another programming for English Language Learner (ELL) pupils. The decree addresses ELL students’ civil rights, encompassing their privilege to unbiased entry to all academic services. The concession injunction institutes a framework that guarantees that ELL participants receive understandable instruction as per their entitlement to remedy these conservations (Coady et al., 2015). Notably, consent decrees are legally binding if the parties agreed to them. It implies the injunction can only be confronted if a single party perpetrated a fraud or if there was a collective error or the court did not have jurisdiction over the issue. Teaching Bilinguals – Case Study.
Question 3
Translanguaging is the practice of using several languages in an integrated communication system by multilingual speakers. It is the ability to use bilingualism creatively, intentionally, critically, and flexibly. Translanguaging in the classroom will include translating between languages, contrasting and playing with multiple languages, and adopting the native language in a particular event section. In contrast, the institutional language is suitable in a different section. In other areas, words and phrases from various languages are mixed in verbal or written utterances.
Question 4
Scaffolding is the mechanism of segregating learning into workable portions and offering a procedure, or scheme, for each learning activity. Various scaffolding strategies such as pre-teaching vocabulary, visual aids, and giving learners time to talk are usable. Teachers must scaffold translanguaging tasks and help students understand how translanguaging can support their learning in school to optimize translanguaging teaching strategies. Scaffolding that is coherent and well-designed will enable classroom communities accept translanguaging as a standard.
The evidence suggests that learning is more straightforward, meaningful, and lasting when new concepts, language, and terminology are related to what we already know. Therefore, translanguaging is used as a strategy to develop supportive learning structures. For instance, by enabling bilingual students to add another language’s lexical and grammatical structures, it is possible to create a more precise target language and an excellent way to make ends meet (Daniel et al., 2017). Also, an interactive read-aloud in one language, while the discussions, prompts, notes, and answers are in multiple languages, is a successful approach. Notably, metalinguistic understanding is supported by strategies such as contrasting the languages side by side. Pairing students strategically to create bilingual texts and to have bilingual glossaries readily accessible in the classroom is a good blend for promoting translanguaging practices while also creating scaffolding structures.
Teaching Bilinguals – Case Study. Video 2: Being an Advocate for Bilingual Students
Question 1
Firstly, Ms. Conte promotes a classroom and school culture of celebrating bilingualism by acknowledging student’s language identities and strengths. She lets students thrive in possession of different languages and feel excited by the prospect rather than feel threatened. Ms. Conte achieves this by striving to show that their languages are instruments to help them succeed in their learning, their livelihoods, and their academics. She has also implemented a language in culture portraits at the begging of the year to develop association in the classroom for students to socialize and master each other’s language and ways of life.
Secondly, Ms. Conte has implemented reading books featuring multilingual and multicultural characters to build empathy across existing differences. This way, the teacher also becomes a co-learner alongside the students. Notably, most teachers at Bedford Hills Elementary School are not bilingual despite the students being multilingual. On the positive side, the teacher’s participation in learning a new language helps Ms. Conte develop empathy by understanding what the students go through every day to master a foreign language.
Markedly, it is essential to develop a meaningful relationship between theory and practice. I recommend Ms. Conte implement additional activities with the involvement of inter-language. A good example is comparing short stories among students under the whole language approach of utilizing feedback from other students while also learning to generate their input. Another approach would be to design activities where students talk about their experiences concerning the topic being studied. Such scenarios should be structured to discuss and safeguard their point of view without worrying about accuracy. Teaching Bilinguals – Case Study.
Question 2
Multicultural books are an efficient mechanism for learners to acquire a higher appreciation of their way of life and different people’s cultures. Correspondingly, mastering to communicate with and seriously interpret the articles they read, learners develop better intellectual skills (Valdiviezo & Nieto, 2015). Multicultural readers will educate students about various cultures and encourage them to participate in fruitful discussions about diversity. Students would be exposed to the real-world issues that certain people face today if these subjects are discussed openly at a young age. I have participated in such a practice as an observer. The teachers provided English Language Learners (ELL) with multilingual literature of Spanish and English origin to help them establish a stable base in Spanish as a native language and aid in mastering English as a new language.
This bilingual literature allowed students to study in their native language despite still learning jargon and sentence formation in the new language. It was interesting to see how children who learn to speak and read in several languages can transfer skills and information between languages and improve their fluency in both. Afterward, there were exercises used to contrast and compare international students’ practices and lifestyles with other English-speaking communities, such as charts, sketches, mind maps, and collages. In both popular and uncommon subjects, cards are suitable for comparing and contrasting specific ideas or social aspects in foreign and native cultures.
Question 3.
People who have had success reading in their first language would be more eager to try reading in other languages. Bilingual books of high quality allow them to expand their vocabulary in both languages (Espinosa, 2015). People who learn to speak and read in several languages will pass skills and expertise between languages and be more fluent in both. Bilingual books enable readers to remember in their native language while still learning vocabulary and sentence structure in the second. Students will more readily see parallels between words and compare and learn sentence structure in bilingual books since sentences in both languages are adjacent to each other. It makes such students more likely to test out their recently discovered proficiency skills in a foreign language.
Question 4.
Teaching Bilinguals – Case Study. Through the act of Ms. Conte implementing reading books featuring multilingual and multicultural characters, she also becomes a co-learner alongside the students. Notably, most teachers at Bedford Hills Elementary School are monolingual despite the students being multilingual, with Ms. Conte being one of them. However, Ms. Conte notes that the practice is challenging from a teacher’s perspective because she has to lose some control over the classroom since she also doesn’t know what is being said about or what is happening around her. Her experience of the teacher’s participation in learning a new language and the loss of control helps Ms. Conte develop empathy by understanding the students’ challenges every day trying to learn a new language. Leaving the room for students to express themselves in the classroom creates an avenue for the learners to develop their creative spark essential in language learning. Use APA referencing style.