Blog post #6 Rodriguez and Teaching Bilinguals videos

 

                                                Rodriguez and Teaching Bilinguals videos 

Argument - Both Rodriguez and the videos share a similar argument in which they argue that having multiple languages in a classroom will not only help your students that speak multiple languages, but will enrich their learning experience when they see their teacher making an effort in including their culture into the lessons as well. They challenge the idea that English should be the only languages in the classroom. Both, but more specifically the videos understand the difficulty that comes with teaching children in multiple languages when you only speak one. However they offer ideas and methods on how to break down this barrier that educators can have with their children and try to connect them in the classroom. 

This idea of English should be the "main "language in American classrooms is highlighted in the Rodriguez reading when he explains his time in school as a child. He shares a story in which he has trouble answering questions in school, since his main language was Spanish. He explains that he was discriminated against and sometimes punished for the use of his own language. This transpired into him having this idea of a "public" and "private" languages, in which he believed that English was the public one and should be the only one used in classrooms. That is what makes the videos so important. It shows a shift in the way of thinking in the classroom. Not only is Multilanguage students accepted, they are celebrated. Their understanding of two languages is seen as a gift not as a burden on the educators. It shows that the pressure is not on the students, but rather the educator to try to include these student's culture into the lessons, rather than excluding them. 

Comments - The part that I found most interesting was the videos. I found that the tips and methods they showed in the videos were more helpful than I first thought they would be. One in particular was in Episode two in which the teacher tried to integrate Spanish into her lesson. When giving directions, she asked the students who would be comfortable in doing those directions in Spanish, like when finding a quote, who could write that quote in Spanish. There was another example in which students were given a body and were asked to color which body parts they could say in English, and which ones they could say in Spanish. Both of these examples are very important because they are two instances in which the teacher included Multilanguage students. It would be much easier for the teacher to just give these students two separate worksheets, one in English and one in Spanish. However, she made an effort to unify the students, and rather than isolating certain students, she made each student work on the same assignment, which I believe is very important.   

HyperLinks - https://online.tamiu.edu/articles/education/why-bilingual-education-is-important.aspx