In “Aria”, Rodriguez explains the
difficulties he went through as a young child trying to learn a whole new
language that was spoken all around him. Though I never had to learn a new
language as a child, I can relate to this article because I was placed in a
kindergarten ESL class for my Service Learning Project. The little boy that I
work with knows only a few words in English, while I know only a few words in
Spanish so our communication is very limited. Rodriguez’s article made me
realize how difficult it is for this boy to not only try to understand the English
language, but to also do the schoolwork that is involved. As tough as it may
be, it is better for children to learn a new language at a young age .Rodriguez
mentioned in the article that if he was taught English later in his life, it
would be very delayed. Reading this article made me realize how fortunate I was
to be brought up already knowing English, but on the other hand I respect
people who are bilingual because it must be difficult to learn .English and the
culture that surrounds it.
Point to Share: In class, I can share how even though I took two years of a foreign language in high school I could barely say more then a few sentences at a time. It must be so difficult to learn a new language at a young age.
I am also placed in an ESL classroom (4th grade), but I can understand the communication barriers. It was an interesting point when you explained that it would be difficult to complete the schoolwork for children who don't know English. This is of course an obvious detail that I sort of overlooked in my post. But of course, if the child can't get the right answers they will be labeled as "stupid" or in need of an aid, where the reality is that the child just can't understand what is being asked of them, or simply they can't read the questions accurately. I also took Spanish in high school, and to relate to a student learning a new language... I would pick out the words I knew in the worksheet and I would answer the question only knowing a few of the words. In my experience, this only worked to my advantage in a handful of cases and I can imagine that children learning English would use a similar technique to answer questions that they could not fully read. I know how difficult it was for me to understand bits of Spanish (although I was forced to take if for three years) and I can only imagine how it is for a child who is expected to know everything in English by a certain age or level.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with many kids that were in ESL classes and they had trouble learning the proper standards of English, but I also remember their parents not attempting to help them. I can only imagine how hard it is to work with a kid whether you know little of the language being taught or know little of the language of someone you are trying to teach.
ReplyDeleteI think it is awesome you are working with someone from a different language! It will be interesting to see the differences in the language and benefit in learning new words in Spanish. :)
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you are working in an ESL classroom. I agree with you that even though its hard for children to learn a second language, its easier to learn it when you are young. I took Spanish in high school, and I know some of my friends who had Spanish classes in elementary school had an easier time learning the language
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