The ethnic, and sociocultural characteristics of the students in my assigned classroom are very different from that of what I am used to. Growing up in a predominately white and Portuguese town, I was not necessarily exposed to a diverse school or classroom. We maybe had five African American students in my high school so to say it was diverse is far from the truth. However spending every weekend in Providence with my dad for more than half of my life has made me used to many different ethnic backgrounds such as the ones in my tutoring school. Consisting of 64% Spanish, 24% African American, and a combined 12% White and Asian, there is a good balance of many different ethnic backgrounds, although Spanish and African American students are the majority.
Out of all the students attending this school, 35% of them are learning English as a second language (ESL). English being one of the hardest languages to learn, I watch a few students in Mrs. Rose's class struggle with the complexity of the language. They have a difficult time writing and an even more difficult time reading. While they may struggle with English in the classroom, once they go home they are in their comfortable environment where speaking your native language is acceptable, unlike in the American school systems where they expect English to be learned by all those who do not know it. I took Spanish for almost 6 years, but if you asked me to put together a full sentence I would not even know where to start. While these kids are struggling to learn how to speak English I wonder to myself what Claude Goldenberg would think of this.
Goldenberg emphasized the importance of teaching English language learners in their native language in hopes of helping them to succeed in learning English. Maybe if Mrs. Rose and the staff at the school hired more Spanish speaking teachers, they could help the English language learners learn in a more efficient, helpful manner. This would not only benefit the students but the teachers as well. I feel like if this idea was used at more schools across the country it would make Americans more accepting of other cultures and I really feel like it would greatly benefit the school systems. We can only hope that someday Claude Goldenberg’s ideas will be heard so that maybe some change will occur.
Until we had learned about Goldenberg and the theory of teaching English language learners in their Native language before, it hadn't occured to me that this would be a better teaching technnique. I had always thought that emersing a student in the english language completely would be the better route to take. It was very clear after we had studied this theorist in class that Goldenberg has the right answer. How can someone begin to learn something new, if they don't understand the language something is being taught in? I am also in an ESL classroom, and I think the students there would also benefit from having teachers who have a broader knowledge of other languages other than just English. This would help the students with the things they struggle with the most, such as sentence structure, and spelling. Hopefully one day the school systems will see that there is a better way to do things. The way things are now seem difficult for the teachers who want their students to progress in their education, and frustrating for the students who want to learn.
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