There have been many misconceptions about language proficiency.
One particular misconceptions is that “drawing inferences about children’s
ability to think logically on the basis of their familiarity with and command
of standard English. Children who speak a non-standard variety of English (or
their L1) are frequently thought to be handicapped educationally and less
capable of logical thinking” (N.I. 60).
Society has overlooked minorities and their abilities for far
too long; they have gone as far as to suggest that they are incapable of learning,
analyzing and producing material at higher levels of thinking due to inherent
inferiority. They are considered ignorant because they don’t come from an
educated white American family? Race doesn’t matter, any one can be educated in
their primary language, and all they need is the support as they learn the
material in a new language. In Negotiating Identities there was a comment that
said, "I mean they can't help it right, it's not their fault they don't
get it." It is fundamentally dreadful to practice a language you do not
understand, let alone think analytically in a language that drains you daily
with it's many letter sounds that don't always sound the same, impossible
idioms, and constant irregularities that challenge everything you have just
learned.
I know some of my students who speak Spanish find it difficult
to fully grasp the English language because of this concept, and they in turn
end up having a difficult time with Spanish because they expect it to be as
confusing as the English language. They trick their minds into believing that
it is just as complicated as the English language that they end up having a
difficult time spelling out words and making sense of some concepts until
reminded of how easy Spanish is compared to English.
While I teach Spanish, I have to remember that most students are
learning a second language, so my goal is to give them the tools they need in
the process of acquiring a second language—I know they need all the support
they can get as they take on a new language, even the students who already
speak the language.
As an educator of a language, I have to assure that what I teach
y students is not purposeless because the result of purposelessness or lack of
meaning can result in disinterest of the subject. One of the issues I see with
language proficiency is that some make it purposeless or lack to connect it to
a meaningful topic for students so then it becomes interpreted as a students
inability to learn or be taught because they don’t possess the level of skill
required to face the challenge of learning a new language. It’s not always that
students don’t have the skills required to combat a new language, but rather
that they aren’t provided with the skills because they don’t pose and interest
in learning the concepts, and why would that be? it is merely because the
material isn’t being presented to them in a way that is engaging or encourages
relevance to their lives.
“Understanding why and how bilingual students are failing academically
requires that educators dig a little deeper than superficial linguistic
mismatches between home and school or insufficient exposure to English” (N.I.
77).
Failure to be successful in a second language is not caused solely by the inability to communicate in
English—underachievement is caused by the support and method of presentation by
the educator. As I’ve mentioned before, I teach Spanish and I finding it nearly
impossible to teach my students the language without comparing to something
they already know. I understand that not all of them are high achievers in the
English language, but they are at least familiar with some of the concepts. For
those who aren’t successful in the English language and have a difficult time
understanding the similarities, I focus on guiding their learning through
visual representations and constant repetition as well as making the material
relevant to their everyday life. For students who tell me they will never
need to know Spanish, I simply remind them of the state tin which hey live. I find that this all goes back to the reason why students must be able to speak English—they live in a country
whose native language is said to be English.
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