Chapter 5: Understanding Academic Language Learning: Making It Happen in the Classroom

“students will be reluctant to invest their identities in the learning process if they feel their teachers do not like them, respect them, and appreciate their experiences and talents. In the past, students from marginalized social groups have seldom felt this sense of affirmation and respect for language and culture from their teachers. Consequently their intellectual and personal talents rarely found expression in the classroom” (126).

Starting my year as a first year Spanish teacher was difficult, but I knew if I was going to be successful in any way shape or form, it would be by building relationships with my students. I had a tough experience during my pre-teaching practicum that allowed me to see the importance in having a strong connection with students. I thought the relationship came with the title of the teacher, but I was wrong. I realized it was a trust concept for the student—students have to believe I am their ally in the world of success in order for them to have any interest in what I say. When I was in high school, I heard teachers say, “you don’t have to like me, but you do have to do as I say.” Which I still don’t understand, even going back and speaking with some of my former teachers who still pose that mentality that students have to do as they say regardless of their relationship. To some extent this is inevitable, but I feel that teachers should focus on investing time in creating a relationship with their students. I care about how my students feel towards me, I understand that a student-teacher relationship has its boundaries and I respect those boundaries, but without that relationship, I don’t think I’d get very far in my teaching, so I do care how students feel about me. Building that relationship with students helps guide teaching for the educator—it allows me into their life and how they go about learning in their every day life, which I find to be important in the teaching profession because it allows the educator to utilize the information to help his/her students become successful. At least that’s how I feel it helps me.

“in second language learning, our prior knowledge plays a major role in helping to make the second language input comprehensible . . . Thus, a major rationale for activating students’ prior knowledge on a particular topic or issue, building it with the students, is to make the learning process more efficient. Prior knowledge represents one central aspect of what students bring to the learning situation that makes input more context-embedded and comprehensible” (N.I. 127).

Activating prior knowledge is essential in helping students learn and become successful in whatever subject it is that they are learning. If students are given the opportunity to reflect on concepts and other information they already know, students will find that learning a new concept isn’t as difficult as they thought it might be. It also keeps students engaged through out the learning process. Although activating students’ prior knowledge is only one piece of their learning, it is an integral one—the more you know about what your students know, the easier it is to move forth with the lesson instead of lecturing them on concepts/information they already know because it can lead them to boredom and then, you can lose their attention; consequently, failing to get the main idea or concept across. Anticipation guides, journal prompts, KWL charts, and brainstorming webs are all examples of tools that can be used to activate prior knowledge. As educators, we automatically activate our prior knowledge, but students haven’t necessarily acquired those skills. It is our job to help students piece together their previous knowledge to the new information being presented to them in order to help them be successful.

Chapter 4: Reading and the Bilingual Student: Fact and Friction

“administrators in schools should be competent to provide leadership in addressing issues of underachievement in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. In particular, they should know enough about the reading process to guide teachers towards coherent and effective ways of teaching reading to ELL students (N.I. 85).

For me, English Language Learners aren't the students who I face on a daily bases, rather Spanish Language Learners.  I personally do not have sufficient experience in teaching to understand everything that is required to help students become successful in a second language and unfortunately, neither does my administration--my administration doesn't have a background in Spanish. The foreign language department is on its own as it is an elective class. Nonetheless, it is important for administrators in schools to be knowledgeable to an extent where they can provide educators with the material necessary to help students become successful, and in my school, I believe administration understands the difficulty and importance of acquiring a second language, and how difficult it can be to teach students whose primary language is not the same as the subject the educator is knowledgeable in.

“An implication is that teachers should encourage students to continue to develop their knowledge of the world and curriculum content in their L1 while they are acquiring English since this knowledge increases their cognitive power to comprehend and acquire English” (N.I 90).

Although Spanish is a different language from English, I find that it is important for educators who teach Spanish to consider the methods in which ELL students are taught while they teach Spanish Language Learners. Students learning a second language always have to be given tools in order to be successful in the language they are learning. I tell my students to learn the language by watching movies in Spanish first rather than in English and afterwards, watch the movie again in English to see if they were able to grasp any of the concepts. This is a way to challenge themselves and if they are challenging themselves, they are becoming independent learners in a second language.

In the classroom the teacher is to explain the objective of the day’s lesson to the students, give directions on how to proceed, and teach students. The students are guided for the most part, and for a great portion of the class, their job is to listen. When students are given the opportunity to speak, it’s all in small increments of time—that is, speaking opportunities are only given to students when called upon by the teacher to share his/her answers with the class or when the student is engaged in think-pair-share activities that require him/her to listen to the responses of his/her partner, and later repeat those responses. These speaking exercises are accompanied by SDAIE strategies that include graphic organizers, seemingly an organizational tool used to facilitate the comprehension of all students. These tools are not only for English language learners, although many were developed for that reason, but a Spanish teacher can also utilize them. At the end of the day, these exercises are brief—students only spend 60 minutes a day being exposed to the second language he/she is attempting to become fluent in. I find it difficult to acquire a second language if you don’t make it part of your daily life, and that’s why I tell students to watch movies in Spanish so that they continue to be exposed to the language. Even though they are not practicing how to speak the language, they are being exposed to it.

Chapter 3: The Three Faces of Language Proficiency

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.

Chapter 2: The Evolution of Xenophobia: Cultural Diversity as the Enemy Within

Students who come from a household that speaks a language other than English, require excessive exposure to the English language, specifically to academic English. Many students who struggle academically, fight to understand the main language taught in America, English, because they are not exposed to the academic language enough. Core classes such as English, Math, Science, and History are taught in English in America, which can be pose a disadvantage for students whose first language is different than English. In the past, students who were thought to be language handicapped were sent to segregated schools for remedial instruction when in reality they needed more exposure to academic English. In my line of practice, students need more exposure to academic Spanish, even those who already speak Spanish. They lack the academic language in Spanish either because their household practices speaking more English than Spanish or because whomever is speaking and teaching the student the language hasn’t had much exposure to academic language in Spanish.

Certain races have been targeted as society talks about people who are language handicapped. For instance, the problem “African- American students face is the constant devaluation of their culture both in school and in the larger society. Thus, the styles apparent in African-American youth culture— e.g., dress, music, walk, language— are equated with poor academic performance. The student who identifies with ‘hip-hop’ culture may be regarded as dangerous and / or gang member for whom academic success is not expected” (N.I. 34).

It’s disheartening knowing that students feel devalued, but I can’t walk away from what the reality has come to be. Society doesn’t care if they succeed academically, especially if they look and dress in a manner such as their culture accepts. I personally feel like each individual has his/her own style, they choose the way they want to dress. It may be by mimicking the style of older generations or the mainstream look, whichever it may be; they choose how they present themselves to society. I believe society doesn’t judge these students by their attire, but rather by their skin color. I had a conversation with a few of my African-American students one day in class when the topic about race came up. One student mentioned that it didn’t matter what he knew or didn’t know because his teachers assume he’s stupid just because he’s black. He said he had moved around three different times in the past 5 years attending two different middles school and he has finally stayed at his current place for two years. He said he would move around because the neighborhoods he lived in were badly shaped. I told him I grew up in a town were gang violence occurred on a daily-bases and people being shot to death was part of that. It’s unfortunate to see all the life of young kids go so fast due to their involvement with gangs. Then my students told me that where I grew up could never be as bad as being black and growing up in Compton. One of the students actually said, “you don’t know ghetto ‘til you have lived in Compton and are black.” He continued with, “try telling your white paranoid teacher the last school you went was in Compton; yea see what I mean.” Apparently I had a look of disgust on my face. I couldn’t image anyone judging students based on where they come from, unfortunately it happens daily and their educational success is based on that as well.

I don’t teach English, but I do teach Spanish and I Notice that the lack of exposure to academic language interferes with their ability to grasp concepts in Spanish, especially when I attempt to compare some of the terms used in English to the academic terminology in Spanish. For instance, I was teaching sentence phrases and while doing so, I asked my students to give tell me what pronouns were in English; more than half of the class just sat there speechless. They didn’t know how to identify pronouns when I used the word pronoun so it was difficult for me to teach them a concept in Spanish if they weren’t able to identify the same thing in English. I then asked them what are ways we talk about ourselves without using our name, what are the words we use to replace our name and other peoples name, and that’s when they were able to list off pronouns. I personally feel like it’s not that students can’t learn academic language, it’s mainly that others don’t give them the opportunity to; they judge students based on the way they speak, dress, and where they come from. These students need to be given equal opportunity in school. I understand that the way some of these students grow up does affect their academic success, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t able to learn.

Chapter One: Identity and Empowerment

Empowering students through knowledge is crucial to the future of America; it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is in the classroom. Jim Cummins noted that "human relationships are at the heart of schooling", which I find to be key in my practice as a Spanish teacher. I noticed that students come to respect one another and me when they have a sense of trust and a relationship with each other and me. It's nearly impossible to educate students if I don't show emotion towards their success. Students need reassurance as well as a helping hand. They need to know that you care about their academic success just as much as they do, some times more than they care. As an educator, it is important to invest time in creating relationships with students because when academics fail, knowing how to build a relationship with others and being able to communicate emotion will be a life skill students will remember.

One of the many ways student-teacher relationships can be built is through praise. Cummins notes that there is a sense of unintentional rejection in the classroom when it comes to praise. He states,  "American southwest reported that  Euro-American students were praised or encouraged 36% more often than Mexican-American  students and their classroom contributions were used or built upon 40% more frequently than those of Mexican-American students" (Cummins, 3). As a teacher, I focus on giving praise to all my students regardless of their academic success in my class and their ethnicity. I see improvement in individuals who started off the year sitting in the back of the classroom dozing off or being disruptive or disrespectful during instruction the more praise they received. One of my student in particular began to ask how his grade could improve, I said "if you keep coming to class and participating, you will see improvement." Each day he comes to class, I let him know it's a new day to participate and show me what he knows. I encourage him to prove those who doubt him and myself that he is a bright student. At the end of class, I make sure he leaves understanding the main concept and rewarding through praise or a treat for being an active participant in class. He like many other students aren't great with either English or Spanish, so it is my goal to assure that all my students receive acknowledgment for their participation. I make sure the rest of the class gives the student who participates their undivided attention. Praise can be demonstrated in many different ways, and one of those is acknowledgment by the instructor as well as the students peers.

Furthermore, interacting with students inside and outside of the classroom can be a way to demonstrate to students that academic effort can be beneficial in all aspects of life. Giving students the opportunity to learn about their culture and their classmates culture will empower them not only when it comes to communicating to individuals with similar backgrounds, but also with individuals who come from different backgrounds. 

I feel that bilingual students learn best when they are allowed to make sense of the information they have been given in their first language. I teach Spanish, which for most of my students it's a second language. I encourage them to translate sentences from Spanish to English so that they are able to understand what the sentence is trying to convey. I know that there are comments such as, "bilingual students must be prevented from using their first language in school because 'how else will they ever learn English?'" (Cummins, 13). If I were to constrict my students from using their first language to make sense of the Spanish language, most of them would struggle to grasp the main ideas. When I teach new grammar concepts, I focus on making the content accessible to my students, which most of the time is by making comparisons to the English language. 

All in all, I believe students should feel supported by their educators. Support can be through student-teacher relationships, scaffolding or allowing students to understand new concepts in their primary language. I focus on making the content accessible to students, and I make that possible by allowing them to use their primary language as well as building student-teacher relationships. 

Cummins, J. 2001. Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society.  Print.