Blog 11: Language and Power

Language and Power

"Aria" by Richard Rodriguez

"Teaching Multilingual Children" by Virginia Collier 

"Teaching Bilinguals" (Even if you are not one) by Cuny-NYS

   Up until the 1970s, students in American schools were expected and conditioned to speak English only. Monolingualism in schools unfortunately resulted in profound cultural and linguistic loss of students’ home languages. Parents and families were urged to speak and practice English with their children at home in order for them to have academic success in school and professional opportunities in the workplace. This week’s readings and videos bring light to the damage and disservice that the monolingual narrative created for learners in schools. In their American education, multilingual learners were practically stripped of their cultural roots and expected to assimilate into American culture. Today, the educational approach to multilingualism has shifted drastically. Now, educators treat students’ linguistic repertoire and multiculturalism as an asset in the classroom where second language acquisition is made possible with the help of the students’ first language as the strong and invaluable foundation. 

Virginia Collier’s work Teaching Multicultural Children  offers evidence-based guidelines for teachers working with multilingual learners to ensure that students’ home languages and cultures are respected and upheld in their education. To me, one of her most profound guidelines is the following, “Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language” (page 227). In the past, educators expected students to abandon their first language to acquire English. Today, educators are taught to encourage students to utilize their first language to make meaning of the English language. To affirm a student’s home language means to provide them with positive feedback while learning and refrain from telling a student that they are “wrong.” The teacher should instead look to analyze, compare and contrast language and grammar  structures between the students’ home language and the target language being taught while remaining supportive, open-minded, and culturally responsive. This work reminded me of Lisa Delpit’s work Other People’s Children  as any kind of work with multilingual learners involves the culture of power and calls for culturally responsive teaching. There are rules and codes within all languages, communities, and cultures. Being in a classroom where English is the dominant language creates a power imbalance between the teacher and the multilingual learners. Educators must work to rectify this power imbalance by incorporating more student culture and voice into the curriculum. 

Richard Rodriguez’s personal memoir Aria recounts the author’s experience learning English throughout his childhood while attending Catholic school. Rodriguez expresses that during the process of working tirelessly to learn English as a child, he simultaneously forfeited his home language and cultural Hispanic roots. He writes, “Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home” (34). In this part of his memoir, Rodriguez is describing his Spanish language and Mexican culture at home as “private” and his second English language as “public.” He is describing how assimilating into American culture molded his “public” identity and overshadowed his “private” or home identity. Rodriguez ponders how his adolescence and language acquisition would have been different if he had been encouraged to speak and utilize his home language in school. I connected this reading back to the article that I read from Rethinking Schools which was centered around anti-racist and multicultural education. The article begged for educators to take a multilingual and multicultural approach to teaching by recognizing and validating the cultural and linguistic backgrounds and stories of all students. To not recognize the rich cultural diversity that students bring into the classroom is a disservice to students and only contributes to the power imbalance that is prevalent in schools. 

Finally, a video series from Cuny-NYS titled Teaching Multilinguals (Even if you are not one) shows American educators in practice implementing great teaching strategies for multilingual learners in modern-day classrooms across New York state. In addition to the first introductory episode, I watched episode three titled “Bilingual Superpowers” and episode four titled “Knowing Your Students.” Episode three showed an English as a New Language teacher from Chinatown, Manhattan describing her students as “bilingual superheroes.” Using their home language to make sense of the English language, she assists her students in translanguaging while writing their own autobiographical graphic novels. This was fascinating to watch! In episode four, an 8th grade English teacher from Brooklyn discussed how teaching is about more than language and direct instruction. I found it interesting when she explained how she utilizes technology and translation tools in the classroom to converse with multilingual students when necessary and teach new content. To be an effective educator, teachers must truly know their students, their stories, familial backgrounds, temperaments, home languages, and individual circumstances. In watching these videos, it was evident that these teachers take time to truly know and understand the students in front of them.