Week 5-6 Response 2

After speaking with the teacher at my current placement, I have gathered that the population of the bilingual students in the school have been consistently of Hispanic culture. The teacher stated “We have been pretty consistent with our bilingual classrooms being predominantly Hispanic” While speaking to the teacher, I learned that the school has made major steps in their bilingual program. Up until a few years ago, the only bilingual programs they used was a pull-out ESL program. (which is what I am familiar with in the classroom that I am a TA in) Now, they have bilingual classrooms where there are two teachers and a lot of focus on the students bilingual and biliterate abilities. The teacher I spoke told me how much of a difference the bilingual classrooms have been for the school and how happy she is that they came about. When I asked her about other bilingual students native languages being ignored, or bilingual students being thrown in without extra help, she said it blows her mind that bilingual students used to be looked at in such a different way because in her experience, with the proper help they excel far past expectations.

As I stated earlier, the classroom that I am a TA in is a classroom that uses the mainstream method while pulling students out for ESL. These students are fluent in English but are behind on reading and writing. The teacher that I work with tells me she definitely sees improvement in the students that go to ESL and thinks it is working for them. I observe in a transitional bilingual education classroom. There are always two teachers in the classroom that split the day. For example, in the beginning of the day, they will learn reading and writing with a teacher that speaks all Spanish, and the end of the day, math and social studies with a teacher that speaks all English.  The students can and are encouraged to speak in their home language or whatever language they feel most comfortable speaking in. From what I observe, every student seems comfortable with the classroom they’re in and their differences are celebrated. Sometimes, when the teacher speaks in one language, a student will respond in another. For example, if the teacher asks a question in English, a student will respond in Spanish, almost subconsciously. I find this super interesting and encouraging.

References:

Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th Edition, pp. 131–155). Bristol: Multilingual Matters