Language and Power:Voices from the ESL Classroom

A presentation developed by NYCoRE study group Spring 2005 Ariana Mangual, Carmen Vargas, Cara Peñarrieta, Alexis Rubin, Talía González

“As I walked into the classroom all I heard was a weird language.” 10 th grade girl

Comfort

“Inglés fue muy difícil porque como se me enredaba la lengua hablando dos idiomas toda la gente se reía de mí.” 7 th grade girl

Power

“Growing up learning two or more languages is better because it’s like a thing you always know.” 7 th grade girl

Language

“Every time the teacher and the students tried to tell me something in English I would stay shut like a dead person” 10 th grade boy

Change

“Ahora gracias a Dios mis maestros me pudieron enseñar todo el inglés que sé. Por eso entiendo a las personas que no saben muy bien el inglés y yo no me río y yo los ayudo cuando necesitan mi ayuda.” 7 th grade girl

Curriculum

“I help my mom learn English because she only speaks Spanish so when she has to go to the doctor I have to go with her so I can tell the doctor what’s wrong with her.” 3 rd grade girl

Skilled Dialogue

“My grandmother hates when my brother and I speak English because she doesn’t understand anything we’re saying.” 3rd grade girl

3rd Space

Skilled Dialogue

I recently attended a meeting to determine a second grade child’s placement in special education. The school psychologist, principal, teacher, and parent of the child attended this long anticipated meeting. The opening moments of the meeting foreshadowed what would later occur—the mother sat down, and without asking her a single question, as mundane as, “How are you?”—the psychologist shared a barrage of information in English about the deficiencies of her child and family life. Not surprisingly, this Ecuadorian mother’s first experience with the American school system led her to cry within half an hour.

After the forty minutes allotted for the meeting passed, it was ended abruptly. There was no time for planning next steps or debriefing with the mother.

This conversation only succeeded in perpetuating the existing inequality between the powers vested in school authorities and the often-silenced voices of our students’ parents and their teachers.

Skilled dialogue (Barrera, 2003) is a model that schools can use to improve communication between their students and families. This model offers suggestions practical for creating suggestions, the collective experience.

opportunities individuals will for interpersonal and intercultural sharing. In skilled dialogue it is essential that participants’ experiences and cultures are honored. By following Barrera’s feel comfortable and heard in conversation. This third space occurs when individuals feel empowered within

Funds of Knowledge

In a recent professional development session at my school a dear co-worker of mine, a white woman, made a very insightful comment. She noticed that both an African-American colleague and an Asian colleague spoke about their own racial groups in the first person plural, “we”. When thinking of herself, she acknowledged that she would never speak in the same way of her own white racial group.

She looked thoughtful for a moment and then explained that she supposed she had never had the impulse to do so because “whiteness” is represented everywhere, everything is white culture.

In our classrooms we must ensure that we are not solely representing dominant culture, but in fact representing the children in our classroom community. What we teach and how we teach must come out of our students’ experiences, their “funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, 1992). By ensuring that our curriculum is a reflection of the community, we create an environment in which “we” refers to the collective classroom community, an intimate, safe space in which all members of the community are equally represented.

Language, Power, Comfort,Change

My high school ESL class of high-intermediate students are for the most part, proficient English speakers.

My students are creative, bright, perceptive, and honest. However, they live under the stigma of being ESL students which, in our school, is considered the last rung in the ladder of school hierarchy.

To fight against this school imposed sense of discomfort and unworthiness we have had candid discussions about language of power (standard American English) and the socio-economic success that comes from acquiring this language, while acknowledging the beauty and importance of their own native languages. In fact, functioning fluently in 2 languages or 2 dialects of the same language is called “code-switching” and gives a person more cultural capital than being monolingual.

Engaging my students in these open, honest dialogues has helped create a comfortable sense of self where they have lowered what Krashen refers to as the “affective filter”.

Your affective filter is minimized when you take risks and feel safe in your learning community, and only when this filter is lowered can you truly “acquire” language. My students are now acquiring a second, or sometimes third way of speaking.

Sources

• Kohl, Herbert “Creative Maladjustment and the Struggle for Public Education” from I Won’t Learn From You. The New Press, 1993.

• Moll, Luis C., Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff and Norma González. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms. Theory into Practice 31(2), 132-142, 2002.

• Wheatley, Margaret J. Willing to be Disturbed. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future San Francisco: Berrett-Koshler Publishers, Inc., 2002 • Barrera, Isaura Skilled Dialogue: Strategies for Responding to Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood. Brookes Publishing Company, 2003.

• Krashen, Stephen. Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Heinemann, 2003.

• Gibbons, Patricia.

Learning to Learn in a 2nd Language.

Portsmouth, NH.: Heinemann, 1991.

• Crawford, James. No Child Left Behind: Misguided Approach to School Accountability for English Language Learners NABE, 2004.