Literacy for Bilingual Students

8/18/2019 Literacy for Bilingual Students

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Britney Lopez

Mary Tripp

Peer Review Literacy Narrative

Literacy in Culture: Bilingual Literacy in American Education

Literacy has different themes in all languages. I problem we are facing today in America

is the literacy education taught to bilingual students. Note, these students came from learning an

entire language before learning English, it’s not going to come easy for them as much as it is for

a person with a “clean slate”. This raises questions about how does a bilingual student efficiently

learn English? How does the lack of consideration for their knowledge affect them? How will

they shape others dealing with the same issues? And, does America’s education system really

help Bilingual students to catch up on their grade standards effectively? This essay will talk

about 4 literacy narratives that all have dealt with the concerns of Bilingual literacy in American

Education.

Bilingual Education

The speaker here is telling his story about how he learned to read and speak English

while living in a spanish household. His story began in Elementary school where his household

spoke primarily spanish, but had to learn English in school. In America, it is tradition that you go

to a library every week in school and pick out a book. Also, in American education, time is

usually set aside to allow students to spend quiet reading time in school. The speaker was raised

by a single mother who did not have time to read to her children therefore he has to go read on


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his own. By the school pressuring the importance of reading, he learned to like reading. Since he

didn’t understand how to pick a book out by interest, he would pick out hard cover books

(thinking that they were the harder books) and read them by collections. The pressure America

has on teaching children how to love reading is a good factor considering it helps students

become independent readers. I myself, having to learn English as my second language have

quickly transitioned languages by reading. Through school and church, I was forced to

understand to learn English in order to interact with everyone. I moved to America when I was in

3rd grade so my spanish grammar wasn’t fully developed, but starting a whole new language was

definitely a restraint to my education. I enjoyed learning english through reading on my own. By

reading alone you learn more grammar and definitions of words by context clues and applying

that to my everyday speech. American education institutes all have libraries and books. Having

the state-of-the-art technology might be a different situation, but they at least all have books, A

problem the speaker brought up was that not every school has access to teachers who know

more than one language, so improvising and allowing the children to read at their own pace

allows them to stimulate their minds and become more confident in their reading habits aside

from being taught by a teacher. I went to a school who didn’t have any teachers that spoke

proper spanish, so the translation was a little difficult for me when developing to proper English.

Being Bilingual In America

This speaker was raised speaking spanish and speaks only spanish at home. She said that

the best thing she did when learning English was to practice creative writing more than learning

structed classical writing. She said it came a lot easier to her because it wasn’t so structured and


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the words came more naturally as she thought more creatively. A problem spanish speakers are

having in America are the fact that they are not testing well in standardized tests because those

tests were written for people who knew English all their life. I did not know English my whole

life and had to take the FCAT in Elementary school. I wasn’t too incompetent in English, so I

didn’t qualify for ESOL FCAT accommodations. It’s not that I’m dumber than the rest of the

class, I just don’t understand English as well as everyone else. Doesn’t mean I can’t answer the

content. A lot of people have this problem with test’s that don’t accommodate to bilingual. When

you hold a new English speaker and native English speaker as the same standard, of course the

native English speaker is going to excel. The speaker in this story was frustrated at the fact that

they don’t make exceptions or other options for people who are bilingual taking standardized

tests and that can really affect the way colleges and schools perceive her. Most bilingual students

don’t have a learning deficiency, they’re just not fluent in English and that could take a toll on

their tests scores. This could be very discouraging for those students not fluent in English and

can affect their lives in other ways.

My Bilingual Education

This speaker is lives in El Paso, TX. El Paso is a city where there is a high density of

hispanics since it is near Mexico. She learned Spanish at home and English in school, conjointly.

She continuously learned both languages again. At home, she would learn Spanish through

reading and writing. Her mother would have her read Spanish comics so that it could be a fun

learning experiences and was given a diary to practice writing in Spanish. She believes that

leisure reading is the best way to learn a language because it’s not about things you're not going


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to care about. When you read about things that don’t interest you, you tend to not process the

content. Learning both languages is important to her because it helps her learning and social

skills as she gets older. This speaker has an advantage because she is surrounded by a lot of

bilingual people you can educate both languages and teach the translations better. This could be a

problem for people who don’t like in places with a high hispanic density. The speaker thought

that her accent and scattered language was a burden, but it actually made her a better rhetorician

with time and she is now able to help other students who need help in finding translation and

explanations for different languages.

Do I Need ESOL?

The speaker in this case is a bilingual student who was placed in an ESOL class in 3rd

grade. ESOL is a program in schools to help students who learned english as their second

language and help them adjust to English education. However, the speaker said he learned

English and Spanish at the same time. Could the education system be taking advantage of

bilingual students and placing them in programs that are not necessary for them? Upon being

enrolled, the speaker admits that he didn’t learn any more English than what he already knew

and also that it was treated more like an educational support program that allows extra help in

mathc and sciences. The speaker complained after a year to the principal but no action was taken

until the speaker's mother got involved. The problem originally arose when they received the

speakers transcripts and the reason he got placed in ESOL was because his mother put down that

he only speaks spanish at home. The education system takes that as him learning English first in

school, so English would be his second language, even though that’s not true. This is problematic


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because ESOL is a restraint on students who can achieve more out of the program and also enlist

students that could be taking away the attention of students who really do need the special help.

From personal experience, I was tested out for ESOL in 6th grade and complained to not be

tested. My argument was that I didn’t know what the proctor was talking about when speaking

spanish (even though I actually did). I knew that it was going to put me in alternative classes

that are slowed down, so I had to pretend like I didn’t know spanish. The school system needs to

work on getting more qualified teachers to teach bilingual students. It’s another type of learning

when you have to teach a language to someone who is already fluent in another language

because their minds are already adjusted to that language. It takes more than a regular English

teacher to teach bilingual students, and if you can find someone to fit the class majority on their

first language, I beleive that will help the succeed in the long run.

CONCLUSION

The literacy and teaching tools used for Bilingual students have not been adequate as to

effectively helping them succeed in American education. I had personal experiences with ESOL,

but I hadn’t thought of the repercussions it could have on standardized testing since they don’t

accommodate those special situations of having a language barrier. Having a language barrier

does not mean your not as smart as the native English speaker, but it just means your English

literacy is not developed enough to test in English. If standardized testings were to make

available in spanish (or any other popular language), more bilingual students would succeed and

have better test scores. The matter that is at hand is that we want equal opportunity to succeed in

American Education. Literacy is the language in which is placed at that time and place. To be


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literate, is to understand the circumstances. While there are countries with education systems that

provide education in English, they beat us out by helping those in our country be more literate in

multi-languages.

Works Cited

Anonymous. "Being Bilingual in America." Being Bilingual in America . N.p., 22 Apr. 2009.

Web. Feb. 2016.

Anonymous. "Bilingual Education." Bilingual Education . N.p., n.d. Web. Feb. 2016.


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Ayala, Edwin. "Do I Need ESOL Class." Do I Need ESOL Class . N.p., n.d. Web. Feb. 2016.

Duran, Cynthia. "I Don't Know How to Read in Spanish?" I Don't Know How to Read in

Spanish? N.p., n.d. Web. Feb. 2016.

"Florida Department Of Education." Florida Department Of Education . N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb.

2016.

"How Hard Is the SAT Spanish Subject Test?" How Hard Is the SAT Spanish Subject Test? N.p.,

n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

"The LSAT." About the LSAT . N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

Documents

Literacy for Bilingual Students