Language and Power:Voices from the ESL Classroom

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Language and PowerVoices from the ESL Classroom

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

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

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• Comfort

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

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Power
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• Growing up learning two or more languages is
  better because its like a thing you always
  know.
• 7th grade girl

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

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Change
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• 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.
• 7th grade girl

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• Curriculum

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• 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 whats wrong with her.
• 3rd grade girl

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• Skilled Dialogue

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• My grandmother hates when my brother and I speak
  English because she doesnt understand anything
  were saying.
• 3rd grade girl

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3rd Space
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Skilled Dialogue

• I recently attended a meeting to determine a
  second grade childs 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
  occurthe 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 mothers 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.

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• Skilled dialogue (Barrera, 2003) is a model that
  schools can use to improve communication between
  their students and families. This model offers
  suggestions for creating opportunities for
  interpersonal and intercultural sharing. In
  skilled dialogue it is essential that
  participants experiences and cultures are
  honored. By following Barreras practical
  suggestions, individuals will feel comfortable
  and heard in conversation. This third space
  occurs when individuals feel empowered within the
  collective experience.

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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• 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.

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Sources

• Kohl, Herbert Creative Maladjustment and the
  Struggle for Public Education from I Wont 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.