When reading Aria and after, I could only think of one thing. The students I see every Thursday at Webster Elementary. Almost all the students in the class speak Spanish and English and the transition between the two is often hard for them. When it comes to speaking English, they're near fluent but it is the reading and writing they struggle with more often. Rodriguez speaks about how slowly English became his primary language. I wonder how these kids feel about learning a new language and being bilingual. Will some of them transition out of Spanish and primarily use English. Will their families transition with them too? I'm trying to see this from the kids point of views and keep in mind they are only six and seven years old. I also think back to my high school days up until last semester taking Spanish and struggling to understand how to read, write, and speak the language, I tried thinking in both of those lenses to try to understand what Rodriguez went through as a kid. Language classes for me have always come as a struggle, having to read over and repeat the same few sentences and trying to figure out what words mean what. At first, it was fairly easy to understand and form basic sentences but after that, I began to struggle. I can't even imagine what it is like to have my primary language basically thrown in the trash and having to learn a completely foreign language would be awful and so to speak, English is not an easy language to learn, the grammar and pronunciations can be very difficult for one where it is not their primary language. I had friends from Germany that I went to middle school with and as well as they can speak English, some words were tricky for them and I don't blame them, some words look very different than they sound. I am very fortunate enough to not be in Rodriguez, or the kids in my class, or my friends from Germany, having their language stripped and replaced with something they didn't know.
Attached is a pdf on what challenges to expect and tips to helping bilingual students as a teacher
Challenges for English Language Learners
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