Blog #10

While reading in chapter 4 of McKay, I found the idea of bidialectism (116) to be something that I could see myself promoting in my future bilingual classroom. I’m a definite advocate for preserving the native language and being bilingual and biliterate. I do not believe that students who do not speak English as a native language should feel like they have to replace their native language with English. I like how in bidialectism, you’re not necessarily trying to fix something that is wrong. Rather, the teacher builds of what linguistic features the students have in their native language to help build up their English. I believe that teachers should build off of a student’s funds of knowledge. Every student brings some kind of knowledge and some kind of strength to the classroom which teachers can use to help the students learn most effectively.  I think that is really important when working with students who are English language learners. You don’t want them to feel that their native language is inferior or wrong. It’s important to show students that there are certain situations and places where their native language is completely appropriate while there are certain situations when English is more appropriate. In my future classroom, I want languages to have equal status. I also found it really interesting how the teacher, Mrs. Prat, had her students interview different people and listen to a variety of radio and television shows to document the similarities and differences in the way that people talk. By making her students “language detectives”, this teacher showed her students that there are multiple different ways to say the same thing. I think that would be a great experience for students to see when certain types of language are appropriate in specific situations. I also think that it can be reassuring to a student to hear the same thing said in different ways. This way, they can see that they don’t have to feel bad speaking in their native language, since they are seeing how people speak differently depending on the context of the speech. It can be so discouraging for a student to think that their speech is inferior or inadequate. That’s why I believe that bilingual education and bidialectism are so important for English language learners. Who are we to decide which language is better or more powerful? English language learners should not have to choose between languages. They should not have to throw away their native language and culture to become a monolingual English speaker. Too many times, if an English language learner is put into a monolingual mainstream English speaking classroom rather than placed in a bilingual program. In the monolingual classroom they can be discouraged due to the fact that their teacher puts down their language and does not use their native language, or their funds of knowledge, to help develop their English. When this happens to English language learners, they have a very difficult time advancing socially, linguistically, and academically. By not supporting bidialectism and bilingualism, the teachers are basically setting these students up for failure. It’s not fair to the students, and it’s our job as teachers to make sure that each student has the linguistic support that they need.