This book Richard Rodriguez was about himself and how his native language was stripped away from him as a young child. He is a Spanish speaking child at the age of 5 and is going to school in a catholic school trying to learn English. At the home he speaks Spanish and he talks about how beautiful it is and how the sounds of his mother and father talk to him and how it is like a different world inside his house or "behind the screen door" than it is in the outside world. He speaks about how he is shy in school and is shy around the neighborhood and that his family doesn't really know many people in his neighborhood. But as the story goes on the nuns visit his house and basically make his parents have the children speak more English rather than Spanish in the home. Richard slowly starts to learn the language but as it goes on the uniqueness and intimacy of his heritage language is slowly leaving him and the home. He becomes distant from his parents but starts to fit in more at school and in the outside world. The family starts to know the people in the neighborhood and Richard starts to have more friends and become more outgoing. You would think that this is a good thing for Richard because he is living in America and needs to learn the language, but I would say that it is sad because Richard paints a picture of sadness because of the loss of his heritage. He also talks about the anger of his relatives as well. The reason I think this is sad is because he should have been encouraged to use both languages and the teachers should have tried to have an understanding of who Richard was and how they could keep both languages in his life.
The last statement I made also relates to Meier's story about how to incorporate different languages in the schools and teach children how to use both. That way it can keep a balance in the child's life. Now to go back to Rodriguez's book, he didn't really have a choice and at the time in the world I don't think they were aware of the importance of bilingual students. His teachers should have encouraged him to keep his language in his life as well as learning English. In my opinion, I agree that a student of a different language should learn English but as teachers it is our job to not strip them of their first language or the heritage. By they end of Richard's story he was barely speaking Spanish and he couldn't hear the sounds of his native language nor the sounds that intrigued him of the English language. I came across this video that talks about bilingual students and how teachers can learn from them to help them teach the students. I thought it was great because the teachers here made an effort to learn about their students languages and incorporate it in their teachings. Not only does it help the student trying to learn English it also helps the students who know English adopt a second language and learn that as well.
Questions to ask:
1. Why don't teachers do this more?
2. Why isn't there more bilingual teaching going on in schools?
3. How can we incorporate more heritage into our schools?
I also wrote about this reading in my blog. I was able to relate with his issue because I am constantly battling against assimilation. I find it difficult to communicate with my parents because I am losing my ability to speak Spanish fluently. I believe integration is the answer to this issue. Teachers should encourage their students to incorporate their native tongue while still learning English within the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI feel that what the teachers could have used a different approach. They could have done something, anything to integrate both languages into their teachings or just in their conversations with Richard. At the same time I tried to look at if from this stand point. If you move to China, Japan, France, or Kuwaiti as a child you would be taught their national language because that is what the majority of the people will be speaking. I would like to find out if in those countries if they would integrate English into their teachings and if they would integrate the us culture too.
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