Teaching Multilingual Children - Hyperlinks Post

In the article "Teaching Multilingual Children", written by Virginia Collier, Collier offers teaching strategies for educators in classroom settings where English is not the only language spoken. This article can connect to our discussions about Lisa Delpit where she says that unless you are explicitly told the rules of power, acquiring power is much more difficult. In this case, speaking English is the power, and those who do not speak it, are at a disadvantage in our society. Collier discusses how important it is for a classroom to have "two-way bilingual instruction" in order for students to effectively learn English or any second language. In some of the research I have done, I have come across many articles that say there is not enough being done in schools to help the students who do not speak English as their first and most fluent language. This can be a product of systemic racism, which is racism that is influenced by a system or institution (in this case, a school). In previous discussions, we have talked about how education is geared more towards the white, english speaking, upper-middle class Americans. So, education systems think it is not necessary to effectively teach people how to speak English, even though their entire curriculum is based off of the assumed knowledge that every student can speak and understand the English language. Collier talks about how many students can converse with their peers in English because it is easier to acquire a different language in a non-professional setting. Collier says, "politicians, believe that if limited English proficient students can converse with their monolingual English-speaking peers, then these English-language learners can compete with them on an equal footing". This is the assumed knowledge that the people coming up with the curriculum are not paying attention to. This is how students start to fall behind in their education, because they are not given the proper tools necessary to effectively learn how to speak and understand English.

The sixth strategy that Collier offers says "Provide a literacy development curriculum that is specifically designed for English-language learners". This is the one that stuck out the most to me because it seems like it would only make sense, right? However, this all depends on the funding of the school at hand. If the school cannot afford to hire extra ESL teachers, or have the technology or materials required to effectively teach a student a second language, then of course the students will start to fall behind. Collier is saying that every school should have a system in place for students who are English-language learners in order to allow them to succeed just as well as the rest of their peers.

Here is a Ted Talk about the important of bilingual education. I thought it paired very well with the article written by Collier. In the video, you will hear a lot of recurring themes from the Collier article. Such as why it is less effective to take a student out of their regular classes for an hour a day, in order to learn English.





This picture simply made me laugh because it perfectly describes how a student can be incredibly intelligent in their native language and because they do not speak English we automatically assume they are less intelligent than the people who speak English fluently.