Multi-language Classrooms: English & Spanish

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It was about 9 a.m. on a recent school day at Danville’s Hogsett Elementary School. Teaching as usual was going on in all the classrooms except for one.

In this one fourth-grade classroom, essentially two classes were going on at the same time. The regular class was being conducted in the main part of the classroom. The teacher was talking at the front of the class while the more than two dozen students listened from their desks.

On the other side of a bookcase was a much smaller space where the other class was going on.

WORDS, from front

Two students sat in little grade school-size chairs while a teacher and tutor talked to them.

There was no blackboard in the small class. But there were several words on a board that indicated what the class was all about.

On the left side of the board were such words as above and around and behind, and on the right side were such words as arriba de and alrededor and detras de. The words on the right were the Spanish words for the English words on the left.

This students at the table — Brenda Medina-Maya, 10, and Lupita Gonzalez, 11 — are members of both the large class and the small class. On this particular morning, they had left the regular classroom to get instruction in the smaller classroom from their English as Second Language instructors.

Brenda and Lupita, both born in Mexico, are among 23 students in the Danville district who currently are in the ESL program, which is for students from preschool and kindergarten through 12th grade. The girls are designated as English Language Learners.

Working with the girls were Katalin McChesney, the district’s ESL teacher who also teaches English skills to students’ parents and serves as a migrant advocate and recruiter, and Beverly Durham, a retired counselor who is the ESL tutor. Looking on was Claudia Godbey, who is the district’s special education coordinator but also oversees the ESL program.

Brenda started in the ESL program when she was in kindergarten, while Lupita began the program in preschool. Both girls speak English well enough to be easily understood by their American instructors and classmates, and they do so with only the slightest trace of a Spanish accent.

“I didn’t speak any English when I first came to school,” Brenda said, as Lupita nodded her head to indicate that was her situation as well.

Generally speaking, the younger an ESL student is, the easier it is for them to learn English, Godbey said.

“The older kids have a much harder time learning English, although with hard work and support from teachers, they do learn it,” she said. “You can tell how well spoken Brenda and Lupita are that they began learning English in preschool and kindergarten, and it’s so much easier for the students in those levels to learn English.”

Brenda, who is an only child, said her father, who works in a local restaurant, speaks a little English, while her mother, who works at the same restaurant, is learning to speak English.

“I try to help both my parents learn to speak English,” she said.

Lupita said her father, who works at a local factory, speaks some English, but her mother, who works inside the home, speaks none.

Lupita says she not only helps her parents with their English language skills but also is teaching English to her 2-year-old sister.

“She knows several English words and can say some of them well,” she said. “My (13-year-old) older sister helped me learn to speak English, and now I am being the teacher at home for my little sister.”

McChesney said at-home situations like Brenda and Lupita are experiencing are very common among ESL students. She said the experience is a mixed blessing, however.

On the positive side, she said, “It is often the case that these young children in our ESL program assist their parents and young siblings at home in learning English. They are helping their parents in their own transition to a new world."

On the negative side, she added, “But because these kids can speak English and their parents cannot or can speak very little, they are the ones in the household who must communicate with people on the outside, like landlords and neighbors, repairmen and people from local and state government agencies. They take on adult roles and responsibilities at a very young age.”

In what may seem like a paradox, McChesney said that while the ESL program wants to make its students proficient in English, it doesn’t want them to forget how to think, speak or write in their native languages.

“We want them to be bilingual, not only English speakers, and so we encourage them and help to retain their Spanish language skills,” she said.

“ESL students actually perform better in school if they are proficient in both languages. It is a cross-language situation that increases their learning abilities and deepens their mental aptitudes.”

Both girls acknowledged they were losing some of their Spanish language skills, especially writing.

“I can’t write that well in Spanish any more,” said Brenda. “Most of my writing education has been in English.”

While they are making progress toward English proficiency, both girls also are making progress socially and culturally as well.

“I have lots of friends, English-speaking and as well as the Spanish-speaking people in the Hispanic community here,” said Brenda.

“So do I,” Lupita said. “And I’m actually teaching some of my English-speaking friends Spanish words.”

The two girls already have career goals.

“I want to teach reading and writing,” said Brenda.

“I want to be a hair stylist,” Lupita said.

And they may well be pursuing their careers in their home country. Both girls said they have never been to Mexico but indicated their parents want to move back in the not-too-distant future.

But while Brenda and Lupita remain in Kentucky, McChesney believes they will thrive in their adopted homeland.

“They are both doing so well, not only learning English but acclimating to American culture, while still trying to retain their Spanish language and Hispanic culture,” she said.

McChesney knows more than little about how to make the successful transition from one culture and language to another culture and language. She is a native of Hungary.

“My words of encouragement to my ESL students is this: if I can do it, you can do it,” she said. “Then I add, 'And I had to come a lot farther than from Mexico to do it.'”

Source: http://www.amnews.com/stories/2010/02/27/loc.313962.sto