What languages other than English do you speak?

Thursday, September 15, 2011

On being translingual

Yesterday, my son Peter (age 5) asked me: "Why is it that some words come out in Spanish and other words come out in English when I talk?" Even though he uses mostly English to communicate with me, but often sprinkles his sentences with Spanish. ["mira, mami" (look mami) or "nónde está?" (dónde está?, where is it), or "fraza" (frazada, blankie) and "leche" (milk).] I responded that it is because he is bilingual and has many things to say-- some of which he feels better explain what he is trying to say.

I too "code switch" with them right in mid sentence—depending on whether or not the words I want to use FEEL RIGHT when I say them. In her work, Garcia (http://youtu.be/rVI41CMw6HM) tells us that those of us who are raised in bilingual communities use all our linguistic resources to express what we learn in our environments. Children use language to make meaning of these experiences and draw from a range of resources to do so.

Horner, Lu and Royster (2011) offer a similar paradigm: a translingual approach. They argue that difference in language is not "a barrier to overcome or a problem to manage, but a resource for producing meaning in writing, speaking, reading, and listening.... [it] views language differences and fluidities as resources to be preserved, developed and utilized."

So... adelante!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Languages and Dialects

It is clear that world history of colonialism, segregation/integration have influenced the languages spoken throughout the world. Language is one of the deepest legacies of colonialism.

Creole, for example, is a language of contact— Caribbean Creoles emerged mainly in the context of European colonization around the seventeenth century when millions of Africans were captured in Africa and transported to the Americas to work as slaves on Caribbean plantations.

Consider the possibility that the current low literacy rates in Haiti may be in part due to the fact that children in Haiti do not find a culturally relevant connection in their own schools, where the dominant perception is that French holds higher status and will be better used in the world. Imagine being expected to assimilate in your own home country!

The same power issues are prevalent in the US with regard to languages and dialects not STANDARD. Even those programs that attempt to teach children to speak English while respecting the child's own heritage, culture, and language are being slowly outlawed. After Prop 203 or UNZ initiative (called English for Children) in 2000, in which 63% of voters agreed that English immersion programs replaced bilingual education, academic achievement dropped. One of my students who taught in AZ during the time after the UNZ initiative reported that her students could not concentrate and talked about their fear of being stopped by police officers or having their parents deported.

Colonialism is still alive...

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