Bilingual Identities for ELLs
How to Work with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners
This article address how bilingualism in children who are learning English in the American school systems can be valued and promoted as a pathway to develop literacy.
Creating Bilingual Identities in the Classroom for English Language Learners
Being a young learner of English in this country can be an experience filled with feelings of misunderstanding, isolation and frustration, especially for those children who are thrust from one culture and language into the American school system. This can be a child who is a new arrival to the United States, or it can also be a child from a family with a culturally and linguistically diverse background, where the home culture and language are not the same as the school culture and language. For both groups school can be an overwhelming place. There are ways, however, to not only help these children feel included, but go even further and value their identity as bilingual students.
Understand that Bilingualism is an Asset not a Deficit
Valuing and tapping into a child's linguistic and cultural background can be a catalyst for building the trust a teacher needs to work with a child. Many bilingual programs tout bilingualism, yet the formation of a child's identity has to be more than just attending a bilingual program. Students need to be able to conscientiously talk about and reflect upon what it means to be bilingual. It doesn't only mean that one is able to speak two languages. In essence being bilingual, biliterate and bicultural means that you are able to tap more than one system to make yourself understood and to contribute to the greater society. Your funds of knowledge are more vast in some ways than your peers. Understanding this can be powerful.
Have the Discussion about Being Bilingual
In order to assist children in the formation of their bilingual identities, bilingual teachers, or even teachers who only speak English, can use their students' talents when planning lessons for them. A good first step is to actually have a discussion about what it means to be bilingual.
A series of books have been written about children who are negotiating two languages and two worlds. Lessons focusing on this type of discussion and how students can make connections between the lives of the children in the books and their own worlds allows them to bring their own bilingualism to the forefront. For Spanish speaking students, books like Speak English for Us Marisol! by Karen English [Albert Whitman & Company, September 2000], or Uncle Rain Cloud by Tony Johnston and Fabricio Vandenbroeck [Charlesbridge Publishing, February 2003], permit children to see themselves in the characters and provide opportunities for the children to write about what it is for them to have to translate for others, or to reflect upon how their family members who don't speak English might feel.
Initially many of the children only think of being bilingual as speaking two languages, but after deeper reflection they notice that it means they have access to a larger number of books, websites, magazines, music and people. They also realize the greater responsibilities placed on them and how in many ways their worlds are wide open to exploration.
Solicit the Children's Stories
It is also important to sanction their stories and create environments in which they can write and share these experiences in both of their languages. By valuing their worlds and ideas outside of school, the children feel safe in their classrooms and with their peers. With this comfort comes a lower affective filter and less anxiety, which in turn paves a path to learning. Children can write books or publish posters in either language to be shared and displayed for others to read and comment on. These stories can also be published on the Internet for friends and family who may live abroad to see.
Research as a Tool to Encourage Bilingualism
The inquiry process is an excellent way for students to further develop their bilingualism. Students often choose a topic in which there may be some information in their native language and some in English. Instead of forcing the children to struggle through texts in English, why not let them read and research in their L1? Instead of making them translate the information they gather, why not allow them to write their thinking down in either language?
They can add different features to their research posters, such as questions, important information, or nonfiction features in two languages. This then sets them up to be able to present in two languages and eliminates the feeling of having to keep the languages separate. This kind of separation inhibits children from living bilingually. They do not have to translate, rather code merge, or bring their two languages together to express their new schema about a subject in one space.
Poetry as a Tool for Identity Development
Bilingual poetry is another avenue for children to explore who they are, where they come from, their likes, dislikes, interests and curiosities. A unit on bilingual poets, which gives the children the opportunity to see their bilingual selves in other poets, is one way to open up their thoughts on being bilingual. Children can write poems copying the styles of other bilingual poets, they might code switch while writing their own poetry, showing how they can access both sign systems to express themselves, they might translate poetry or take a crack at writing their own poems in their native language or in their second language. Providing this space for a bilingual child validates who they are and their experiences and often yields very emotional pieces of work.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that these children are bilingual and whether we as teachers know it or not, they have a wealth of experiences from which they can draw upon to enhance not only their comprehension of subject matters, but also their acquisition of English while they are in our classrooms.
