I came across this letter while perusing some dual language websites. I really love this woman's personal account of how her family has been impacted by their dual language experience. It's worth a read.
Reflections of a Dual Language Mom —anonymous—
I was raised with only
one language and primarily heard only that language at home, in school,
and around town despite living in a border town. In retrospect, I
realize that my town was really two towns, one English speaking and one
Spanish speaking with some overlap where the fortunate families spoke
both languages and lived between and within two cultures. In high school
I had the great fortune of being a foreign exchange student and
suddenly realized that the world was multi-cultural and multi-lingual.
This changed my direction and my life plans as I became a language major
in college and an elementary foreign language teacher as an adult and
even married a man who also believed in the power of languages. We knew
very little when we were expecting our first child, but we did know that
she would grow up with more than one language.
When our daughter was born, I was teaching languages to students in
pre-kinder through 8th grade in a private school where teachers were
encouraged to keep their infants with them in the classroom. My
daughter’s first experience with languages other than English was in
this classroom where she often participated...as realia for learning
body parts, clothing, colors, and occasionally as an impromptu puppet.
A few years later we moved back to my hometown and I enrolled my
daughter in a preschool and requested that she be placed in the
bilingual classroom, not monolingual. This earned me an appointment with
the principal who questioned not only my request, but my competency as a
parent. She said that placing an English-speaking child in an all
Spanish classroom was bordering on child abuse. I pointed out that the
reverse was often done and considered good parenting, an opportunity for
the child. I then wrote what I like to refer to as my “monolingual
denial letter” requesting placement for my child in the bilingual
program despite having met with administration and having all the
benefits of the monolingual program explained to me. And so my
daughter’s bilingual education began – sort of. The teacher and the
teacher’s aide felt sorry for my daughter and the aide became her
personal assistant and interpreter for the year. She grew in her
comprehension of Spanish and in manipulating adults – she had those
teachers wrapped around her little finger, constantly at her beck and
call.
The next year I placed her in a true two-way 90/10 dual language
program. My goodness! How she screeched when she realized that she had
no personal interpreter in this new setting. She tried other ways of
garnering adult attention such as crying in the corner and wiping moco
on the wall. She slowed her crying as the teacher approached and then
pouted again as she was handed a wipe and told in Spanish to clean the
wall. After this she straightened up and joined the class and began to
learn Spanish. By the end of the year, she was reading in Spanish at the
top of her class and comfortable in both languages with children and
adults. I naively thought that the battles were over.
The summer between kindergarten and first grade was the beginning of a
new assault – the assault of family members and their concern that their
niece, granddaughter, cousin had had enough of this “experimentation”
and needed to go to a traditional, i.e. all English school, nearer her home. The cousins could read and write
English, when would my daughter? How would she make friends when she
attended school so far from home? Best of all the questions and guilt
trips was the one questioning if we were destroying her future by
limiting her access to English. Wow! Talk about guilt trip and doubt,
but we persevered and kept our daughter in the dual language program,
even as she began speaking English with a Spanish accent, further
emblazing the relatives.
As third grade hit and the relatives’ doubts were quashed, they turned
to chastise my siblings who had not had the foresight or opportunity to
place their children in dual language. Our daughter excelled in both
Spanish and English while the mommy doubts settled in. How would my
daughter do on the state-mandated assessments in Spanish when her first
language was English? As much as the language teacher in me knew that
she would be fine, the mommy gene overrode the research spouting dual
language advocate. I was truly freaked out! Somehow I managed to keep it
to myself and the testing season came and went with great scores. My
daughter was truly comfortable in both languages at an academically and
developmentally appropriate level. The remainder of elementary school
passed fairly uneventfully as my daughter and her classmates continued
to develop in both languages, in their academics, and as advocates for
the dual language program to the many visitors that came to the school
and in their daily lives.
When my son entered the dual language program the relatives were
supportive and I knew what to expect, or at least I thought I did. My
son took longer to come to grade level in English and Spanish,
struggling with reading and writing in both languages. It was eventually
determined that he had a mild learning disorder that affected his
processing of print. He struggled in elementary school and meetings with
teachers did not go well. They saw no reason for him to be performing
below grade level in his second language or for them to shelter and
scaffold during Spanish instruction. It felt at times that English
dominant students were welcomed in the program as long as they
contributed positively to the class as both academic and language
models, but it was sink or swim for them. As third grade state testing
came closer the principal called a meeting; he wanted my son moved to a
monolingual program where he felt he would do better with his mild
learning disabilities. I disagreed and insisted that he remain in dual
and that he test in Spanish, the language in which he had learned to
read. I supported my position with research, the principal with his
feelings. My son stayed in the program, but was tested in English, a
language in which he had received virtually no literacy instruction. He
passed, just barely and I began looking for another school with a more
informed administration. He began fourth grade in a new dual language
school and took the fourth grade state assessments in Spanish. He
received commended scores and has been doing well ever since. Yes, he
still struggles with his learning disability, but performs at grade
level in two languages and is now in seventh grade, dual language.
Middle school is a new hurdle for the kids as they hit puberty and peers
begin to exert more of an influence than parents. Hadn’t they learned
enough Spanish? Both of my children remained in the dual language
program; they really weren’t given a choice. They have done well and
continue to perform in their classes in both English and Spanish.
My daughter moved from middle school and on to high school where dual
language became a new struggle—a struggle to get into the classes and
combine them with the magnet program she had entered. Dual was
relatively new to her high school and misunderstood by much of the
faculty who viewed it as a remedial program for ELLs who had not yet
mastered English. However, by this time, my daughter had become quite
the dual language advocate and insisted, with our backing and the
backing of the administration, that she could complete her magnet and
dual program requirements. By her sophomore year, many of the faculty
had begun to change their minds about the dual program as they learned
more about it and the dual students became more visible and sought
after.
This past June my daughter graduated from high school with her dual
language honor. She completed eleven credits in Spanish including
classes in science, math, social studies, Spanish, and electives in her
magnet program. In August she entered the university beginning her
Spanish study at the junior level. She reported that she was stared at
in her Spanish class as students looked at her pale skin, freckles, and
auburn hair and assumed that she was in the wrong class. As the class
got under way and deep into discussion, my daughter contributed using
her Spanish acquired through the dual language program— articulate,
academic vocabulary across broad topics. She reports that the class
stared at her again, this time in amazement and the professor asked how
she acquired her Spanish. My daughter told her that she had learned it
in school in the dual language program. Met by looks of confusion, she
began to explain the program and her experiences. My text from her that
night said that she was in college and still advocating for dual
language. I smiled as I responded and again as I read her facebook
posting where she was discussing a question from her Spanish professor:
would she consider pursuing a master’s degree in Spanish? That’s a lot
to think about for a college freshman.
As I look back on her experience in school and her brother who has just
begun middle school, I know that we made the right choice, a choice that
will provide them with more opportunities in their futures; a choice
that should be available for more children.
