Post #7: Creating Multi-Lingual / Multi-Cultural Libraries

    

This post is in reflection to the two articles I read this week from my Google Alerts set to: 

English As a Second Language in Classrooms 

and

ESL in Education

    Three years ago I started work as an elementary librarian for two elementary schools.  One of the elementary schools had our Spanish Emersion program for students in the 1st through 4th grades.  A section of this elementary library was created for Spanish and Spanish / English books called "World Languages".  The ESL teacher provided me with a list of languages that are spoken in the homes  of her students and we got to work ordering a variety of books written in Vietnamese, Mandarin, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic languages and we added them to our collection.  Our thinking was that the students could check out these books and continue to explore their first language with real literature at home. My initial reason for expanding the collection school library with the Spanish Emersion classes was to support the Spanish Emersion language learners in that school,  but what became clear to me very quickly was the fact that we needed to support all language learners. I quickly moved to create a similar section in my other elementary school library for students and families.

 

    My second year, I undertook an even deeper look into my collections.  The collections at both schools were lacking in books representing cultural diversity.  Students were able to find books written in different languages, but finding books with characters and families that represented their diverse culture and heritage were lacking.  For this project, I again reached out to our ESL teachers to gain an understanding of literature in different cultures.  I also looked at different literature awards through various websites and ALA awards lists.  This work provided guidance for our next book order. 

    This is my third year.  The first two years were spent analyzing the collections and ensuring that procedures are in place for further collection development.  This year, we are working on ensuring that our collections are culturally diverse,  have an up-to-date "world languages" collection, and represent our diverse school community.  My job as an elementary librarian is to ensure that all students have access to resources that are reflective of the student population to which we serve.  I rely on the collaboration with the ESL teachers of both schools to help ensure that all students are represented within the collection.  The proof in our efforts will be in our collection analysis check-out statistics.  

    

    

    

Post #6 - Thinking about the Numbers....

This week, I've been focused on the numbers. The first article I read was about the school district in Scranton, PA.  Here are the numbers:

9.3% of the students in the school district receive EL Services.

25% of the students speak two or more languages  - English is not the primary language at home. 

52 different languages are spoken in the school district.

62 different countries are represented. 

10.6% of residents are from countries outside of the United States. 

Click HERE for the article.  The numbers in this article are from Scranton, PA - but I imagine that many other school districts have similar data.  

The second article featured online learning through the eyes of Nada Awa (an article from Kalamazoo,Michigan - Nada is from Palestine) .  Her experiences on online learning as an EL are featured HERE in this article....

Nada Awa says "At school, I can speak to other people, to students.  that helps you to practice your English.  But at home, I don't speak too much to the teacher online.  At home, I just speak sometimes with my sister or my cousins, but I don't speak English like everyday - maybe just some words.  so that makes it hard for me to practice English at home."  Her words resonated with me. As much as we try to use different strategies to meet the needs of all of our students, we fall short with our English language learners because of the method of instruction when we are teaching from home.  

I teach over 800 students between two elementary schools.  When I can see the students during my face-to-face instruction I can see who is understanding what we are doing and who needs directions differently in order to understand.  I have many more challenges when I teach my remote students (and even more when the two modes of instruction are blended with face-to-face and remote - we call that "flex").  

The National Center for Education Strategies reports that over 5 million public school students are ELs.  And even when they are good students in their home countries, speaking their native language, they fall behind in subjects like math simply because of the language barrier.  

We are experiencing extreme circumstances with this pandemic.  It has forced many students to become remote learners either in a dedicated remote class or as part of a flex class.  Can we meet the needs of our L2 students?  Nada said it best "... I don't speak too much to the teacher online..." These words struck me hard - how do we, as educators, ensure that our L2 students are participating and practicing their English? From my own experience, I have 30 minutes to work with students.  When I can't see them face-to-face I can't read who is understanding and who needs alternative instruction. 

I am left with the following questions:

1.  How can I (we) ensure that all students are participating with the instruction?  

2. Is there a different system that can be used to ensure that L2 students are able to talk with their teachers and peers when online? 

3.  Can we switch up our instruction methods to meet the needs of our L2 students? 

I'm not sure what the answers are, but I think these questions need to be addressed as we move forward with online instruction.  

Post #5 - Pondering Language...

Maya Angelou said, "when we know better, we do better."     

     I've been pondering language learning this week.  Do we know better?  Are we doing better?  

    It started with a story I heard on NPR's Sunday Edition a few weeks ago about a little boy who emigrated from Mexico to the United States.  His father wanted him to have a good education so he was enrolled in school - a school that insisted that he only speak English, Spanish was not welcome.  His father was determined that the little boy understood and embraced his culture and heritage - this little boy navigated two worlds.  A point to ponder.  

    We've come a long way in the 20 years since this little boy entered our classrooms.  Two articles popped out at me this week - the first article is called "12 Mistakes Made by Teachers of English Language Learners".  This is the sixth article of the six part series.  There are many points to ponder in this article.  The first is the idea that "sending them out to work with someone else" is not a good idea.  In other words, classroom teachers should have all of the tools they need to work with ELL students.  Sending them out of the room for additional support is viewed as a mistake.  This is another point to ponder.  

    The second article that popped out at me is "Jobs Where Foreign Language Skills Are Important".  The article states that 1 out of every 5 American is bilingual and the demand for bilingual employees has doubled from 2010 - 2015.  These jobs range from the low to high end on the skill set spectrum.  

    We've come a long way from the time that little boy came to the United States from Mexico.  But I think we have a long way to go - we still view L2s from a deficit lens, we still send them out of the classroom for support, we still provide menial tasks for them to do while other students work on rich content in their curriculum.  

    So these are my ponderings this week - what can I do to better help my L2s in my libraries and help ensure that they are learning information literacy? How can I make sure that I am embracing each student's unique perspective (culture and heritage)?  Thankfully, I think we're now at a point where we don't insist on students speaking only English in our schools.  But, as Maya Angelou said, "when we know better, we do better."