Programs and Practices

Programs and Practices

by Prerna Karmacharya -
Number of replies: 3

I love the way that the Espinet et al. piece, and the CUNY video series spotlight positive practices within the field of educating emergent billinguals. The KAPPA school seems to be doing a wonderful job of spotlighting multilingualism, and highlighting the value of having a vast linguistic repertoire. I loved the way they talked about having students read a book in various ways, through reading in English or Spanish, and utilizing graphic novels in both languages for students with different levels of linguistic proficiency. I also loved the idea of having students use multiple books at once, to use linguistic knowledge from one language, to help them understand another language better. I think overall it seems like the school does a wonderful job of showing Emergent Billinguals their value, and ensuring that other students also understand and respect this.

Another interesting topic I thought was how teachers can create a positive environment for emergent billingual students. In the Espinet et al. piece, they discussed how at KAPPA there are a limited number of Spanish speaking teachers, but they do their best to offer Spanish sections of classes when possible. I love that they do this! It was wonderful to see the examples of students being able to use their Spanish knowledge to show their proficiency in different domains, along with having access to testing in Spanish (Are the Regents exams offered in Spanish to all NYC students?)

It was also interesting to see the experience of a monolingual teacher (in the CUNY series) in a classroom with many emergent billinguals. I appreciated her honesty in mentioning that at first having Spanish spoken in her classroom made her uncomfortable, and she felt as though she should be able to understand everything happening around her. I feel like this is a common concern many educators have, and often leads them to discourage translanguaging in the classroom. However, it was heartening to see how she allowed herself to become a "co-learner" alongside other monolingual students, and created a strong culture celebrating multilingualism in her classroom.

It is wonderful to see such positive examples of billingual education, and I really enjoyed being able to see successful practicies, and hopefully use them in the future. I love the way that educators were able to provide materials and testing in Spanish for students, but I wonder what educators can do when their school and/or district do not support such initiatives.

In reply to Prerna Karmacharya

Re: Programs and Practices

by Rebecca Ke -
I agree with your response and it's really amazing to see these policies enacted in the city I was from, though it can be limited based on the district and even the school the student is in. To answer your question about whether regents exams are offered in Spanish to all NYC students, there are translated versions of the exams in multiple languages like Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Bengali, etc and other accommodations for EBL students like extra time and dictionaries. There is even oral translations for the test if a written translated version isn't available. Students are also allowed to write in the language they are more comfortable in on open ended responses on regents except for the ELA one. However, these accommodations need to be requested in the beginning of the year and many parents may not know about them. Furthermore, I'm not sure how often these accommodations are actually being given, since the scoring of these tests will be the responsibility of the school. However, that might not have as big of an impact now that NYC has once again allowed teachers to grade regents from their own schools instead of sending the tests to a centralized grading site. The Regents exams are also being phased out of being a graduation requirement.
In reply to Prerna Karmacharya

Re: Programs and Practices

by Hillary Tran -
Hi Prerna!

I really appreciate how you lingered on the feel of KAPPA, not just its structures. When you describe students moving among different versions of the same text, I’m reminded of García’s point that literacy is navigating multiple semiotic resources at once. That’s exactly what those graphic novels and parallel novels encourage kids to do. The monolingual teacher's (from the CUNY series) shift into a “co-learner” stance echoes what Mena frames as repositioning ourselves in relation to language theory: instead of guarding English, she starts treating Spanish as a shared resource, even if it’s not hers yet. That move feels small but quite politically loaded. I've been thinking about your last question about unsupportive districts. Espinet et al. show what’s possible with institutional buy-in, but I’m wondering about “under-the-radar” moves teachers can still make, like inviting home language into journals, building peer interpretation norms or pushing gently on assessment practices even when policy lags behind.
In reply to Prerna Karmacharya

Re: Programs and Practices

by Audrey Litman -
Hello Prerna :)

One of my biggest takeaways from this week was also the importance of creating a positive environment for emergent bilingual students, so I really appreciate you bringing this up! I liked that the readings/videos gave a lot of concrete, practical strategies for building this environment as a teacher. For example, one strategy for creating a positive environment for bilingual students that stuck out to me was from the Herrera and España reading, which mentioned the importance of having texts with translanguaging in the classroom. This strategy is definitely something that I have seen in my field placement at Pan American. Their classroom libraries are filled with books written in Spanish, English, or a mix of both. Children not only have the option to pick these books in their own independent reading, but also get to work with them in more direct classroom lessons that use them as mentor texts. The importance of bilingual literature in the classroom is also something that we talked about in Swarthmore's Teaching Diverse Young Learners course. In this class, we were introduced to Social Justice Books, which is a booklist resource for teachers that includes a lot of really great recommendations for bilingual/translanguaging children's literature. If anyone hasn't checked out this site before, I'd really recommend it! It's something I've continued to consult even after finishing the course.
 
I also loved getting to see how the monolingual teacher in the CUNY video positioned herself to be a "co-learner" with her students! In class, I know we've talked a lot about how important it is to show that you value and take an interest in your students' languages, and to me, practices like taking the time to learn basic phrases in students’ home languages or inviting students (when they want to) to teach the class about their linguistic backgrounds are both powerful ways to support emergent bilinguals. The other great thing about these strategies is that they are something teachers can more easily implement in schools/districts that are not particularly supportive of initiatives for providing materials and testing in languages other than English.
 
Thanks for highlighting so many positive examples of ways that teachers can support bilingual students in your post this week :)