This week’s reading helped me reflect on my fieldwork experiences. García et al. (2025) and Padía et al. (2024) introduce the concept of multimodality to aid the learning of emergent bilinguals. I found it interesting that multimodality is also rooted in special education teaching strategies. Looking back, I can detail some forms of multimodality in BarrioEd. Throughout BarrioEd, students have shared what makes them feel safe and how they envision BarrioEd embodying safety and acceptance. Students were given the opportunity to share verbally, artistically, and through writing what constitutes their safe spaces, and it’s been clear that multimodality has helped students express their complex cultural practices that make them feel safe.
Additionally, García et al. (2025) revisit the impact of high-stakes testing on EBs and how this essentially robs students from appropriate education by focusing on their deficits in English and ignoring their capabilities that do not (in their minds) improve test scores. Deficit thinking causes some EB students to be placed in remedial education, which further places them as perpetually struggling learners. This segment reminded me of the term “languageless” some educators would place on their students when testing caused EBs to be labeled as not proficient in their L1 and L2 languages. This ties back to the point of adequate testing, which requires testers to be educated on the students’ cultural background and linguistic practices to fully comprehend their test scores.
What I loved about Padía et al. (2024) is their values on parental involvement. This article highlighted the importance of interviewing parents to get a sense of their child’s cultural norms, routines, and values. Interviewing parents of emergent bilinguals can aid in helping parents acknowledge that the school they are sending their child into is a safe space and values the importance of multilingualism and multiculturalism. This focus on parental involvement is similar to what Espinet et al. (2019) describes in KAPPA school, where student ambassadors talk to parents in their home languages to break the language barrier in school open houses.
Also, I want to touch on general linguistic performance and language-specific performance. The distinction between the two feels very dichotomous to me, similarly to BICS/CALP. Students’ previous language and linguistics experiences are more multifaceted, and I sense there’s a better way to categorize students . However, I want to highlight the strengths of GLP and LSP. It’s a good tool in helping educators know how to approach teaching EBs. It’s important to know if a student knows how to compare and contrast and find cause and effect in literature because those skills are transferable into all languages.