Richard Rodriguez's "Aria"

    For this week’s assigned reading, we read “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez. In his memoir, Rodriguez discusses his struggles with being a bilingual student and having to adjust to the dominant culture. Rodriguez grew up as a Spanish speaker, solely speaking Spanish at home with his family. He associated his native familial language with a sense of warm, comforting privacy. However, after the nuns who taught in his school came to his house to tell his family to use more English at home, this sense of comfort was destroyed. His one safe language of Spanish was bombarded with the foreign language of English. As the chapter goes on, he describes losing touch with his native language and culture, with English becoming the dominant language in his household. His once close-knit family turned to one of limited conversation and distance, as it does for many bilingual learners adjusting to the dominant culture. 

    In my own clinical experiences, I have worked with many bilingual learners. Many of them have Spanish as their dominant language, with English as their second language. With these students, I can definitely see the struggle of trying to adjust not only to the school setting, but to using a completely new language. Currently, I have been placed in a kindergarten classroom, and this struggle is something that I have continuously noticed. Before kindergarten, these children are coming from totally different places; some went to Head Start programs, some went to private daycare, some are coming straight from home without any form of schooling. These bilingual students are adjusting to a formalized schooling system with the added struggle of language barriers. These students are being expected to just adjust to the school system, while also trying to discern the translation between English and Spanish, while also learning various concepts (like math) that are foreign to them.

    Although it is still a struggle in the classroom, I think there are some valuable things being done to help bridge the gaps for these students. For example, in my placement, the teacher knows some Spanish phrases. So, when the students are not comprehending what is being said in English, she will use her little knowledge of Spanish to try and get across. I think that this is a valuable teaching method because it helps decrease the language barrier and get the students on the same page. However, she doesn’t use Spanish when teaching various concepts. Instead, she uses it for directing students (for example, “sit down”). So, the students are still having trouble grasping onto concepts that are being used in class. Nonetheless, I think that the little Spanish that is being used does help. Furthermore, another thing that I think is valuable for multilingual learners is teaching future teachers how to teach bilingual learners. At RIC, there is a whole program (TESOL) for the teaching of English learners. Classes like these at RIC and at other institutions help teachers have a foundation for how to teach bilingual learners, rather than throwing the teachers or students out to the wolves without any knowledge. Although classes like these aren’t the solution to the problem of language barriers in the classroom, they do help with making supports for bilingual learners a priority.