Demolishing Linguistic Barriers in Schools

Language barriers are a serious setback in many inner city schools because if a child cannot understand the lessons in which the teacher is trying to convey, they will be completely lost and fall so far behind that it will be near impossible to catch up later in life. Throughout my service learning experience at Eli Elementary school, I myself did not experience a communication hurdle because both Nikko and Maggie spoke fluent English with only small accents which did not seem to affect their learning in a substantial way.
On one occasion, I was able to observe a portion of a lesson where Ms. Leslie incorporated Spanish into a reading lesson. The children were reading along to an audio story spoken in English. Some of the dialogue communicated by the characters was verbalized in Spanish, but the English translation of the word was made very clear. This approach was effective and caught my attention because it taught the non-Spanish speaking students some new Spanish words, while also bringing in some native culture for the children who are accustomed to speaking Spanish outside of the classroom. This must make these students feel so much more comfortable and hopefully proud of their linguistic and cultural background.
Personally, I asked both of the children I work with regularly which language they speak at home. I feel that in order to be an effective teacher to them, and form a relationship of trust and respect, I must get to know important things about them, where they are from, and what their interests are. They also are entitled to ask questions about me and my life, getting to know more about me than merely my name and career goal. As soon as I opened up to Nikko and Maggie, they immediately felt more comfortable around me and more enthusiastic about the lessons and activities I brought for them.
One theorist which instantaneously struck me as relatable to the above points was Johnson and his theories on silenced and marginalized voices. Johnson stresses the importance of celebrating difference and brings to light the tendencies of humans to be apprehensive of the unknown and prejudiced toward those different from ourselves, or the majority population in a setting. He states that “As participants (of systems of privilege), we usually find that the easiest path is to do what is expected of us, and so long as most people do what they are expected to do most of the time, they dynamic relationship between people and social systems will produce the consequences that make up the history and everyday details of racial privilege and oppression”. Here Johnson is outlining the idea that if society is teaching children that they are only supposed to be speaking English, however another language is being spoken in their households, they will most likely feel as though their culture is the “wrong” one, thus being oppressed.