Excerpts from Reflective Journals | Excerpts from Literature | References

Deciding how and when to use students' native languages is also something worth a teacher's consideration time. The purpose behind many family literacy classes, or aspects of family literacy programs, is not solely English fluency. Therefore, do not be afraid to use students' native languages in certain activities. Too much frustration on behalf of the students will act as a barrier to progress, and perhaps cause them to stop attending. When more than one native langauge is represented in a class, teacher aids can be brought in to help with class discussions or group activities. When a class has a homogeneous L1, it is helpful for the teacher to be fluent in that language.

Excerpts from Reflective Journals

• April 18th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Today I really came with a desire to inspire them a bit in a way I haven’t done yet. I wanted to share with them some pamphlets about reading with your children that I had gotten from the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy (in Spanish)… The pamphlet was a huge success. We read through the first part of it, taking turns. This was excellent practice, because it is even a bit difficult for them (especially Marisol) to read fluently in Spanish (their native language).”
• May 2nd, 2002 (Wave II) – “But really, I feel like it’s a good mix of English and Spanish that we use in class (heavier on the Spanish of course).”
• May 16th, 2002 (Wave II) – “Then each of them shared a bit with their partner. This was exciting—they are taking ownership of these children’s books—that are in English. Most of the discussion was obviously being carried on in Spanish, but the books they are practicing with are in English and they get better with them each time!”

Excerpts from Literature

• Holt and Holt, 1995, “We use the participants’ native languages as a medium of instruction for addressing content related to parenting or life skills. In some cases, we help adult learners develop their language and literacy abilities in their native language. We have learned that bilingual approaches allow project staff to increase the comprehensibility of instruction and to convey to the participants our belief that their native languages represent valid and useful resources” (p. 12–13).
• Shanahan, Mulhern, and Rodriguez-Brown, 1995, “Programs that serve language minority families need to carefully determine how English and the home language will be used. These choices send strong messages about the value schools place on home languages… Our families use Spanish at home, so we use it for instruction… Teachers in FLAME were bilingual and used Spanish as a tool. Native language has value as an instructional support, in second language learning…particularly for those with little literacy in their first language” (p. 590).
• Shanahan, Mulhern, and Rodriguez-Brown, 1995, “Regardless of the population served, linguistic minorities should feel that their home language is a valuable resource for teaching their children” (p. 591).
• Wrigley, 1995, “[A] number of programs now teach literacy in two languages: in English and in the mother tongue of the learners. In doing so, they also seek to examine the contexts in which one or both of the languages are used and to explore the practices that bilingual adults use to negotiate their environments” (p. 139).

References

Holt, G. D. & Holt, D. D. (1995). Literacy program designs: Reflections from California. In G. Weinstein-Shr & E. Quintero (Eds.), Immigrant learners and their families (pp. 11–18) McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.

Shanahan, T., Mulhern, M., & Rodriguez-Brown, F. (1995). Project FLAME: Lessons learned from a family literacy program for linguistic minority families. The Reading Teacher, 48, 586–593.

Wrigley, H. S. (1995). Evidence of success: Learner assessment and program evaluation in innovative programs. In G. Weinstein-Shr & E. Quintero (Eds.), Immigrant learners and their families (pp. 135–160). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.

[Previous] | [Next]