“[Some] teachers treat us well and watch out for our safety. When I came here, I didn’t speak English and I didn’t know how things were here. But a teacher helped me out and would explain things to me in Spanish.” -Dario

This quote resonated with me about my experience as an English teacher in Madrid, Spain for 3 years. I had the privilege to work with primarily immigrant students in Madrid’s bustling metropolis of immigrants from Latin America, China, Morocco and the Phillipines. I definitely noticed and received a different response from the newly arrived immigrants in comparison to the native Spaniards when it came to learning English. The Spanish children felt that the only way to succeed and have any kind of future was to learn English whereas some immigrants in particular from Latin Americans had quite a different opinion and only looked at learning English as a way to pass the course and wait until they were 16 to officially drop out of school.

I came into contact with one particular 5th grader from Bolivia named Triana who newly arrived to Madrid to be reunited with her mother after being apart since she was 5 years old. Unfortunately, as it was already mentioned in Suárez-Orozco, Baolian Qin, and Fruja Amthor’s article “Adolescents from Immigrant Families: Relationship and Adaption in School,” Triana was the lucky one out of her sister to be chosen due to a life-threatening illness where it put her health in jeopardy and the daunting task on her mother to get her daughter out of Bolivia to receive the proper medical attention. This also put a strain on Triana and her mother’s relationship because Triana no longer recognized her mother as a mother, but just someone who gave birth to her and left her and her sister behind in their village in Bolivia with family members.

When Triana arrived to Madrid she was in 5th grade, even though, she should’ve been in 6th grade, but because of her Spanish literacy skills being below grade level the school put her a year behind. When I met her for tutoring in English, she had a low self-esteem and absolutely no motivation to learn especially English. She felt she was cast as an outsider in the classroom because her teacher barely noticed her or even encouraged her to participate. However, when I started working with Triana on her English afterschool, she  began to want to learn English with me only and no one else because she realized I value her as a person and didn’t ignore her.

I think that is one of the hardest things as teachers is putting aside the academic content for a second and just focus on students’ well-being like in Triana’s case. If teachers were willing to get to know their immigrant students’ background a little bit more, then it would make for a more enriching classroom environment for students, teachers, and newly arrived immigrants as well as making everyone feel included. In the end, isn’t that what teaching is all about? Making interpersonal connections and understanding different points of views from each other.