“I learned this alongside the knowledge that in public school, bilingualism is not valued and speaking Spanish is considered a deficit. Only mainstream youth are accommodated.” (The sting of social hierarchies, Prieto)
This semester on Tesol seminar class, one assignment is check the multicultural ecology in the school where we are student teaching. Surprisingly, it is hard to find any language other than English except in schools with bilingual programs. Considering the diverse culture, race, language backgrounds of students, it is quite shocking. Most of my classmates reflects that all the letters, notices going students’ home are written in students’ home language, Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, English, which is good. However, if you walk down the hallway, go to the classroom, check student’ worksheets, you cannot find any other languages but English. As we know, in NYC, tons of students speak Spanish at home and they start learning English at school.There are a large population classified as ELLs. I saw some students felt upset when they were struggling with English, felt embarrassed when they produced broken English. They feel ashamed of speaking their home language. More and more research found that first language literacy level has a great impact on students’ second language literacy skills. Also, being bilingualism is beneficial.  It is important for schools to demonstrate to their students that the school respect and embrace all the languages, not just English. But in this aspect, I do not think many schools fulfill their tasks. Since English is the dominant language, and schools do not provide the environment to preserve students’ home language, it is not uncommon that many students grow up losing their first language. Of course, school is not the only one to blame. But schools should make students feel proud of not only English, but also students’ home languages. They need to let students know schools view their home languages are as important as English and so should they. Keeping the school full of signs of various languages also can make ELLs feel welcome and not embarrassed by not able to speak English well. They can proudly point to their home language signs and tell their classmates they know that words and they know more than one language.