Monday, February 14, 2011
That's unfair.
Reading about how some immigrants do not feel welcome in new surroundings was really very saddening. It's unfair that Americans have a certain perconceived notion towards them. It's unfortunate that they do not feel like they can learn in our society. Why don't we have patience? Where has this intolerance come from? To learn a language, practice is absolutely necessary. I know this from my experience in Spain. I wouldn't have learned half as much as I did if it hadn't been for my Spanish friends who patiently listened to me talk and corrected my fragmented sentences. Gracias a ellos por su paciencia!
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In America, we have a lot of destructive ideologies that are constructed right in your own backyard. As much as I hate admitting it, the concept of race and space in America will never disappear in our society. So let's look at them in a different way. The concept of race has plagued our nation since it's foundations and it's only getting worse. More prevalent in the ESL classrooms, which I'm not sure if you've had the opportunity to experience it first hand through clinicals or not yet, but the American pull-out ESL classroom may as well be detention for those students because when it boils down to it, ESL classrooms are not mandatory for students regardless of performance on standardized tests (Access, WIDA etc..). So what do we do? Think about what it means to be America. In America there's a intersectionality between the conscious individual and the even more conscious society that focuses on finding the abject. If a student doesn't speak native-like English, he or she is foreign (interestingly enough a term we apply to people who don't speak English, citizen or not, instead of people from another country). However, even if a student does speak English, what group does that student fall into? In TESOL Practicum (394) we are reading and discussing a book called "Made in America" by Laurie Olsen which goes in depth about a lot of these issues that ESL students face both foreign and US born citizens in accounts of their struggle to survive in the American inner-city school systems and their individual identity crisis in American society.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's unfortunate that immigrants and non native speakers feel unwelcome when they are trying so hard to learn a language and adapt to new surroundings. It's hard enough adapting to a new place of residence and yet they are forced to be belittled and beat down. :(
ReplyDeleteI wish there was a like button on here for the shout out to Espana. Estoy de acuerdo!! :)
amen, katie. There were SO many people who patiently listened to my (very poor!) attempts at speaking Spanish while I was in Mexico this summer. I learned SO much from them while they patiently explained their expressions and phrases that I never learned in the classroom. The hardest thing about it was that they seemed to feel honored that I, an American, was interested in learning their language. It was as if they expected me to have better things to do than learn their language. It was difficult to help them understand that I value their culture and language and that I do NOT see myself or my background as more important than theirs.
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