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The Beginning of my Bilingualism

The Beginning of my Bilingualism

I am a first generation Chilean American. My parents first visited the USA in the seventies and it peaked their interest. They didn’t hesitate to move to the states in the eighties when the opportunity arose with a promising job opportunity for my father. My parents saw the move to the United States as the optimal chance for their children to be successful in life. Success to them included the idea that their children would be completely bilingual.  I am forever grateful for their sacrifice of leaving all they knew behind for our sake. My bilingual journey began as a young child. I had always heard English spoken at my house whether it was through my parents, our friends, or Sesame Street.

My first school experience was preschool in Spanish in Chile. In Chile English is taught to children in school from an early age. Then, at the tender age of five, I moved to the United States and started Kindergarten in English. I was pretty silent at school during the day. I nodded and smiled and participated when I could. My teacher would then stay with me after school and give me private English lessons. She used many strategies to help me become more confident and fluent when speaking. Pointing, repeating, and repeating some more. The focus at home then shifted to maintaining Spanish since I spoke English all day at school. My parents valued bilingualism from the start and they instilled that appreciation in me and my siblings. In high school, I took every Spanish course I was able to take and even received advanced placement with my high scores. In college, I decided I wanted to add a Spanish major to compliment my Elementary Education major. My Spanish major provided me with a greater understanding of more formal language. My senior year of college I had the privilege of studying Spanish even more formally by participating in The Semester in Spain program offered through my college in Seville. I consider this to be the best decision I made in my college career.

The Beginning of my Bilingual Teaching Career

I feel extremely fortunate to have been hired by District 45. I had a job offer for a newly created first grade classroom even before I officially graduated from college. I got the job strictly for being bilingual, which made my family very proud. I was happy not only because District 45 is the community where I grew but also because I would be able to use my bilingualism in my classroom.  At the time, I didnt even think about the fact that I was not trained in bilingual methods because after all I had received my degree in Elementary Education and I falsely assumed that I could teach Spanish reading the same way as I was trained to teach English reading. At that time, I didnt know that I was looking at this, my newly appointed bilingual classroom, through a monolingual perspective. I had the most patient mentor, Belinda Smith,  that year guiding me through the district expectations, helping me make instructional decisions, and helping me apply  sound teaching methods to my bilingual instruction.

District 45 has always done a fantastic job of supporting new teachers through mentorship, trainings, and workshops. I took advantage and went to every training available to me. I was mentored in good practices and strategies. I applied that training as best I could to my Spanish teaching. I felt from early on in my career that our bilingual students had a disadvantage of not always having the access to resources unless I spent the time creating them or translating them. I knew ,yet not  fully knew how to express, that I wanted my students to have the same access to resources as their counterparts. I translated many activities from English. I typed passages, arranged stations, and worked hard on making all sorts of materials to supplement the instruction. This was the reality for most bilingual teachers I knew. The students were working hard also learning content in two languages that they often didnt relate to. I knew and wholeheartedly believed that teaching was difficult but rewarding. I sought advice, was observed, was constructively criticized, applied different strategies, and pressed on. I hoped things would get easier in the bilingual classroom world. When they didnt, I switched grades from first to fourth and taught in two types of classrooms during those years. These classrooms included sheltered instruction and regular monolingual classrooms. I loved those experiences but in my heart of hearts I missed the  bilingual aspect. I knew then that I was meant to be a bilingual teacher. The opportunity came for me to move back into bilingual teaching third grade so I took it. This happened to be a huge year of transition in our program for my district. I had made the right choice but I didnt know that just yet.

The Beginning of my Teaching for Biliteracy Journey

In my early teaching years, there were few bilingual teachers in my district. Our program, like many others, had faced changes and challenges throughout the years. It quickly became evident that our bilingual population in District 45 was growing. We needed to add more bilingual classrooms) including the third grade classroom I had happily agreed to teach. There was also a huge need to appoint a bilingual director. These were exciting times.  I felt so happy that our focus and energy would be spent trying to make our bilingual program better.

Once the appointment of the director happened, she looked long and hard at our bilingual curriculum. We were following the monolingual counterparts in curriculum and using them as best we could. We realized we needed to find more authentic materials for our bilingual students.  That´s when the District 45 leadership sought the guidance of Karen Beeman through the Illinois Resource Center. She began to coach us while working on The Teaching For Biliteracy book which she co authored with Cheryl Urow. Although much of my training in ELL Bilingual included some of the strategies mentioned, my ears perked up with the explicit teaching of the Spanish reading skills. During Karen´s trainings, certain aspects of my teaching were validated while others made me cringe. Not being shy, I asked questions, repeated what resonated, and actively participated in the discussions.  Then I learned all about The Bridge. How had I never thought about this space in my instruction? Karen continued to work with our bilingual teachers each year and after each session I used my newly found knowledge immediately in my classroom.

I was hooked and it was amazing teaching. Then on a cold Friday in January of 2012, I was working late in my classroom. My teammate, Nancy Aliga, let me know that she had found a course taught by Cheryl Urow and advised me to sign up. ¨This class is based on their book! We will learn new strategies to teach in Spanish!¨ Nancy had done her research and I was so thankful for that. So I signed up immediately  and the class began the very next day. The eight week course continued to add to my already built background knowledge about Biliteracy.  I would read a chapter and apply that chapter in class. It was during this course where I really began to wrestle with my engrained monolingual perspective. Karen had planted a big seed in my brain but Cheryl had begun to see the fruits of the labor.

The Beginning of Biliteracy in the School Year

This August, I will begin my sixteenth year of teaching. I consider myself to be a reflective practitioner and a life long learner. Every year I take notes, I reflect, I change things. I talk to my wonderful colleagues and seek their insight. I hear what the administrators say about our goals as a district.  I´m so thankful I’ve always worked alongside the most collaborative, encouraging, and driven teachers. My teammates both in the bilingual and grade level are amazingly talented individuals.  In my thought process, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to advocate for my students is to instill in them the importance of their biliteracy journey. Teaching for Biliteracy has opened wonderful new doors for me as a teacher and for my students as learners. We discuss why being bilingual and bicultural is such a gift. I present the idea of Biliteracy as an enrichment program. I elevate the status of Spanish immediately from the first day of school each year and we celebrate that we have a rich and coveted language that we can express ourselves in. My partnership with the families starts on the first day also, assuring them that speaking Spanish is validated and important. These are exciting moments to be bilingual in our world. My hope through this Blog is to share some of the successes and challenges in my

Teaching for Biliteracy journey. The days of bilingual teachers feeling isolated and alone are over. We can support one another and work together to make Biliteracy come alive in our

classrooms. We can change our students’ perspectives about themselves and about their

education for the better.

Look for these topics in my future blog postings:

  • How Planning BUFs Make You a BUFF Teacher
  • Developing Oracy Saves Our Students
  • Collaboration with Bilingual and Monolingual Colleagues
  • Advocating for our Bilingual Families
  • Involving Parents in the Biliteracy Journey
  • Technology and Biliteracy
  • The Workshop Model in a Biliteracy Classroom
  • Metacognition and Biliteracy