An Open Letter to Dual Language Families

Dear Dual Language Families,

We could never have imagined the world we are currently experiencing. The repercussions of this worldwide pandemic have altered our children’s learning to configurations we never could have predicted. It is new for all of us: parents, teachers, administrators, and, most of all, students.

Your child’s learning opportunities have likely drastically changed from even a year ago. Your vision of school included your child interacting in two languages, partnering with children from a variety of cultural backgrounds, learning from fellow families about their traditions and gifts to our community, and engaging in robust bilingual education on the path to the Seal of Biliteracy and beyond!

Now your child wears a mask wherever they go, unable to read expressions clearly that help with context. Muffled speech makes it difficult for you and others to hear and understand your child and vice versa. Your child’s teacher is at least 6 feet away, or perhaps on a computer screen. Academic interactions are less frequent than pre-COVID school days, with pauses for sanitation or the physical limits of young minds in front of a computer screen. Life is different. Learning is challenging; learning in a language other than your home language feels like even more of a daunting endeavor.

Please read on, however. Dual Language Families: You can do it! Together, we can do this! While abandoning your child’s immersion experience may be appealing during these challenging times, we implore you to stick with it.  And here are the reasons why.  What our students need most right now is a strong community, interactions with peers, and hope and opportunity. Dual Language programs provide all this!

Dual Language is a Community

Everything about school feels strange during these unprecedented times. The one thing that Dual Language students can count on is their school community. Many of our students have been together for years, and the comfort of their familiar classmates, even if just over a virtual meeting, can be just what they need to feel some sense of belonging and stability.

Learning in two language is all our students have ever known. Moving to a monolingual setting may rock their boat, presenting unpredictability or a sense of not belonging.  For years we have emphasized with our children how special it is to be bilingual, how fortunate our students are that they are becoming bilingual and biliterate citizens, how they can use their two languages to help in their listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Taking that away removes a part of who our children are, and who they are destined to be.

Dual Language is Interaction 

Supporting learning in the language opposite of your home language can be extremely challenging if your child is the only bilingual family member. The truth is, language development takes hard work in the classroom, too! However, when your child is learning language at school (during traditional teaching and learning), you, the parent, don’t see those challenges as blatantly. Students are engaged in language production with scaffolds and supports provided by the teacher, and with plenty of talk time and opportunities to interact with others using those supports. Confidence is built through these supports, and thus language eventually flows.

Language learning does not need to be a chore at home, either. Perhaps ask the teacher for some sentence prompts to help your child, and set up a virtual opportunity for your child to practice speaking with another classmate using the target language and the sentence prompts. Have you connected with any classmates whose home language is different than your own? Now is great opportunity to set up “virtual play dates” where they play or read together showcasing each of their home languages. Maybe the first meeting could be in Spanish and the next in English, or split the meeting with half of the time in Spanish and half in English. Stronger friendships will develop along with respect across cultures.

Engage in language fun! Watch favorite movies in the target language, listen to audiobooks, or create family flashcards where everyone is practicing vocabulary and learning the target language. Find ways to infuse language learning in your home or daily routine so that language exposure is not just provided by the teacher. While these extra steps do take time, they are worth the effort to instill a positive attitude and mindset around language learning.

Dual Language is Hope and Opportunity 

Remember why you entered your child in the Dual Language Program in the first place. The multitude of benefits of bilingualism hold open the doors of opportunity for our children.  A student will not become bilingual and biliterate in a monolingual classroom. Sometimes on the path to achieving our goals we are confronted with walls, or even mountains, that we must conquer. It IS possible. It DOES take a team. And it WILL require a renewed commitment.

Know that your child’s teacher/s are working tirelessly to problem-solve effective teaching and learning given these uncharted waters. We are a team, and your child deserves the strongest advocates for their brightest possible future. Now more than ever, we are in this together!

Respectfully,

Your Dual Language Teachers, Staff, and Administrators, and Fellow Dual Language Parents