So my blog isn’t allowing me to create new posts so I wanted to at least try to leave one here...I chose to do reflection for this article because although I do not personally relate to this article as I only speak one language, I thoroughly enjoy listening and being around bilingual people. I have many friends here at RIC that are bilingual and just by watching them I am in a trance and wish that I could do that too. I find it interesting, beautiful and I guess I envy people who are bilingual. Rodriguez talks about how once the teachers came to his home and tried getting his parents to encourage their children to speak English his family started to drift apart...Well from my perspective its no wonder this happened. No wonder that once the kids started to speak English all of the time when the parents still spoke only Spanish they started to lose their “closeness”. That is why I am often against telling people to speak in English. Even if they are right in front of me and holding a conversation in Spanish like my friends do when I’m working in the dining center. They can be deep in conversation and I just watch in amazement at how fluent they can be in more than one language. Sure they could be talking about me but I don’t care I just enjoy listening to it and hearing how beautifully it flows together. While it doesn’t seem that important in every day situations, I can see where it could become an issue in the classroom. This is where I feel that the teachers need to understand, accept and welcome diversity. Not everyone is going to have the same home life, the same background and talk exactly the same. Never going to happen. What everyone does have in common however is that we are all different. No two people are the same and we need to embrace that. I do think that one should become fluent or at least learn the prominent language of the country that they are living in but I do not feel that we should shun them from their culture by telling them that that is now the only language that they can speak. Embrace diversity because you cannot escape it
Aria by Richard Rodriguez-----*Reflection*----
ReplyDeleteSo my blog isn’t allowing me to create new posts so I wanted to at least try to leave one here...I chose to do reflection for this article because although I do not personally relate to this article as I only speak one language, I thoroughly enjoy listening and being around bilingual people. I have many friends here at RIC that are bilingual and just by watching them I am in a trance and wish that I could do that too. I find it interesting, beautiful and I guess I envy people who are bilingual.
Rodriguez talks about how once the teachers came to his home and tried getting his parents to encourage their children to speak English his family started to drift apart...Well from my perspective its no wonder this happened. No wonder that once the kids started to speak English all of the time when the parents still spoke only Spanish they started to lose their “closeness”.
That is why I am often against telling people to speak in English. Even if they are right in front of me and holding a conversation in Spanish like my friends do when I’m working in the dining center. They can be deep in conversation and I just watch in amazement at how fluent they can be in more than one language. Sure they could be talking about me but I don’t care I just enjoy listening to it and hearing how beautifully it flows together.
While it doesn’t seem that important in every day situations, I can see where it could become an issue in the classroom. This is where I feel that the teachers need to understand, accept and welcome diversity. Not everyone is going to have the same home life, the same background and talk exactly the same. Never going to happen. What everyone does have in common however is that we are all different. No two people are the same and we need to embrace that. I do think that one should become fluent or at least learn the prominent language of the country that they are living in but I do not feel that we should shun them from their culture by telling them that that is now the only language that they can speak. Embrace diversity because you cannot escape it
smart to put this up this way! :)
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