As you may know already, my schools population is made up of over 50% of Hispanics and throughout my visits at Windmill, I have seen many parents entering and exiting the building, as well as meeting with the principal and teachers. In passing, I have noticed that the principal, Mr. Lopes, talking in Spanish with a parent. I never thought about it up until now that it must help a whole lot for the student population and their family members within the community to have a spanish speaking principal in order to communicate better about their child's education and as well as making them feel welcome. For me, as a white teacher, and someone who doesn't speak anything other than English might find it hard to communicate with the families of my students because of the language barrier. However, if I was a teacher at this school I would feel better knowing that the person whom I go to with any problems and for support would be able to help with communication because of his background.
I aware that my future as an educator in the public school system will be a struggle if I do not have help with communication. So, I have intended on taking a spanish course to learn the basics of the language which would help me a great deal. If I feel confident enough I would consider taking the next course in Spanish.
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I never thought about that either! thats a good idea to maybe take a class in spanish. I warn you though, its no walk in the park. I took spanish in high school, and i just passed. I plan on one day being a principal, so maybe i should think about trying spanish again.
ReplyDeleteAs you may be aware, there are sthg like over 100 languages spoken in the district of Providence. You cannot be expected to learn them all! However, although learning a language as an adult is a lot of work,it turns into a great advantage when you are able to use it every day and show added interest for the language spoken by many students in your classroom, as well as improve communication with their parents.
ReplyDeletei have actually been thinking about this for a couple of semesters now. i might be taking a spanish class next semester because it very valuable to have when teaching. I took french for over 5 years and i think it would look good on my resume. I also have seen many of the teachers speaking spanish in the school i go to and one time there was a note that had to go home to one of the parents but the teacher didnt speak spanish so she had to send it to another teacher to write it for her. it must be very difficult for them to communicate to the parents.
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