Unit 6 Video Activity

1. In the video, the director of the facility discussed that often bilingual families feel isolated, thus isolating their children with them. Describe what actions you would take to make the bilingual families you serve feel welcome and promote a home and school partnership?

 

 

2. In the video the teacher has a meeting with the diverse families of the children in her program about the students in the class selecting and taking home books to read with their families. Think about how you might set up a similar program at your facility? What would be important to share? How would you include the bilingual families in your book sharing activity?

 

 

the video 

 

[ Music ]

>> An English language learner is someone that’s learning English as a second language, it can be an adult, it can be a child. So the policy is to encourage respect of the home language and the home culture and being able to clearly encourage the family to keep the strength of their culture and their beliefs and their language. Part of our intake and welcoming families into the program, there were questionnaires that the family needs to fill out about their home life and their first language. In doing that, we find out their level of English language and then if we need interpreters, we will reach out to our own internal interpreters or community interpreters to help them to understand the process and then the teacher is also informed of the first language. Just welcoming a family in their native language and saying goodbye to them endears the program to the family. They see us reaching out to them, they feel connected.

>> We have a lot of ELL students in my classroom. We have Spanish speaking, Haitian, we have Portuguese, African, a number of ELL students. The way I support them is by meeting with the parent one on one at the beginning of the school year and also having workshop and training for the parents. Thank you for coming for the parent meeting. I know it’s very hard, you know, you have to walk and stuff, finding time for the meeting is very hard but thank you for coming. Today, we’re going to talk about [inaudible], your daughter. I know she just start at the program and today, we’re going to discuss her language development. So first, I would like to know what language she speaks at home. Do you speak with her at home?

>> Oh, basically we speak French and Creole because I came from Haiti so — and as you know, I came recently from Haiti and we speak French. In Haiti, we got — we were bilingual, we speak French and as well Creole, Creole first and then French. So at home, I speak only French and Creole.

>> Okay, good. Well, I would encourage you to do so, continue speaking your home language at home and at school, we’re going to focus in the English. Once I know the home language, I try to support the home language by providing literacy skill like books, information for the parents to do at home to promote the home language. When at the meeting this morning, I told the parents what they can do to improve language and skills at home. The parents, they ask me questions, “Oh should I speak Spanish to my child?” Like a parent who speaks Spanish. “Oh, I don’t think I should just speak Spanish to my child because I want my child to learn English.” I told that parent it’s okay, at this age, they can learn, like their brain is very fresh, it can [inaudible] language as possible. So this is the time for you to focus on the home language.

>> I speak fluent Spanish but my kids don’t speak fluent Spanish, where I made the mistake of not speaking fluent to them but now I’m learning with the younger ones to speak because I can see they pick it up, I figured the other ones pick it but they didn’t. The younger ones pick it up quicker.

>> Okay, well it’s very important for you to keep your home language because the more language your child can speak, the more possibility they’re going to have in life, right? Just really where we live now, we have people coming from all over the world in this country so if you can speak — if you can be bilingual, more possibility so I would encourage you guys to keep the home language.

>> Our agency has a family development department that is very big on making sure that we have trainings and workshops for parents.

>> The parents usually ask me “Oh Mona, what do you think I can do at home to improve child early literacy”, as we tell them “Well, the most thing we can do right now is read. It doesn’t matter what language, just read to your child.” What is very important for myself to tell the parents, make sure you read, you do it for fun, enjoyable. Don’t force your children like they have to, do it like fun, like before bedtime, it’s a good time to read to the children. And keep the schedule, if you keep the schedule up like every night, you read to the children, that’s the way you keep the consistency.

>> The reading program is very simple, for example, we read in the classroom, we have big books. We have the big version, this one is called “My Mommy, What My Mommy Does This — Do This” and we don’t want to be sexist, we have about a father, “What Daddies Do Best”. We read it to the children and we have the small version of it and this one they speak Spanish,

[ Foreign Language Spoken ]

So we have it in Spanish also and there’s a bag, I will give your child a bag to take home [inaudible] bag. Your child name is going to be on the bag, your child will take the — pick a book, they will put it in the bag. Inside the bag, there’s a letter; this letter said “Your child chose this book to take home. He or she can read it alone or with someone else”. The child can read the book to you, can recite it. So another thing I will encourage the parents to do is to ask open-ended questions like if you read a story, we usually ask open-ended questions to see what the child gets from that — from the reading for understanding. For example, my friends, we can predict [inaudible] predict what’s going to happen from the story. We can ask the children some questions; what do you think this story is about and then let the children answer. When you ask open-ended questions, you have to be careful. You don’t want answer yes or no, you want the children to say like if you want a sentence, okay, be careful with that. So if you ask the children what do you think will happen? You think they’re going to say yes or no? No, they’re going to tell you. Oh, [inaudible] she’s looking for a friend, she’s going to the park, that’s what open-ended question and you made the children talk. I tell the parents, when they shopping, they can make a shopping list with the children. When they’re driving, they can talk about the signs, traffic signs and also they can borrow books from the library and from this school to support literacy skills at home. I invite the parents to come in the classroom. They can come and volunteer. I ask them if they can come and read a book, they can read it in their home language also to the children. It is especially important to build a strong relationship with the family, especially the ones who are ELL because family relationship is very critical and the non-English speaking parent may feel they have no way to communicate.

>> I feel as though personally, that a family when they first can come over, can become isolated and in their isolation, they will keep their child isolated so for me, it’s been a personal thing to make the family feel welcome, feel honored that they’re here with us, that we want to help them. We want to be connected with them and we respect them.

 

 

Unit 6 Reading Assignment – Chapter 13

Gordon, A. M., & Browne, K. W. (2023). Beginnings & beyond: Foundations in early childhood education (11th ed.). Cengage. 

Chapter 13 explores how language and literacy are intertwined and highlights the importance of children’s literature in early childhood. 

• Chapter 13: Planning for the Mind: Language and Literacy in Action
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