Teaching Multilingual Learners: Who are your students?

For new teachers who are working with multilingual learners or emerging bilingual students, because they don't come with nothing, so that's the first thing I would say. They come with something. They come with who they are. They come with all the language that they have, many thousands of words that they've learned over the years, even if they're just five years old, know that they come with something. Please don't assume that they are problems to be fixed. Understand that they are assets to be cherished. And so they come with a sense of self that should never be denigrated. They should never be called Limited English students. They should not be seen as having special needs because they know that they don't speak English yet. That is not a special need. That is an opportunity.

I would say it would be helpful for teachers to learn as much as they can about the students in their classrooms. I mean, I could go on all day about Puerto Rican culture and what the history of the community has been and those things are absolutely essential, really important, but learn first about the students in your classroom. Who are they? What are their dreams? What do they want? And yes, it is important to understand why there are five million Puerto Ricans living in the United States if you're teaching Puerto Rican students, or why a school system went from having no Afghan students to all of a sudden having so many and not understanding why, or understanding why some immigrant families might be afraid that they'll be deported. You have to understand that. You really need to understand always the political underpinnings of everything that we do.

So learning the history, learning about the culture, not as something abstract, but as something tangible and that you see in the kids every day about relationships and what their relationships are with their families and why — it’s important for you to know.