Learning a Few Words in Your Students’ Languages

I would encourage them to learn a few words of the languages that their students speak. So maybe you're teaching kids who speak Spanish and Creole, Haitian Creole, or speaking Farsi. Learn about those students by asking them to teach you a few words in their language. You can't become fluent overnight, but I'll give an example with my daughter, my daughter, Alicia, well, all three of the girls who my husband and I raised, two daughters and a granddaughter, are all fluent in Spanish and English. Alicia, because she studied abroad, is also completely fluent in French and because she teaches students from Portugal and from the Cape Verde Islands is pretty conversant in Portuguese. I think every teacher should try to do as much as they can in learning at least a few words of the language. It'll also help them understand the structure of the language a bit and why their students say things in particular ways, like, why does the subject come later and not before? Things like that. Why are there five words for this in Spanish and only one in English, for example? So I think all of those things would be important for them.

Teachers must be learners and must be learners throughout their lives. And so it's not to say that they should automatically become bicultural and bilingual, but it's a process and it can be a really scary and difficult process for kids. Imagine little kids having to learn another language. People see it as seamless, but it's not always seamless and it takes a lot of courage to learn another language, whether you're a child or you're an adult. I would really encourage them to try to become bilingual and at least learn some of the words that they can communicate with their students and with their students' families. There's nothing like communicating with them in a language that makes them feel comfortable.