Third Grade Difficulties

I spent my first seven years in a heavily Latino populated area of Chicago, and up until third grade I had bilingual teachers. I was so comfortable within this group that I refused to switch to an entirely English classroom. My parents have always been extremely adamant about my siblings and me speaking Spanish, so they supported this decision. Living in the area was good for my parents as their first language is Spanish, so we had close relationships with our neighbors there. Although this city was a very welcoming home for my family, my parents felt that moving to the suburbs

No matter what I tried, I did not seem to fit in. I was constantly dealing with many bullies. It didn’t help that I’m shy, that my brother was ‘different’, or that I was good at school; These kids did not seem interested in school at all, and were only interested in being popular. I hated going to public school, so when I was in 7th grade I transferred to private school. For 7th and 8th grade I went to a ‘prep school’. I t was very difficult. We would have several hours of homework each day, and I had to write a lot of essays. For high school, I went to a Catholic school, the same as my father.

At that time, the teachers still taught bilingual classes, and I was able to understand and be understood. Most of my classmates spoke Spanish because they were also in the process of learning English; it is typical in a bilingual kindergarten classroom. Some of the students were much more advanced than others while a group of students at a time were taken apart in at little corner to be taught the numbers, the alphabet, and the sounds of each letter.

For a period of time I was an ESOL (English as a second language) classroom teacher. This meant part my class was native English speakers and the rest was native Spanish speakers. All of my little first graders had an entire year of culture appreciation and learning to be patient with one another. They learned about holidays which they both celebrated and holidays they did not have in common. When certain Spanish speaking students would get tired of finding the correct English words they would speak in Spanish.

According to Gleason and Ratner (2013), “In the United States, the proportion of children who are raised learning more than one language is estimated to be about 20 percent, with Spanish becoming the most common second language (Gleason & Ratner, 2013, p. 75). My interview this week was with a teacher, Mrs. T, who teaches young English learners. Mrs. T teaches children who are in the first grade. Because the school has a growing Hispanic population, the native language of the children she teaches is Spanish. The interview took place in her classroom during the last hour of the school day. I observed as she worked with one of her students in particular who seems to

As early as kindergarten, I was petite and heavier than most kids. Most of the children in my class were a fair complexion whereas mine was sun kissed. I always thought that they would never want to be friends with a girl that looked so different than them. Many of my classmates played together and I would too have scared to ask to play with them so, I would sit at my desk and colored. As the year progressed, I noticed I was not getting invited to any birthday parties or invited to sit with someone at lunch. One day during independent reading, I always sat in the corner of the rug against where the walls would meet when, one of my classmates walked over to me and said, “My friends and I want to read that book so you have to read this one,” she quickly ripped the book out of my hand and threw a different book in my lap. My five-year old self

Many students who are English language learners come from a background were in their household they speak another language rather than English. This is why it is very hard for them to adapt when they are entering a school. According to the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, this act mentioned how English Language Learners faced problems and how they came up with educational programs to help students who were Spanish speaking students (Stewner-Manzanares, 1988, P.1). The Bilingual Education Act was put in place and with this act they wanted the federal government to deliver programs that would help students who were Spanish speakers (Stewner-Manzanares, 1988,

I interviewed an Instructional Aide that I work with at Cottonwood Elementary. Her name is Marcela and she works with the Kindergartners. She moved from Argentina to New York when she was 3 years old and her first language was Spanish. Her mother put her in preschool when she turned 5, to help her learn English. Marcela shared with me that when she went to school she felt very sad, disconnected and was constantly looking for other children that spoke Spanish. She did find a girl who spoke Spanish and she became “buddies’ with her. The girl that she befriended would help her by translating everything the teacher would say, which was all in English. Marcela said she was speaking English by Kindergarten, but she must have had a strong accent because they put in her in speech

As a child, I had to navigate from an English speaking classroom to a Spanish speaking home. From eight in the morning I was given instruction in English by my professors at school. After three in the afternoon at home I engaged in Spanish conversation with my mother, father, and siblings. When the summer vacation came around, it was back to speaking Spanish only, and then I regained the Mexican accent that had faded away during the school year.

This was not surprising, nor was it an issue, since my parents both spoke Spanish at home. I recall my mother carrying around a Spanish-to-English dictionary religiously, pulling it out in grocery stores or doctor’s appointments to able to communicate with the strangers around her. The language barrier first became an issue at age four, when I was set to start preschool. I could not go in blindly, and so in the months leading up to the day my parents spent hours teaching me the little English they had acquired.

Becoming an emerging bilingual was a scary experience since I recall my first year as an emerging bilingual. I became an emerging bilingual when I had to transfer elementary schools prior to starting 4th grade. My Kindergarten education through 3rd grade was given to me in Spanish, so when I had to transfer to Kettering Elementary school to start 4th grade I was terrified with the fear of not being able to communicate with my peers and teacher. I recall my first day in 4th grade, arriving to my classroom and realizing that my fear had become my reality. The majority of my peers were White I would say that about 90% of the entire school was white including the staff. There were about three to four Hispanic students in which I was introduced

     Once my family and I arrived at our new house I was still very saddened because of the move and had trouble not getting mad at my parents. Summer went bye like it wasn’t even there and by the time school started I was very depressed. The new school I was going to was Naperville North High School which was about ten times the size of my old school in Pennsylvania in size and in the number of students. In my school in Pennsylvania there were about twelve students in each class, here the number runs around thirty two. The school building was so big I had a lot of trouble getting to class on time let alone finding them in the building. The school wasn’t what I was bothered by the most because it was the fact that I didn’t have any social life and I was a social person. There were a lot of different groups of people at my new high school, it was tough for me to fit in and meet new people. Everyone just knew me as the new kid and didn’t even bother to find out what my real name was. The first

There are a lot of students who feel like they don’t belong at our school. These are kids who don’t have friends and feel lonely. This can be caused by personal, home issues or things that might have happened in the past. For example, someone who has been bullied, may feel left out now. Or maybe a kid is known for something they did in the past or a mistake they made, something they can’t change. Kids all over our school feel left out, lonely, and judged. Sometimes people feel like there is no one to talk to and no one will understand how they feel, but there are a lot of people to talk to. Some kids don’t feel comfortable talking to teachers because they might feel judged or misunderstood.

Freshman year I remember walking into the school mortified, thinking that everything and anything that could go wrong would. I had never attended a Liberty-Benton School and knew about five people that would be in my grade. I was shy and quiet because I didn’t know any of the new faces. I was insecure about myself and thought that it would be almost impossible to make friends. Before high school, I went to a small, private,

learning English for me was a struggle when I got to the United states. because the transition between the two languages is very harsh and for Spanish speakers it makes it much harder. For example Spelling – In Spanish, words are spelled exactly how they sound. They don’t have any