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I am currently in a Head Start classroom for my placement and am teaching three and four year olds. Many of these students are bilingual and speak both Spanish and English. My cooperating teacher tries to incorporate both languages throughout the day and overall I feel it connects the students and the teachers better.
The question I have is, How does speaking different languages in the classroom benefit the students?
Classroom Routines
As the students start their day they sit around the circle carpet and do their daily good mornings. After this, they begin to go over their schedule for the day and eventually sing a goodmorning song. The students sing a morning song in Spanish saying goodmorning to their classmmates and teachers completely in Spanish. The students that speak Spanish can connect the bridges from what they hear at home and now what they are doing in school; and students that speak in only English get the chance to begin learning another language. Throuhgout the day the teachers will also speak in Spanish when giving short instructions; things like: walk, go, sit, thank you, please, play, bathroom time, etc. These short sayings give students a chance to learn more Spanish and value other cultures.
Reflecting/ researching my question
After doing some research and reading this article , I have developed a better understanding of the benefits of using multiple languages during the day. Many benefits can come from learning different languages and some of the ones that stood out to me were the idea to close the achievement gap, memories grow stronger, and students can learn new cultures while improving their empathy. Although these are not the only benefits that come from learning multiple languages they were some of the ones that would influence me as a teacher to try to incorporate different languages in my own class.
I really enjoyed watching this video!
Why Students Should Learn a Second Language
It’s a myth that learning a new language interferes with a child’s development.
Mathewson, T. (2015, October 7). Valuing Both Spanish and English in the Classroom. Retrieved by https://www.ewa.org/blog -latino-ed-beat/valuing-both-spanish-and-english-classroom