Education Week - June 19, 2019 - 24

Melody Newcomb for Education Week

COMMENTARY

A Language-Skills
Reality Check

By Olivia Obeso
few weeks ago, at a central Los Angeles afterschool homework club
full of students who
were bilingual in Spanish and English, I asked
a young girl I was working with if she spoke
Spanish. "¿Hablas español?" She responded
casually, "No, pero mi mamá habla español."
No, but my mom speaks Spanish. Amused
by the response, I reflected on my instinct to
classify her language into separate categories in the first place. We as students and
teachers internalize an instinct to classify
language as either/or: as English or Spanish,
as good or bad, as correct or poor form. These
classifications end up reinforcing deficit
views of students who aren't monolingual,
middle-class English speakers.
It is impossible to avoid the insidious narratives about the language deficiencies of
students who have been "minoritized"-or
pushed to a subordinate position by social
expectations. From catchy news articles, to
research rooted firmly in monolingual, middle-class practices, these narratives are hard
to escape. In fact, whenever I meet someone
new, and they learn that I was a teacher,
two talking points never fail to come up: the
tragedies of the word gap and the failure of
certain students to learn academic language.
But these tragedies are fabricated. The researchers of the 1995 study that introduced
the "crisis" of the word gap claimed that children from low-income households were entering school with 30 million fewer words than

their more economically advantaged peers.
This conclusion has come under fire in recent
years both from activists who criticize the
study's impact on policymakers and from researchers who question its methodology and
cultural biases. In fact, later studies failed to
reproduce the so-called word gap.
Validity aside, this and similar studies also
make implicit judgments about the value of
certain ways of speaking and writing that are
rooted in monolingual ideals. The "dilemma"
of students learning academic language-the
language used in textbooks or on standardized tests-then permeates instruction and
evaluation. Such a narrow focus discounts
the huge variety of language skills needed
for communication and success, and limits
students' learning opportunities.
These two manufactured dilemmas attempt
to strictly demarcate language boundaries.
The titles we give to languages (e.g. standard,
academic, slang, formal, etc.) imply the worth
of the language being labeled, but the hierarchies that result are not objective.
In fact, students who are bi- or multilingual
effectively engage in complex language practices every day. But, because their practices
don't fit into our monolingual models of language, we neglect to recognize it.
Even as appreciation for bilingualism
grows in our schools, that appreciation is
not equal. The bilingualism of students from
monolingual backgrounds is celebrated, while
the bilingualism of other students is treated
as a problem to be "fixed."
Take the girl in homework club as an example. I watched her move deftly between
making a plan with her mother in Spanish,
completing her homework in English, and
engaging with her peers in two languages.

24 | EDUCATION WEEK | June 19, 2019 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary

She demonstrated her linguistic knowledge
and social dexterity throughout the afternoon, but will her teachers recognize the
talent she has?
As educators, we're especially attuned to
the labeling and categorization of language.
With honest intentions, we take up what
we're taught in our teacher preparation: that
language can be standardized. Unfortunately,
what results is the denial of deeper-learning
opportunities for our students as we judge
them to be not proficient in any language
when, in reality, they are just not practicing
the language we find valuable.
This is not new in education. My father and
his nine siblings were prohibited from developing their Spanish-English bilingualism in
school. After they were disciplined multiple
times for speaking Spanish in school, my
grandparents were forced to be complicit in
the erasure of their language.
Their teachers didn't consider that they
were cheating their students out of the opportunity to develop their unique language
skills. Now, my father and his siblings have
to pay for others to teach their children the
valuable skill of bilingualism that they were
denied and that other students are rewarded
for cultivating.
This suppression of diverse language practices is not limited to students who speak
languages other than English. There is also
diversity and value within English-speaking
communities that we should not attempt to
eradicate. Fortunately, there are various
ways that all of us as educators can help our
students develop their language practices
for all of the spaces they pass through. Here
are a few:
* Encourage flexible language practices (translanguaging). Allow students
to draw on all of the tools in their language
toolbox to learn, communicate, and express
themselves. For example, if we ask students
to make an outline for a paper they are assigned, they could be allowed the freedom to
use any format and language that help them
organize their thinking.
* Raise language awareness (metalinguistic awareness). Guide students to see

IS STRICT DISCIPLINE
WHAT CHARTER SCHOOL
PARENTS WANT?

DON'T DO RESTORATIVE
JUSTICE UNLESS YOU CAN
DO IT RIGHT

patterns in their own language and the language of others so that they're more conscious
about the decisions they make.
* Promote context-rich language
development (legitimate peripheral
participation). Provide real examples of
language use in different spaces-such as
communicating needs at a doctor's visit, negotiating policies with school leaders, or applying to a job in the hospitality industry-
and allow for real, guided communication in
those spaces.
* Build student-centered classrooms.
Get to know the students we teach and provide flexible lessons and projects that guide
them in connecting new information to their
prior knowledge.
Valuing diverse language practices is difficult in our current system of education.
Many assessments prevent multilingual
students from demonstrating their full
language ability, yet these tests are core to
the education system in the United States.
Teachers are held accountable for a narrow
definition of achievement. Communities' values and practices are often ignored in the
schools that serve them.
I know from personal experience that it's
not easy to adopt the practices I've detailed
here. I know that language is not static and
that rules governing its use are subjective.
Too often, I bowed to the constant warnings
from teacher educators, researchers, and
principals of the failure that awaited my
students who did not learn the correct kind
of language in my classroom.
It's time to recognize that our insistence
on labeling and classifying language is not
a necessary evil. Let's allow our students to
tell us what they can do with language instead of asking them to always make it fit
into our own models. n
OLIVIA OBESO is a doctoral student in urban
schooling at the University of California, Los
Angeles. She previously worked as an English-asa-foreign-language teacher in Costa Rica, before
returning to the United States to volunteer in
community college classrooms and teach immersion
Spanish to elementary-age students.

http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary

Education Week - June 19, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - June 19, 2019