Bilingual Education
Fu, Hadjioannou, and Zhou talk a lot from the school’s point of view on some of their biggest challenges. Before reading this chapter, I knew that in general the shortage of teachers was huge. It is not until after reading chapter 4 that I see statistically how much this country lacks teachers, but we lack qualified teachers, especially in the bilingual education environment. In this chapter, they give an example of a challenge in a New York City school. In the New York City School, they found that the principal was able to put together only two bilingual programs in the whole school. According to Fu, Hadjioannou, and Zhou, they state how the principal “…can barely find enough licensed ESL teachers, let alone qualified bilingual teachers. I only have Chinese and Spanish bilingual programs in my school, as we have a large number of Chinese- and Spanish-speaking students to make the program.” (pg. 76).
Reading about how few qualified bilingual teachers there are blew my mind because growing up in Montgomery County I saw multiple language classes in not only the middle school but even more in my high school. We had Spanish, French, and even Italian classes that were given to all the students as an option. I will say that in elementary schools I did not see as many language options or bilingual programs and even now as an aspiring teacher I have not seen many bilingual programs in elementary schools but reading this chapter made me want to consider a minor in Spanish which is a language in which I am already familiar with as well as English.
Alejandra,
ReplyDeleteI like that you begin your reply by discussing the lack of teachers and the shortages that schools experience. Not only is this important to the chapter and our class, but it is also extremely relevant to schools right now as this is a huge problem schools are facing as schools reopen after the pandemic. Every teacher I have talked to recently has mentioned that their school is extremely short staffed. I am sure that this has only worsened the next point you brought up, about the lack of qualified teachers and especially bilingual educators. I also like that you include your personal experiences in Montgomery county. I attended school in the neighboring county, Frederick, and had similar experiences. We did not have bilingual programs in elementary school, but had several options in high school. Did you recall EL programs at your schools for emergent bilinguals? There was a very small EL population at my school, so I do not recall any programs for these students. (Word Count, 166).