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Yellow- Legal rights Pink- Importance of native languages White- Native language used in schools

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Yellow- Legal rights Pink- Importance of native languages White- Native language used in schools

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-if the parent wishes for ESL education, the school must provide it

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ELL/LEP Parent Civil Rights Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet, Ensuring English Language Learner Students Can Participate Meaningfully and Equally in Educational Programs (Jan. 2015) PDF

Fact Sheet, Information for Limited English Proficient Parents and for Schools and School Districts that Communicate with Them (Jan. 2015) PDF

For additional information about the civil rights of ELLs and LEP parents, please visit http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ellresources.html.

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ELL/LEP Parent Civil Rights Fact Sheet Fact Sheet, Ensuring English Language Learner Students Can Participate Meaningfully and Equally in Educational Programs (Jan. 2015) PDF Fact Sheet, Information for Limited English Proficient Parents and for Schools and School Districts that Communicate with Them (Jan.

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-You have the right to request an interpreter
-The government funded building/company must provide a certified interpreter
-The interpreter must translate word for word

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Why it is important for children to learn and maintain their first or native language

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Why it is important for children to learn and maintain their first or native language

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-"First language loss is caused by several factors, including the eagerness to assimilate to the dominant culture and social pressure"
-"The gain of a second language is a wonderful thing, but it should not happen at the expense of the loss of one’s first language, which connects us to a part of our identity that can’t be replaced"
-Parents should continue to teach students their native language at home to build their multilingual skills

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We use language to communicate with others, to establish relationships and a sense of self, and to express who we are; it is an integral part of being human. The gain of a second language is a wonderful thing, but it should not happen at the expense of the loss of one's first language, which connects us to a part of our identity that can't be replaced. Research has shown the possibility of acquiring two or more languages simultaneously as well as the cognitive benefits of multilingualism. Multiculturalism and multilingualism are achievable, and several countries and even indigenous communities can attest to that.

The loss of the first or native language is a serious problem for bilingual children. First language loss is caused by several factors, including the eagerness to assimilate to the dominant culture and social pressure. Parents and educators must be well prepared to deal with bilingual students and to recognize and value the importance of maintaining their cultural and language heritage which enriches not only the student, but the school community and the society as a whole. The loss of the first language costs a great deal to children and their families, but also to the community as a whole and ultimately to the entire nation.

There is a widespread phenomenon of children at risk of losing their heritage language competence after enrolling in the school system and learning English. At home, parents and other family members play a major role in maintaining and developing the first language. Using the native language at home is not always easy, but the efforts will reap great benefits, and it is very important that parents are aware of them so they can make better language choices at home (learn more about the benefits of bilingualism). It is crucial for children to receive enough comprehensible input in the first language to maintain and further develop it, since children will have more exposure to English outside of home than to their first or heritage language. Parents can help their children maintain their first language and culture at home while, at the same time, incorporate the elements of the new language (English) and culture into their life. Parents should also seek other community resources and expose their child to their first language outside of home, in social settings, as often as possible. Parents and teachers should also talk to the children about role models in their own cultures that they can learn from. Each culture has great heroes that help shape the mindset of its members. Parents should also consider reading to their children in their first language from an early age. Literacy skills development in the native language should start early and at home. All this takes strength and it can be challenging, but it is also worth the effort.

Resources

Bolger, P. & Zapata, G. (2011). Psycholinguistic approaches to language processing in heritage speakers. Heritage Language Journal. 8 (1).

Callahan, L. (2010). U.S. Latinos' use of written Spanish: realities and aspirations. Heritage Language Journal. 7 (1).

Dominguez, L. (2009). Charting the route of bilingual development: contributions from heritage speakers' early acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism. 13 (2). P. 271-287.

Lai Yung Tung, C. (2009). Language maintenance and language loss in first language. U.S.-China Foreign Language. 7(7), 10-16.

Ovando, C. and Combs, M. (2006). Bilingual and ESL Classrooms. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Proctor, C., August, D., Carlo, M., & Barr, C. (2010). Language Maintenance versus Language of Instruction: Spanish Reading Development among Latino and Latina Bilingual Learners. Journal of Social Issues, 66 (1), 79-94.

Rothman, J. (2009). Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism. 13(2), 155-163.

Tran, V. (2010). English gain vs. Spanish loss? Language assimilation among second generation Latinos in young adulthood. Social Forces. 89 (1), 257-284.

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Why it is important for children to learn and maintain their first or native language

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We use language to communicate with others, to establish relationships and a sense of self, and to express who we are; it is an integral part of being human. The gain of a second language is a wonderful thing, but it should not happen at the expense of the loss of one's first language, which connects us to a part of our identity that can't be replaced.

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The Importance Of Keeping Your Native Language Alive

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The Importance Of Keeping Your Native Language Alive

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-"the customs, traditions, and passions of a certain culture"
-"children of immigrant parents refuse to speak their native tongue because they fear they’ll be mocked at school"
-"bilingual individuals had higher cognitive function than monolinguals"
-"Language resonates in our hearts. It allows us to connect to our ancestors. It gives us a sense of community with people who we don’t know but may have similar life experiences with. To lose that is to lose a piece of yourself"

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The Importance Of Keeping Your Native Language Alive

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Cultural assimilation is inevitable when a family immigrates to a new country, but maintaining your native tongue is a social obligation.

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-"Language and identity are closely intertwined"
-"plays a major role in the development of their academic identity and overall educational success. Validating a student’s culture and language provides social and emotional benefits, such as developing a positive and confident student self-image. Conversely, there are zero benefits to telling students they cannot use their native language"
-Strategies: 1. Get to know students as individuals 2. support home language in the classroom 3. foster cross-cultural understanding 4. collaborate with families 5. diversify teaching strategies 6. allow students to share about their home life

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It’s Not Uncommon for Schools to Have Dozens of Home Languages—And Our Classrooms Should Reflect That

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Here’s what we’ve learned teaching in a classroom with 6 different home languages.

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Importance of Maintaining Students' Native Languages

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Importance of Maintaining Students' Native Languages

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Personal(identity), social(interact with English and non-English speakers), intellectual(switching to just English will put them at a lower academic level), educational(high academic achievement), and economic(better employment rate for multilinguals) reasons

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Children who speak a language other than English enter U.S. schools with abilities and talents similar to those of native English-speaking children. In addition, these children have the ability to speak another language that, if properly nurtured, will benefit them throughout their lives. In school, children who speak other languages will learn to speak, read and write English. However, unless parents and teachers actively encourage maintenance of the native language, the child is in danger of losing it and with that loss, the benefits of bilingualism. Maintaining the native language matters for the following reasons.

Personal:

The child's first language is critical to his or her identity. Maintaining this language helps the child value his or her culture and heritage, which contributes to a positive self-concept.

Social:

When the native language is not maintained, important links to family and other community members may be lost. By encouraging native language use, parents can prepare the child to interact with the native language community, both in the United States and overseas.

Intellectual:

Students need uninterrupted intellectual development. When students who are not yet fluent in English switch to using only English, they are functioning at an intellectual level below their age. Interrupting intellectual development in this manner is likely to result in academic failure. However, when parents and children speak the language they know best with one another, they are both working at their actual level of intellectual maturity.

Educational:

Students who learn English and continue to develop their native language have higher academic achievement in later years than do students who learn English at the expense of their first language.

Economic:

Better employment opportunities in this country and overseas are available for individuals who are fluent in English and another language.

Resources

Collier, V. "Acquiring a Second Language for School," Directions in Language and Education (1995) 1(4).

Cummins, J. Bilingualism and Minority-Language Children (Toronto, Ontario: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1981).

Cummins, J. et.al. Schooling and Language-Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework (Los Angeles, California: California State University, School of Education, 1994).

Wong-Fillmore, L. "When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First," Early Childhood Research Quarterly (1991) 6, 323-346.
Reprinted with permission from the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education's "AskNCBE" web site (www.ncbe.gwu.edu/askncbe/faqs). NCBE is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (OBEMLA) and is operated by the George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Center for the Study of Language and Education. Comments and questions may be directed to IDRA via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.
[©2000, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the January 2000 Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.] IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association.

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Why is it Important to Maintain the Native Language? - IDRA

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by National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education * IDRA Newsletter * January 2000 * Children who speak a language other than English enter U.S. schools with abilities and talents similar to those of native English-speaking children. In addition, these children have the ability to speak another language that, if properly nurtured, will benefit them throughout their lives.

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The Impact of English-Only Instructional Policies on English Learners

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The Impact of English-Only Instructional Policies on English Learners

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-"the transitional bilingual program offered in the kindergarten to first grade had resulted in superior reading outcomes over the English-immersion program"

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The Impact of English-Only Instructional Policies on English Learners

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In this article written for Colorín Colorado, Dr. Patricia Gándara discusses the emergence and outcomes of the English-only movement, as well as ideas for refocusing the debate around bilingual education in the future. In the aftermath of the Bilingual Education Act (1968), and the Lau v.

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Building Cross-Cultural Connections in Two Languages

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Building Cross-Cultural Connections in Two Languages

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At a bilingual school in Chicago, first-grade teachers swap classrooms so students get lessons in both Mandarin and English

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Building Cross-Cultural Connections in Two Languages

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Teachers teach their native Navajo and Hawaiian languages in their classrooms
“We talked about how our identity is important, and how we are all part of a community that looks out for each other,” Andy says.

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Called to Speak: The Struggle to Ensure an Indigenous Language Lives On

The most recent American Community Survey data collected from 2009 to 2013 found that there are 150 different Native North American languages collectively spoken by more than 350,000 people across the country. Native languages account for nearly half of the 350 total languages spoken in the United States. Yet, many of these languages are at risk of becoming extinct with only a small number of speakers remaining.

The reasons for this decline are complex and impact nearly every indigenous language spoken in the U.S. They trace their origins back to when the first European explorers came to North America and the events that unfolded over centuries as Native peoples were displaced from their land by colonists and settlers.

The harmful effects of policies enacted during this time-such as requiring Native students to attend English-only boarding schools and the forced relocation and assimilation at the expense of eradicating Native language and culture-are still playing out today.

While there is still much work to be done, there have been great efforts since the Civil Rights era and over the past decades to restore Native languages and preserve indigenous culture, specifically in the classrooma place where Native children often feel invisible. This includes local and national efforts, such as the recent Senate approval to reauthorize the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, which supports language preservation and restoration programs for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students.

The vast majority of this work has happened at the grassroots level, led by Native leaders, activists, and educators who are most directly impacted by the loss of their language. Native communities are still working to undo laws enacted long ago, establishing community-based immersion schools, and partnering with education agencies to offer Native language in public schools.

Children who learn their Indigenous language are able to maintain critical ties to their culture, affirm their identity, and preserve important connections with older generations. There is also an additional benefit for students who learn their Indigenous language from a teacher who shares the same background, history, and culture.

Teach For America's Native Alliance Initiative partners with Native communities across the U.S. to recruit more Native teachers into the classroom, particularly in the communities they are from. TFA alums, Līhau Godden and Andy Nez are part of a community of over 300 Native alumni who are helping Native students feel seen by reinforcing their language, culture, and stories in the classroom.

Nurturing the Next Generation of Navajo Speakers

One of the greatest Navajo teachings that Andy follows is, K'ézhnídisin dóó dadílzinii jidísin. It's a Diné phrase that means "admire all living beings and respect all that is sacred."

Andy is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and currently works for the Department of Diné Education in Window Rock, Arizona, as a senior education specialist. He says his grandparents played an important role in transmitting the Diné language to him. From a young age, Andy joined his grandmother and aunt in traditional Navajo seasonal ceremonies and learned Diné within the context of the changing landscape, the way his family had done for generations.

"Being able to grow up in that environment and converse with elders from 6 or 7 years old all the way into my early teenage years, that's how I picked up the Navajo language," Andy says

Today, there are approximately 170,000 fluent Diné speakers. While Diné is one of the more widely-spoken Indigenous languages, the number of speakers has declined significantly over the last generation. Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. Census data found that the percentage of Navajos who spoke their Native language dropped from 76 to 51 percent, with younger generations among those who were least fluent.

While Andy doesn't consider himself a completely fluent Diné speaker, he can read and write in the language and carry on conversations with the elders in his community. As an undergrad, he tutored young Navajo students and says his love of the Diné language and culture led him into teaching.

In the next 100 years, half of the world's languages could go extinct. But a family and a school in Washington are committed to saving one of them. Read more.

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Preserving Native Languages in the Classroom | Teach For America

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Called to Speak: The Struggle to Ensure an Indigenous Language Lives On The most recent American Community Survey data collected from 2009 to 2013 found that there are 150 different Native North American languages collectively spoken by more than 350,000 people across the country.

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Vision Statement and Principles and Practices

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Vision Statement and Principles and Practices

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"It is our stance that for schools to be successful at meeting the needs of emergent bilingual students they must develop ecologies of bilingualism that build on the home language practices of their students"

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Vision statement

Emergent Bilinguals: Emergence, Dynamic Bilingualism, and Dynamic Development
Emergent Bilinguals
CUNY-NYSIEB focuses on improving the education of emergent bilingual students in New York State. These students are often referred to as English Language Learners. In New York State they are designated as such by the Language Assessment Battery-Revised (LAB-R) initially, and the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) thereafter.

We refer to these students as emergent bilinguals because, in learning English, they are becoming bilingual and thus joining the growing ranks of American bilinguals in New York State and elsewhere. We consider bilingualism as the desired norm for all American students and not as the exceptional quality of a few. That is, we view bilingualism and biliteracy as an asset that all students in New York State should possess to meet the demands of the 21st century. Furthermore, our use of the term emergent bilinguals conceptualizes these students as much more than learners of English only, since they are developing proficiency and literacy in academic English from the base of home language practices. Furthermore, the term emergent bilinguals acknowledges that the education of these students must go beyond simply English language learning, to include a challenging curriculum in the content areas that also meets their social and emotional needs.
Emergence
In focusing on the emergence of the students' bilingualism, we are naming our educational philosophy regarding language and literacy development, as well as education. This philosophy holds that bilingual development is not linear but emergent, and that it is dependent on the relationship of students with other people and texts, as well as their relationship with the learning environment. Under this philosophy, educators must provide the affordances and opportunities that are needed for new language practices and understandings to emerge. In this view, a speaker never has a language, but simply uses or performs a language. It is when the right affordances are provided that student languaging emerges, as students also construct new knowledge and understandings.
Dynamic Bilingualism
This emergent view of language and literacy education is consonant with our view that bilingualism is dynamic, and not simply additive. In our global world, bilingual practices reflect the language user's adaptation to specific communicative situations and to the communicative resources provided by others. A bilingual speaker is thus never a fully balanced bilingual. Rather, what bilingual speakers do is to language bilingually, or to translanguage, in order to make meaning from the complex interactions that are enacted by different human beings and texts in our globalized world. Translanguaging refers to the use of a learner's full linguistic repertoire to make sense of the rich content that is being communicated. In this dynamic bilingualism view, new language practices only emerge in interrelationship with old language practices. Together they constitute a flexible linguistic repertoire that bilingual students use in order to meet their communicative and academic needs, including literacy in standard academic English and the learning of challenging new content.
Dynamic Development
The dynamism of the fluid language practices performed by emergent bilingual students leads us to shed rigid distinctions between native or first languages and second languages, distinctions that have tended to obscure thinking about bilingualism, bilingual acquisition, and language education. For example, we reject the common proposition that is so common in "second language" acquisition studies that emergent bilingual students have a "first" language that is used solely at home and that, depending on one's position, needs to be shed or maintained, plus a "second" language, namely English, that is used in school.

Instead, we assert that the language practices of American bilingual children include, flexibly and simultaneously, features of languages other than English, as well as English. Our educational philosophy engages bilingual children with their entire range of language practices, including those associated with academic English, as their very own. For bilingual children to successfully perform academically in English, schools support a multilingual context that recognizes the language and cultural practices of bilingual children as an important part of the school's learning community.

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Emergent Bilinguals CUNY-NYSIEB focuses on improving the education of emergent bilingual students in New York State. These students are often referred to as English Language Learners. In New York State they are designated as such by the Language Assessment Battery-Revised (LAB-R) initially, and the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) thereafter.

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PPT of how schools are implementing different languages inside and outside of classrooms

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The resources in this section help school staff and leaders reflect on the ways all students' language practices might be integrated into the school environment to create a truly multilingual ecology.

The Languages of New York State: A CUNY-NYSIEB Guide for Educators: Learn more about the languages your students speak! This guide provides information about the top ten languages other than English spoken by emergent bilinguals. Descriptions include a brief history of the language, a few details about the cultures of the people who speak the language, and their experiences in New York State. It also includes some basic structural features of the languages as well as cognates and basic phrases. Download a copy.

Lead a PD about ME: This includes a PowerPoint presentation of photographs of multilingual elements at other schools which can assist you in running a professional development session about the importance of fostering a multilingual ecology at your school .

PS 153 Welcome Packet and Welcome Letter PS 153: Get inspired by this example of a bilingual welcome packet created for newcomer students by staff at PS 153 in Brooklyn. The packet familiarizes students with the school, materials he or she will need, and basic English Vocabulary. Activities encourage the use of both English and the home language. The packet can be used in the classroom or as homework, and attempts to take the pressure off both new students and their teachers in the first couple of days of school. This packet is most appropriate for elementary school students, though the welcome letter to families could be used at all grade levels. Download a copy here.

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The resources in this section help school staff and leaders reflect on the ways all students' language practices might be integrated into the school environment to create a truly multilingual ecology. The Languages of New York State: A CUNY-NYSIEB Guide for Educators: Learn more about the languages your students speak!