Students not allowed to use their home languages in the classroom by EUN Partnership aisbl

Ivana M. (Croatia)

2021-10-11 10:37:58 UTC

I haven't experienced a similar situation or heard of such situations. I hope Kaoutar's teacher only had the best intentions and wanted students to learn faster the language other classmates used.

Silvia, Romania

munteanusilvia2000 — 2021-10-11 10:38:11 UTC

My sister who moved to Canada some years ago experienced the same thing with her kids. They were not allowed to speak Romanian anywhere and were even isolated for that. Such things shouldn't be happening, on the contrary, using a variety of languages should be encouraged, both in class and outside it. I find Kaoutar's exercise a very good example of good practices.

Beatriz Sousa (Portugal)

2021-10-11 10:39:14 UTC

Fortunately I have not experienced that nor know anyone that has. My students are always encouraged to speak their native language

VA, Portugal

2021-10-11 12:18:52 UTC

I've never had that experience and I don't know anyone who has. In Portugal, in public education, at the age of my students (10-12 years) language is not essential for communication between everyone.

Emma, Spain

2021-10-11 12:21:20 UTC

I have never experienced that. However, I was born and raised in the Basque country, then moved to Valladolid 26 years ago. In order to learn Basque at school, Spanish was forbidden in the class. Now I see as in any language acquisition, L1 has an important role so that students don't feel frustrated when they can't find the words to express themselves.

Prado, Spain

pradodtoro — 2021-10-11 12:50:29 UTC

Yes, I experienced a similar situation when I was studying Polish in Poland. I was a teenager foreign student who only spoke Spanish and a bit of English, but all the lessons were in Polish, so it was frustrating not to understand anything, and nobody helped me, teachers didn´t translate what they were explaining and students´ weren´t allowed to talk, so I was on my own. In fact, I was so frustrated that I stopped studying Polish. I think this situation could have been avoided with some visual support during the explanations, more empathy from the teachers, or with this wonderful idea of a multilingual dictionary.

Visnja, Croatia

visnjavezmarovic — 2021-10-11 13:37:38 UTC

I expereinced something similar- some of my students speak Albanian. Croatian languages is official language spoken in our schools, especially in classe laike biolog I teach. I know it was hard for my students and allways tried to help them more.

Mihaela Epure

emikkaela — 2021-10-11 13:56:47 UTC

I have never experienced such a situation, but it would have been unlikely to happen in Romania, which is a rather compact culture, from the linguistic point of view (In Romania, we do not speak different dialects, but subdialects which, despite their local "colour", are easily understood by all native speakers).
My friend's daughter, though, passed through a similar situation, when they, as a whole family decided to move to Germany to start a new business - 15 years ago. She was enrolled into a boarding school, went to private language courses, but received no support whatsoever from her school teachers, who taught in German, as a native language, regardless of her obvious difficulty in understanding it. Since her parents were also attending language courses as starters, she was helped only by the boarding school staff, who were very supportive and showed real empathy. Thus, she turned very shy and had doubted herself for years.
Had she received a little more encouragement, she could have adapted earlier to the new cultural environment and become more confident about herself.

Olivia, Austria

2021-10-11 13:58:58 UTC

I experienced it myself as a child, and sadly also experience it now with my students.
I grew up in England speaking English and some German (I only really learned German when we moved to Austria). I wasn't even allowed to say single German words - because German was considered the 'Nazi language'. (I'm 26 - one would think that this sentiment would have passed in the 90's.)
At the school where I currently work there is a 'German only' policy in the hallways and on the playground. Some teachers allow students to use their home languages in class, others don't. This ban of home languages is based on the headmaster's beliefs that this will prevent bullying.
I partially understand where he's coming from, but I don't think banning the language is the answer here. Reinforcing the 'soziales Lernen' lessons- social learning, where kids learn how to behave in a group and how to work together as a team - would make more sense to me; or making sure they aren't only in the first grader's curriculum but are part of every year's curriculum.
As for teachers who ban home languages in classrooms - I don't understand them. I knew one teacher who would give students detention if they spoke even just one non-german word.
I believe this stems from an antiquated belief, that forcing students to use German will lead to them being integrated into society more quickly; I believe it leads to the opposite. I do not know how this can be avoided; teachers are also only people after all. I'm hopeful that this is an old-fashioned trend that won't be continued by the new generation of teachers.

Alina Bogdan, Romania

2021-10-11 14:53:40 UTC

I have not experienced anything like this, fortunately for me. It is very important, especially for students, that they can express themselves in their native language. This increases their self-confidence, helps them get rid of frustrations (most of the time they become frustrated when they can't express themselves in the new language, this can be intimidating).

Monica Arotaritei, Romania

arotariteimonica — 2021-10-11 14:54:18 UTC

Personally, I have never experienced such a situation. As my colleagues have said in Romania we do not a lot of people from other countries so we do not face such situations.

Dimitra G, Greece

2021-10-11 15:05:39 UTC

I've never had such an experience but my mother in law had when she was a child. She used the "pontiac dialect" in her daily life but in school this was forbiden. In school she was forced by the teacher to speak only in greek. That's why all the grrek dialects are dieing and nowadays very few people speak these dialects.

Daniela Russo, Italy

2021-10-11 15:45:08 UTC

I have not experienced similar situations.
I think it is useful to use the multilingual dictionary.

DrSuha Ababneh

islambabneh — 2021-10-11 16:57:00 UTC

I have not experience

Aphrodite, Greece

2021-10-11 17:15:11 UTC

I do not have similar experience but a lot of my students whose first language was not Greek felt that it was improper for them to use their native language at school, since the teachers and most of their classmates would not understand them.

Fortunately, I have never experienced that kind of situation.

2021-10-11 17:43:43 UTC

Federica Carminati, Italy

2021-10-11 17:55:39 UTC

I've heard once about two turkish students in a classroom, ten years ago, recently arrived in Italy. They were sisters and they could hardly speak italian, so they communicated only in Turkish. Maybe they had also lots of problems in understanding the various topics of the lessons. Moreover, in their families no one could speak italian, so it was really difficult to open a communication between school and families.
It happened a very bad situation because one of their teachers didn't allow them to communicate in their mother tongue language in the classroom and he separated them physically in the classroom. Fortunately during the afternoons some volunteers offered italian basic courses and this initiative allowed them to fill the gap of knowledge between them and their mates.
Maybe teachers sometimes fear unknown languages, because they fear messages that can be shared without being controlled or understood. But with some simply precautions, such as a glossary or a multilungual dictionary, teachers have the power to create a good class environment, filled with confidence and empathy.

Konstantina, Greece

2021-10-11 18:41:21 UTC

Unfortunately, I don't have one such experience until now.

Célia Branco, Portugal

2021-10-11 22:39:47 UTC

So far, I haven't experienced that kind of situation, and students from other nationalities are likely to use Portuguese or English in order to achieve acceptance from their peers.

Miliana Marcu , Craiova, Romania

2021-10-12 05:49:29 UTC

I have not experience.

Monica, Romania

monicaiordache — 2021-10-12 07:26:01 UTC

I didn`t have such an experience regarding this issue.

Emiliana, Italy

emiliana_rufo — 2021-10-12 08:53:22 UTC

I haven't got any experiences about using home languages at school, but sometimes in Italy it is possible to hear speaking in dialects in some schools, it is a way to tell something in a funny way and encourage students to preserve their own origins. Italian and foreign languages students study are the "lingua franca" they can use to communicate.

Maria João Marques, Portugal

mjvmarques — 2021-10-12 13:38:54 UTC

I haven't had this experience myself, but I had a colleague who came from Venezuela and she was fighting to hide her own native language because all the teachers were very picky about her never using Spanish at school. Some years later I met her and she told me that her Spanish was completely destroyed and she has forgotten many words because she was forced to do it. She lost a valuable asset for the sake of learning "good Portuguese"...

Konstantina Eirini Koufou, Greece

2021-10-12 15:41:07 UTC

i have no experience of horbiden language use but our schools are monolingual for most of the subject teaching except of course foreign languages.

Cinzia , Italy

2021-10-12 15:44:22 UTC

I haven't experienced this situation yet

Sandrine, France

2021-10-13 06:05:19 UTC

I haven't had such an issue yet

Christine, Germany

2021-10-13 07:39:33 UTC

It actually has never happened to me or I just can´t recall the situation maybe. But I know that there are schools or language classes, even on university level which have this one language policy and I also think that´s really stopping the students from trying out new construction, phrases, code meshing and so on.

Edit: It´s funny, that I haven´t thought about that in the first place. But in this mooc, where it´s all about language diversity, awareness and embracing multilingualism, the first sentence for the final assignment says: "Your learning scenario and your lesson plan have to be in English, otherwise they will not qualify."
That is a little bit ironic. (I know the reason for that and I understand that we have english as the lingua franca here.) But still...

María José, Spain.

mariajosefa_garcia5 — 2021-10-13 14:55:40 UTC

It has not happened to me, but at the school where I worked, students who came to school with no knowledge of Spanish were forbidden to speak to each other in their mother tongue. At school they could only use the official language, supposedly to acquire the Spanish language more quickly.

Roxana, Castilla y León (Spain)

2021-10-13 18:10:57 UTC

Sometimes a student use their home language and some of the other students reject this because they can't understand what the other student says.

Ksenija, Croatia

Ksenija — 2021-10-13 20:50:26 UTC

I have not had such an experience.

Jelena, Lithuania

lenairko — 2021-10-14 04:15:19 UTC

I had such experience when, being 15, I left my school where we were taught in Russian and entered a Music College, where the academic language was Lithuanian. Luckily, our teachers were understanding and, though the lessons were taught in Lithuanian, let me and some other students having the same situation, give our responses in Russian. With time we used to using Lithuanian for our answers as well.

Caterina Fantini - Italy

caterina_fantini1 — 2021-10-14 14:51:38 UTC

I personally have not had such an experience, but I work in a multi-ethnic class and I know the difficulty that newcomers, especially Chinese and Bengalis, feel to follow the lessons and interact with their classmates and teachers. We teachers try to involve them in activities that do not necessarily involve spoken or written language.

Najoua Slatnia, Tunisia

2021-10-14 20:42:04 UTC

This situation or experience is a bit difficult and delicate, its impact can be lessened in a empathic and collaborative atmosphere in the classroom.

Christos T., Greece

2021-10-14 20:48:57 UTC

Fortunately, I have never had that experience.

Beatriz I. , Spain

2021-10-15 08:51:21 UTC

I have had a similar experience. I lived abroad and I wasn´t able to communicate with my classmates since they couldn´t speak Spanish.
It is important to be fluent in the language if you don´t want to feel left apart.
What it is frustrating is if you are not allowed to use your mother tongue at all.

Carla Dias, Portugal

2021-10-15 09:10:57 UTC

I haven't experienced this type of situation yet. I have students from other nationalities, but they speak English.

Stavriana Soubassi, Athens

ssoubassi — 2021-10-15 10:54:57 UTC

Not allowing pupils to use their home languages at school is like not allowing them to be themselves. From my experience as a foreign language teacher and user of several languages, language diversity benefits all pupils in multiple ways as we have seen; cognitive, social-emotional, interpersonally. Monolingual teachers may feel it as a threat because it would make them walk in the foreign pupils' shoes. All they need to do is trust in learning from each other and turn exclusion to inclusion.

Mohamed Omri,TUNISIA

2021-10-15 13:31:11 UTC

I haven't experienced this situation yet

Dóra, Hungary

2021-10-16 18:15:06 UTC

I have never had an experience like that before. My students are allowed to use their native language.

Filomena Quintela, Portugal

filomenaquintela — 2021-10-16 20:26:13 UTC

Last year one of my students came from Turkey. I teach English and that was the only common language we could use to communicate, since we don´t understand each other´s native languages.My Portuguese students in that class never used Portuguese around the girl, so she could feel welcomed and not excluded. A few weeks later it was funny to listen to them saying that their English had improved a lot and the girl had already learned many Portuguese idioms, but they couldn't say a word in Turkish, although they tried really hard!

Tania - Spain

2021-10-17 11:31:08 UTC

I have been told about a similar situation. There were some foreign students who spoke their mother tongue at break time and they were encouraged to speak the language from the country so that there were no guettos and they could socialize with native students.

Bojan Lazić, Croatia

lazicbojan — 2021-10-18 11:48:53 UTC

After the Croatian national war that finished in 1995. a lot of Serbian population left Croatia fearing of the revenge. So their children mostly continued schooling in Serbia attending classes in Serbian language, such as they did before they had to leave their homes. After some of them came back to Croatia with their parents, they had to get used to speak Croatian in schools. Since Croatian and Serbian are more than 95 % mutually inteligible, there are no particular obstacles to understand both languages no matter which one is your mother language. But students who were in Serbian school system for a few years and got back to Croatia, had a lot of problems made by some of the teachers along with some of the school mates, too. They made mistakes and used Serbian expressions for some words that are different in Serbian and Croatian and thus they had been warned oftenly and sort of forbidden to use their mother language expressions.

Graça Casimiro, Portugal

2021-10-18 14:34:08 UTC

I've already experienced that with my students as there is always one or two that is not native or doesn't have English under his belt. I may say that this is a very enriching experience as all of us learn in the process.
However, a big difficulty found is when students don't have any link language.

Ida, Croatia

2021-10-18 18:05:40 UTC

I have not had such an experience. My pupils are allowed to speak their mother tongue if it makes learning and memory easier for them.

Özge, Turkey

ozgekoc824 — 2021-10-19 14:19:02 UTC

I have experienced the situation and my students had difficulty in expressing their emotions. It was the most challenging part. Because we express our emotions better in our mother tounge.

Voicu Corina Valentina, Romania I have not experience such a situation!

voicucorinavalentina — 2021-10-19 17:01:03 UTC

Ifigenia, Sachana

2021-10-19 17:23:19 UTC

I have not experienced such a situation!

Angelika, Poland

2021-10-20 09:23:53 UTC

I have had such experience. As the English teacher, i prefer giving explanations in English for my High School students, then translate words. But if we talk about secondary school students, I taught them giving the translation of some English words in 2 more languages. The idea that students create the dictionary is really nice!

Andrijana, Croatia

Shipwreck1 — 2021-10-20 10:05:47 UTC

I used to be warned not to use my home language (Chakavian dialect) in the classroom but to use only the official language of my country - Croatian. This situation brings me an awkward feeling even now. Many of the other pupils also spoke a dialect at home and I cannot see a single reason why we weren't allowed to speak it at school, at least occasionally.
I defenitely allow and support my pupils to use their home language in the classroom. Why not?

Inés ,Spain

2021-10-20 16:44:39 UTC

I have had Arabic speakers in my classroom and when they worked in pairs they spoke their lamguage, even though the activity was in English. At first I was a bit reluctant to let them do so, but then I realised that they were helping each other.

The idea that if they speak their home languages in the playground, guettos are created ia totally wrong! I think this is adults´ perception, but kids and teenagers do not feel it or see it like that.

Antje Germany

antjestrobel01 — 2021-10-21 14:56:46 UTC

I think it´s very difficult. Some of our students don´t want to speak in their home language. Because they want to be like all others. If they speak their home language nobody understand they, because nobody speak this language. That´s why it is very difficult for this childreen at the beginning in the class/school in an other land. After some weeks they had mostly checked, that the other childreen wants help then without words and then they learn it is okay, that they are in the class, they got friends and then they learn to speak.

Natália Neves, Portugal

2021-10-22 00:25:45 UTC

I've never experienced this situation in the classroom.
However, I've participated in an Erasmus project and when we went to Lithuania and Italy we've organised a multilingual dictionary of useful language with these languages, English, Portuguese and Latvian as well in order to easily communicate with our partners.

Constantine, Canada

constantineioannou — 2021-10-22 15:16:29 UTC

Our association ILEA did a document to look at the experience of attending heritage language schools which here are funded by the Ministry of Education - it is mandated by law that there is instruction provided in a requested language by the community. As an ELL educator I also advocated for the recognition of home languages in the school system and in fact many of us also do inclusiveness audits to make sure that students see their languages breathe in school - check Coelho's inclusiveness checklists which are found online to make sure you see the presence of student languages in school.

To be honest, I did not have a try so far. However in my classes I have so many students with a migration background. I think, this approach is a really good chance to lead to a better integration, identification with the new system of learning and foster a deeper cultural understanding between the nations represented in the classrooom...

Erz — 2021-10-22 18:13:36 UTC

Michael, Germany

Mirela, Croatia

klaricmi — 2021-10-22 18:53:19 UTC

During the war in Croatia I was a refugee in Germany. I was some 10-11 years old and I went to school where many foreign kids went but classes were on German. I was allowed to use Croatian to talk to my cousin who was in same class but using it for learning purposes was not possible because teachers were speking German only. It was very hard period for me (inspite huge kindness, patience and understanding I experienced from my teachers there), I wasn't able to understand what am I supposed to do most of the time and I felt like I am not showing my real potentials because of that.

My Experience with Linguistic Discrimination

2021-10-23 03:03:46 UTC

I have never experience linguistic discrimination, but I do recall one of my classmates from primary school—a student who recently arrived from Japan and only knew the Japanese language—was made to only speak American English. Although it would have been possible to provide CLIL activities into whatever the educator taught, no attempt was made. Since the student's parents had no fluency in the English language, ensuring the best for their child became more challenging since no translator was available or ever provided. With technology available, the use of live translation would have made communication between the student's parents easier while making an attempt to learn the Romanized version of the Japanese language, where the latter would enable the educator to remember essential words and phrases whenever the student expresses their needs and wants.

—Austin Nicholas Dragoș [United States of America

Cathy (Aikaterini) Sideri, Greece

kate_sideri — 2021-10-24 07:42:05 UTC

I grew up in a monolingual school and family environment speaking Greek but recognizing the geographical variants of the Greek language. I came close to multilingual environments at the university where I met my fellow students from all over the world coming to study there and living in a Greek city. Due to my linguistic studies, I studied the English language variants and I became aware of the discriminating, even underestimating attitudes towards other languages and language variants. These are not straightforward expressed verbally but almost always subtle but powerful enough and understood by people who speak the undervalued languages. It's easy to understand what happens to a young pupil who feels underestimated because of his mother tongue; a language is the channel of his / her personal story, inheritance/ identity/ past accomplishments. If this child feels that way (embarrassed and cut off), then this frustration may lead to giving up the struggle to learn or, even worse, choosing to "forget" the wealth of his past in order to be assimilated to the new environment.

Viorica, Romania

vigyorika477 — 2021-10-24 09:07:17 UTC

These situations can NOT be avoided! I teach mathematics in Romanian, but it has happened to me quite often that Hungarian minorities give me the answer to a question in their language ..... knowing that I speak both languages perfectly (they come from a Romanian-Hungarian marriage). what is unpleasant is the attack of the group of students of the class that threatens me with complaints and addresses me with nationalist comments. Students bring these values, unfortunately, from their families of origin. If we do a project in English, it is acceptable, but the home language reveals painful things that I would not like to comment on.

Maria Portugal

2021-10-24 11:36:16 UTC

I never experienced this situation.

TERESA, SPAIN

2021-10-24 11:52:42 UTC

I have never ever experienced that situation. I have always been working in schools with a lot of language diversity.
Even in my class, if any student wants to use their mother tongue they are more than welcomed!.

Zlata Hrženjak, Croatia

zhrzenjak1 — 2021-10-24 20:56:50 UTC

Although as an English language teacher I encourage my students to use English language as musc as possible, they can also use their mother tongue in the situations they feel more comfortable to explain something or to help them in communication. I also use mother tongue in communication with some students if they feel more confident or they need it to understand the instructions.

Francesca, Italy

furnarifrancesca1967 — 2021-10-25 15:42:18 UTC

I've never experienced this situation

Manuela, Spain

2021-10-25 16:40:10 UTC

It is important too let students to use their. mother tongue as a way to overcome the barriers and be focused in learning

Claudya, Romania

claudia_neacsa — 2021-10-25 20:47:10 UTC

Encouraging children to speak in their language, means to motivate them to learn more.

Mukadder, Turkey

2021-10-25 21:46:36 UTC

When we do not let the students to use their mother tongue in class, they may think that speaking their language is something wrong. They will feel that if they speak it they will get penalized for doing it. Therefore to show students that their mother tongue is valuable, we need to encourage students using their L1 in class in planned contexts by the teacher.

Emiliana, Italy

emiliana_rufo — 2021-10-26 09:47:40 UTC

I think it is important to preserve own language. It is important to make comparison among languages to learn them better. Students can compare their own language to the L2 they have to use in the country they are living and studying and it may help them to learn foreign languages, too.

Angelika, Poland

2021-10-26 11:35:20 UTC

It's terrible when the student can't use own mother tongue at school. I believe that the fact that noone understands you makes the situation even worse.
i've experienced the situation when noone understands me but people were so polite that i didn't feel myself so bad as it could have been.
I let my students use their languages if they can't explain or ask it in another language. We are people, so for sure we find the common language :)

Thomas, France

2021-10-26 15:34:19 UTC

Once I took part in a selection abroad to make the voice records of a French electronic dictionary. I was selected for the final interview, but at the last minute the project manager noticed in my information details that I was born in a French overseas department, so he concluded that I surely had a "bad" or "strange" French accent since I was coming from such a faraway place. Therefore I was dismissed.

I think some prejudices or stereotypes could be avoided if people had more language awareness, and could concieve that someone can actually speak his mother tongue and several other languages without mixing gravely all the accents in a way that hinders comprehension.

Yue, China

2021-10-26 18:05:40 UTC

I've met overseas Chinese who couldn't speak a word of their heritage language because while they were growing up, their parents thought it would be a handicap at school or at work so they did not encourage their children to learn it.

The promotion of education through plurilingual and pluricultural approaches should also associate students' parents in order to make them aware and confident in their own language, and to be more efficient.

rasha

rashaalomari448 — 2021-10-26 18:40:45 UTC

Once I took part in a selection abroad to make the voice records of a French electronic dictionary.

Clara, Portugal

acjesus — 2021-10-26 19:43:18 UTC

I have never experienced that! My school has a lot of students coming from different countries and everybody and every language is welcome.

Enrique Labajos Sánchez

2021-10-27 01:46:45 UTC

I have never had this kind of experience. I have had many students from different countries and whenever they have needed to use their mother tongue to explain something related to the grammar contents or the activities done in class to inform their partners, they do it freely.

Teresa, Spain

2021-10-27 16:15:06 UTC

This is a difficult situation to deal with. Is it right or not to do that?. I firmly believe it depends to what extent students are really ready for using the target language constantly in the classroom scenario.
No better than teachers are able to decide to what extent this is positive or not.

Luminita Golumbeanu, Romania

luminitap20041 — 2021-11-04 20:13:17 UTC

I've never experienced this situation in the classroom.

Elena A., Romania

2021-11-08 19:34:52 UTC

Yes, sometimes during my English classes, as a student.