Fear of Foreign Language
A great fear of mine, as I begin my quest to become a teacher, is that I will get a student who does not speak any English. I fear this because I am afraid that the language barrier will cause me to do a disservice to her or him. This fear was somewhat manifested today during our visit to Idlewood elementary school.
During our visit there we were given time to spend in teachers’ classes in order to observe them in action. Towards the end of the day, the entire cohort and a group of second graders met for a group conversation. However, before our large group discussion we were paired of individually with a second grader to have a one on one discussion.
The little boy I was paired with could not speak any English. His name is Kalbe and he is seven years old. He is from Ethiopia and just immigrated to the United States. His first language is Amari, a beautiful language that was also spoken by his classmate Tinsaye. Tinsaye was a second grader in the class that Kalbe will be in next year. He spent the last few weeks of school with her in order to get an idea of what it will be like as a second grader.
During our conversation, or attempted conversation, I struggled with trying to find ways to communicate with him. I did not want to exclude him from the exercise; however, it was hard trying to communicate with him through Tinsaye because she could not easily translate my English into Amari.
I found myself wondering about what I would do when I get a student who does not speak English. I want to be able to give all my students the best I can offer.
