My Name is Areli
English Language Learners in Today's Schools
By Laura Larissa Scott

My name is Areli.  And I'm new to school today.  I'd like to play a game with you It's called: How Do You Say?

Yo digo "hola"             You say "hi"

Yo digo "adiós"           You say "bye"

You say "flower"         Yo digo  "flor"

Yo digo "puerta"         You say "door"

...and on and on this bilingual English/Spanish song poem goes.  The poem was inspired by an adorable five-year-old student who bravely attended her very first day of kindergarten knowing absolutely no English whatsoever. 

Imagine moving to a foreign country with your parents, where both the language and customs are new. Then school begins.  You are going to a school where the building is unfamiliar, you have no friends from last year, or even from your neighborhood.  The other students and most likely the teachers don't speak your language. You don't even know what to anticipate as far as classroom expectations, behavior, lesson content, or the school day's schedule is concerned.  You are isolated among a throng of students who are chattering away, laughing, joking, and playing games, and who are using words you cannot understand.  You're wearing a t-shirt your parents picked out for you to help you fit in with your classmates. It is emblazoned with an English slogan in rainbow colors, which you cannot even read. 

You are lost.  You might as well have just exited the door of a spacecraft that landed on an unknown, unfamiliar planet.  Everything, from the pictures on the hallway walls to the classroom signs and door labels are in hieroglyphic code.  All the directions, both written and verbal, are in a strange dialect.  You begin to feel scared, hopeless, and confused.

There are Treasure Valley school students who attend their first day of class living the very scenario described above.   Twenty years ago, it was common to have Spanish-speaking students struggling to learn English in our schools; today there may be students who speak only Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Ukrainian, Chinese, French, Portuguese, or Arabic (among other languages) exclusively at home, and who may know little, if any, English when they begin school.

Most Treasure Valley schools have ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for students who come to our schools needing English language instruction.  An excellent ESL teacher resource is Cultureforkids.com, which is an educational website dedicated to bilingual books in many languages, multicultural books and videos, international calendars,  maps, and games.  It is a site to be permanently bookmarked for ESL/LEP teachers, home-schoolers interested in learning another language, everyone from secondary school language teachers to preschool teachers who use bilingual or dual language curriculums.  It has something for everybody, but especially, for our students who come through our school doors needing to learn English as their second language.

An especially helpful book for parents, teachers, and ESL teachers is the popular paperback: And Then There Were Two: Children and Second Language Learning by Terry Piper.  This valuable handbook gives practical insight as to how children acquire a second language so that classroom curricula can be specifically designed to quickly teach the fundamentals of a second language to students who have diverse needs and learning styles.

Students come into our schools each year with a variety of English language learning needs.  Some children speak a little English while others have become quite fluent in English even though they speak little to no English at home.  A student who appears to speak English may not, however, understand the entirety of what is being taught in the classroom; thus even students who seem to be fairly fluent in English may benefit from English Language Learning classes.   

Another challenge ESL and classroom teachers have is the difficulty for non-English speaking parents when it comes to homework assistance, filling out forms, and other routine school follow-up. 

Once again, the Cultureforkids.com site comes to the ESL teacher's rescue.  There are books containing sample school forms in many languages that can be adapted to the student's particular grade, school, or level of instruction.  Thus, a teacher who doesn't speak a word of Korean, for example, may find resources at this website that will foster communication and understanding with parents who do not speak English.

English-speaking students can benefit from exposure to a diversity of languages and customs.

As the poem quoted at the beginning of this article suggests, learning each others' language can foster friendship, understanding, and acceptance among our students.  All children can be exposed to multiculturalism if the classroom teacher uses books, tapes, videos, puzzles, maps, and games from a non-English speaking student's country of origin.  This not only educates our English speakers; it allows the English Language Learner to feel a sense of understanding, inclusion, and approval. 

To continue with the poem's closing verse:

Mi  libro es "rojo"              
To you, this book is "red"

Cuándo estoy "cansada"   
If you are "tired," go to bed! 

¿Te gusta este juego?               
It is fun, as you will see

We can learn each others' language
¿Esto es divertido?     ¡Sí,  sí, sí!

This article is dedicated to Maria Tabuso and Mary Gutierrez, (Nampa School District) and to all teachers who use their talents to advance ESL/LEP, bilingual and dual language programs locally, thereby assisting all the "Arelis." Poem (excerpt) and article by Laura Larissa Scott.