National Hispanic Heritage Month and Your ESL Students

 

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time for recognizing and celebrating your Hispanic students. Honoring and allowing them to take pride in the histories, cultures, and language of those students whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America is a great way to build up these kids. 

Many of us have students that are or had been ESL students. Even if they never receive this label, many students have a different language in their home from the one at school. I will begin by sharing my own experience.

This is some history of how Hispanic Heritage Month came about. ‘The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15. It was enacted into law on August 17, 1988, on the approval of Public Law 100-402.’ The United States Census Bureau

I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Through my grandmothers, I am a second-generation American. Through my grandfathers, I am a third-generation American.

While growing up and attending school, I was referred to as a Hispanic, which I resented because “Hispanic” implied that I was from a Spanish-speaking country. So, I called myself an American of Mexican descent or Mexican American.

Even though my parents and grandparents taught us to love and appreciate our bi-culturalism and our bi-linguicism. It was difficult to maintain that when at school we were expected to perform academically in English like the monolingual English speakers.

All of this swayed my siblings and me to relinquish our first language, Spanish. My parents didn’t fight it because they expected us to excel in school.

All our students learning English as a second language have all gone through some degree of this language loss. It is our job as their teacher to recognize this and help them appreciate who they are, encourage them to maintain their home language, and encourage their parents to speak to them in their first language. Parents speaking to their children in the first language will not hurt your students. Instead, it will make them stronger language learners because they will be getting the basic foundations in the language they already know. This will help them expand their first language and learn the second language.

Please just keep in mind that part of the value that our Latin students bring to our classrooms is who they are.

I will continue this subject that is near to my heart. Thank you for continuing to follow me on this journey.

Debbie - Froggy About Teaching