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From https://www.the74million.org/article/teacher-voice-dual-language-approach-sees-speaking-spanish-for-what-it-is-a-powerful-asset/

Teacher Voice: Dual Language Approach Sees Speaking Spanish for What It Is — a Powerful Asset
by Callie Lowenstein
November 3, 2017

A year after I began tutoring immigrant students in New Haven’s public high schools in 2007, I was asked to support a few new arrivals — Michael and Angel — working as a volunteer in their science classes.

…Their ESL teachers and I were all concerned about them, and we thought about it principally in terms of deficits: their lack of English, the lack of support, the lack of time for ESL.

But there was one incredibly important fact about Michael and Angel that was treated as a minor footnote by everyone, unfortunately, including me, despite its profundity and potential significance in their educational and broader lives, which was that they both spoke Spanish fluently.

I have been thinking about Michael and Angel a lot recently, as I have begun teaching in classrooms in New York City with students like them — but in schools that are different in one incredibly important way. They are bilingual.

In the dual language schools where I’ve taught for the past three and a half years, we speak in Spanish for half of the academic day, and English for the other half.

We engage with families in Spanish and in English. We read stories and sing songs and conduct science experiments and solve math problems equally in both Spanish and in English.

In our school, Spanish is an asset.

Read the full editorial at https://www.the74million.org/article/teacher-voice-dual-language-approach-sees-speaking-spanish-for-what-it-is-a-powerful-asset/