Language learning as a life skill

How can I as Globally and Culturally Competent Citizen use my emerging language skills to support the Spanish-speaking families in my community?

Learning and Building an Inclusive Community

Teacher: From a teacher perspective, learners often consider learning another language a work skill focusing less on how it can be applied to real life situations that involve them and their immediate community.Article showing students using bilingual skills as a life skill.


Student perspective: Parents of students in schools that support English Language Learners often feel excluded because of a language barrier. Although parents have the voice and the means to express this concern, it is inevitable that students will also feel excluded in the school community as well. 

Article that supports the issue of exclusion felt by families that speak other languages

PBL2_NJM

Community Partner

We are a grassroots non-profit ​​located in Louisville, KY accompanying families in the Latinx community.  ​Our mission is to empower these families, providing a foundation for systemic change with long-term effects.

Somos una organización sin fines de lucro que acompaña a la comunidad Latinx en Louisville, Kentucky y sus alrededores. Nuestra meta es la de empoderar a estas familias, proveyéndoles con la base para un cambio sistemático que tenga efectos a largo plazo.

http://www.lacasitacenter.org/\

Copy of Bilingualism as a life skill.mp4

Xiomara and her brothers are both bilingual and used their language skills to help.

"I did my best," Xiomara said. "I helped this one lady to interpret. I was in the ambulance with her and traveled with her to the hospital and I just stayed there until, like, 10 p.m. to help her translate everything that I could since there was a lot of people and there wasn't a lot of interpreters."

Community Partners

Nadine DEI clips (2).mp4

Nathan Bird 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Specialist / Certified Diversity Professional (CDP)

Community Partner

Talks about what is "Diversity", "Equity" , and "Inclusion" and how they are demonstrated. 

PBL1_NJM

Bilingualism as a life skill PBL PPT

Learners will explore the use of language for a specific purpose. Using their skills and abilities, learners will create products in Spanish to promote inclusion of families who speak Spanish within their community.


How can I as Globally and Culturally Competent Citizen use my emerging language skills to support the Spanish-speaking families in my community?

Standards are related to the 

Nadine Jacobsen-McLean - Planboard Lesson - Jan 6 2022 04 Bellot SPANISH.pdf

Why: 

Globalization has created a diverse linguistic landscape accessible by virtually all

As the virtual world opens, borders become blurred, creating a diverse cultural and linguistic landscape accessible to virtually all (Maurais & Morris, 2003). 

What and how it pertains to PBL:

 Learners, parents, community members as contributors to academic achievement 

Viewing the learners, parents of learners and community members not only as stakeholders, but as major contributors to academic achievement changes the dynamics of their deeper role in the meaning of education. 

According to Turner (2016), there is little evidence in research literature for the effectiveness of schools to promote collaboration and inclusion of all members of the school community. 

How: 

Systematic Ethical Change

Backward Planning

Johnson (2012) defined ethical drivers as "factors that play a particularly significant role in promoting systematic ethical change" (p.321). According to Turner (2016) a third space is where people and cultures come into contact with one another and negotiate cultural changes. In these innovative sites of collaboration and negotiation, one may initiate new signs of identity as their culture, fluid in nature, comes into contact with other cultures. Parents, and or stakeholders may not have a space to interact with other cultures as a means to enrich their own experience let alone the experience of their children in their school setting. 

Further steps: 

Cultivating a third space "La escuelita"

"La escuelita" initiative cultivates a third space for students to use their emerging language skills to explore and engage with the community through language and culture. 

Wonders:

References

Johnson, C.E. (2012). Organizational Ethics: A Practical Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

Maurais, J. & Morris, M.A. (2003). Languages in a globalising world: Cambridge University Press.

Turner, A.M. (2016). Third space opening at a two-way immersion elementary school in North Carolina: Lessons from parent language classes. Bilingual Research Journal, 39(2), 107-120.