Dld No Spanish

For the past seven years, a bilingual committee in one of our local children's centers has been meeting to talk through the realities of developing a high quality ECE bilingual program. They pulled together a group of teachers, parents, community members, program directors, and faculty from the community college. Wow, meeting for seven years! Aren't there examples of successful programs here in California? The committee understood that addressing issues like teaching strategies and crafting goals had to happen in the context of a statewide discussion. Some of the committee members are passionate about addressing the social-political issues. Even language is political. Here, watch this clip I have of one of the teachers. One of my goals as a teacher is to; help shift thinking that English is the language of power. I think that because in schools, and in the world, and in media, and in books, English is the language that's used. So, when your home language is something other than English, it can feel like your home language is not powerful, that you are not important, that your culture is not important. So, when children see teachers using their home language with them, with each other, with their families, it shows that this language is important. It is valued. Who I am is valued and important. And so for me, that's one of the major goals, to instill that belief in children. There's a lot to consider. How is the program doing? The program serves children six months to age five. Let's listen to one of the preschool mentors. (Preschool Mentor) So, one of our goals at the center is to really value and honor children's home languages. So as much as possible, because we do have such a strong Spanish-speaking population, it is imperative to include Spanish as part of the program. The ways that this shows up is in the labeling that we do around the classroom, making sure that we have Spanish books, making sure that we have Spanish music, making sure that we have teachers who speak Spanish and are bicultural and bilingual. All of those pieces are very important. The other thing that we just started doing a couple years ago was a rotation system for our circle times. We have an older circle group and a younger circle group. Our older circle group has pre-K children who won't be here next year, and the younger group has children who have one year with us. The teachers rotate between who's presenting the circle time. We're on a two-week rotation. At the beginning of the semester, we set it up so that we know which teacher will always present in Spanish, so that every time they see Fresha they know, "Oh, Fresha's going to present in Spanish." Every time they see Mel, it's "Oh, Mel's a bilingual teacher. She'll use some Spanish and present in English and Spanish." And every time they see me, they know, "Oh, I know what I'm going to hear will be in English." And so it's on a two-week rotation and there are many reasons for that. One is, like I say, it was sort of an experiment to incorporate that and see how it goes. But one of the things that I've noticed, is it gives each child a choice, where they're at, an opportunity to feel competent, and it gives each child, where they're at, that push to the next place, too. And so it's working really well in that regard. The kids are getting a really good start on becoming bilingual. I bet families love it. Yes. The families are part of the planning process each year. The staff continues to learn how to approach issues as they arise. Let's listen to Fresha talking about the children's needs as they work toward finding comfort with unfamiliar languages. (Fresha speaking): So I added a new persona doll who speaks English, and the premise for their story is that they both want to share a song. This is Lucy. Lucy starts her song in English, and then Lupe says, "No, no, no, me gusta. No cueras cucharis se concion." Then we decide to let Lupe share his song, and he shares the same song in Spanish, and then Lucy says, "No, I don't like that song. I don't want to hear it." And so then they sit back-to-back, and I talk to them about how they feel. They both say that they're feeling scared because they don't understand the language. Then, I ask them, "Well, what can we do? How can we help them?" We try to find things that they have in common, things that they both like to do, even though they don't understand each other's language, and we discover that they both like to dance. So, we've been doing dancing songs at circle time. They each learn a word in the other's language. Lucy learns how to say "bilar" in Spanish and Lupe learns how to say "dance" in English. Then we segue to the dance song. Developing a bilingual program takes courage and planning. But the planning is really important. It's like the program actually gains a new identity, a new culture. I see how bringing together a bilingual committee is a smart idea for ongoing guidance, too. I want to explore what it would mean for my program to be officially called an Early Childhood Education (ECE) bilingual program. What is your experience with dual or multi-language settings? What does it mean to be an official bilingual ECE program? What can you offer the bilingual program conversation?