Being raised in a bilingual community has been an immense source of joy and inspiration to me. I attended a bilingual program up until eighth grade, and by then I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Years later, after training in childhood education, I began teaching fourth and fifth graders in the same community I grew up in. These were students who used both Spanish and English in the same dynamic and fluid ways that I did. It was a real full-circle moment that motivated me to advocate for bilingual learners in other communities – and to help create more opportunities for them to leverage their unique strengths.

As my career progressed, I transitioned into instructional coaching and staff development, supporting multilingual learners and educators across various districts. I’ve learned so much from working alongside students and educators in a range of contexts, and I believe that those of us who teach in bilingual and multilingual programs have a unique opportunity to build up students’ pride.

By approaching our students with curiosity and deploying strategies that explicitly draw on their facility in multiple languages, we can help ensure that students see their language skills as a strength.

So how do we celebrate and challenge bilingual learners to access those unique strengths? Here are 3 ways.

1. Honor Real-Life Language Practices by Translanguaging

When we think about dynamic language use, specifically in a dual language setting, we need to push back on the idea that our students’ languages have to be separated for them to succeed and achieve mastery.

Most educators, even those of us in multilingual programs, have been trained from a monolingual perspective, so we have to grapple with the fact that a fundamental framework for understanding bilingual students has simply been missing. To start building that framework, we can look at the idea of translanguaging.

Translanguaging is the concept that bilingual students access and manipulate their languages dynamically, instead of keeping the languages rigidly separate. As a bilingual person, I cannot be divided into two separate monolingual people who happen to share the same body. This shift in conceptualizing what it means to exist as bilingual is important for developing strategies that serve every student and uplift their strengths.

Without this understanding, we might try to set aside “English time” and expect students to only call on their English skills. Or vice versa – designating “Spanish time” and insisting that students only call on their Spanish skills. But when we do that, we’re limiting the resources our students can draw on. It’s a real disservice to our learners and puts artificial barriers on how students express themselves in their linguistic practices – at home, with friends and in the community. 

Once we accept the dynamic quality of students’ language use, we can build strategies into our practice that set all students up for success, such as the following:

Preview, View, Review

• In dual or multi-language programs, we have students that are learning English, but we may also have students learning Spanish or another partner language. The strategy of “Preview, View, Review” does two things: 1) gives all students access to the content and 2) leverages and elevates the linguistic practices students already have. I might “preview” the content in English, “view” the real meat and potatoes of the content in Spanish and then “review” the content in English again. 
• This strategy provides a scaffolding for students, helps them stay engaged throughout the lesson and helps ensure that I’m not leaving anyone behind.  Students can be immersed in the language they’re learning, access the essence of the lesson in the language they have the most familiarity with and have the opportunity to use what they already know to build new connections to the content.

Cognate Charts

• Sometimes students don’t feel permission to really explore comparing languages – until we make that option both straightforward and accessible. I might ask students to think of a word that sounds the same in English as it does in Spanish. We can use students’ responses to create a cognate chart for real-time comparative analysis on the languages in the room. Whether the activity is reading, listening or speaking, having a cognate chart available helps students develop the practice of looking for cognates and making connections.

2. Be Curious About Students’ Goals

Effective bilingual education is not a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to ask students and families what their goals are when it comes to language education. Is their ultimate goal an academic one, or are they most motivated by wanting to speak confidently and comfortably with relatives? Knowing more about our students and families, both in terms of their actual language practices and their goals, will help hone in on and prioritize strategies for each specific program and classroom.

3. Prioritize Pride for Students and Community

We’re teaching in an exciting moment, when many teachers are eager to make the most of opportunities to affirm students’ identities in the classroom. At the same time, educators can sometimes put students and families in harmful situations by making assumptions about what our students’ cultures mean to them. 

For example, there’s a common assumption that students in bilingual programs have come to our communities from other places, when the reality is that a lot of our students have been born and raised here in the United States. A teacher might try to affirm a student by making a connection to the student’s family’s country of origin, without realizing the student has never been there. Or we might assume that our students find a particular holiday meaningful when they don’t. Some of my students who have grown up in the United States experience an added layer of complexity when it comes to taking pride in their culture, because they don’t always feel they have access to the traditions that older family members value.  

Instead of jumping to make connections with students around what we think we know about their culture, we can instead create opportunities in our curriculum for them to showcase what’s important to them, their families and the community they’re a part of. This offers a more authentic window into students’ real-life experiences and personal goals.

In all our work, we should return to affirming students for who they are today.

Though we’re here to support our students’ growth, it’s so important for us to let our students know that they are already whole and amazing, just as they are – with the experiences, practices and identities they bring to our school community every day.

As we plan our lessons, we must continue to ask: Can students see themselves and their real lives reflected here? How do I know? Does that reflection help them feel proud of who they are and the strengths that they bring to their studies and to their school community? How can I tell? I believe returning to these questions allows us to develop a reliable compass to guide us in our work to affirm every student.