Instruction in the home language strengthens the home language and creates a more solid foundation for cognitive and academic growth in English; moreover, promoting bilingual competence is valuable in its own right (Goldenberg, Hicks, & Lit, 2013). A passion I feel both personally and professionally about is visualizing each child’s identity and to ensure a sense of belonging for the family’s culture, values and beliefs.
The three organizations that appealed to me were the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) and Wisconsin Association for Bilingual Education (WIABE). I chose these three organizations as they all support equal opportunities for multicultural and bilingual learners. These organizations also included links to valuable research, resources, conference dates, and by laws that were provided by WIABE and NABE. I feel these organizations targeted and informed individuals who worked both directly and indirectly with children who have another language other than English within the home. Parents, politicians, lobbyists, teachers, communities and law makers are a few groups who come to mind when improving parent involvement and validating a child's true identity.
Many of the job opportunities included Dual Language Immersion teachers, English as Second Language (ESL) professors, ESL teachers, and English professors and University counselors. The job that interested me the most were the ESL teacher positions. I have always thought about taking this path, but right now I'm content being a mother of an ESL child. My daughter's ESL teacher and I have a wonderful parent-teacher relationship and she's been a great support to both myself and my daughter. Most of the ESL positions were international and located in areas such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Abu Dhabi, and China.
Some of the qualifications to be an ESL teacher included a bachelor's degree, ESL certification, and at least 2 years of ESL teaching experience. Some of the ESL positions also required proficiency in more than one language other than English as well as experience in teaching online courses.
It was very interesting to look at the job market as I haven't done so since I graduated college with my bachelor's degree. It was an alternative place to job hunt as wasn't aware of this opportunity.
References
GOLDENBERG, C., HICKS, J., & LIT, I. (2013). Dual Language Learners Effective
Instruction in
Early Childhood. American Educator, 37(2), 26-29.
http://careers.nabe.org
http://nameorg.org
http://www.wiabe.org
Tammy,
ReplyDeleteI think you picked three good organizations. It is clear that our society is multicultural and has many languages. More and more children are coming in the schools with English as their second language. I think it is helpful to have educators that know the importance of being bilingual and teaching English as a second language. It also seems that more jobs are leaning toward hiring individuals that are bilingual. Thank you for sharing.
Tammy,
ReplyDeleteThe role of a ESL facilitator is imperative! I work for an agency that predominately serves Hispanic and African American families. The children who solely speak Spanish often lag behind due to the language barrier and are often misrepresented by assessments that do not reflect their culture and language. ESL facilitators not only serve the students, but they serve the teachers as well. A great example of a COP.
Hi Tammy,
ReplyDeleteGreat posting. Your passion is very fulfilling to me because, it seems like lots of people come into traveled away from their homeland into different countries for what ever reasons seem to loose their identities. This mostly happen to younger children. I am very glad the education system now in the United States is designed to embrace and maintain the cultural diversities they are being exposed to. I was once that child who had to fight to maintain my accent and culture when I first came from Liberia, Africa back in the early 90's at the age of fifteen. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Tammy,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your blog. You seem very passionate about multilingual students and opportunities for multilingual students. I am sure that when the time is right to take the next step and become an ESL teacher you will know without a doubt. I enjoyed reading about the resources you found and was inspired to seek out more resources to help the bi-lingual student in my three year olds class and her family.
Your posting was great . I can see that you have extensive experience with the ESL population. I have seen in my community a large increase of African families living in the area. The schools provide ESL instructors in order to meet the needs of the students. If they had teachers who are passionate about and their culture then will more than likely have an easier adjustment period..
ReplyDelete