Currently, my education on bilingual and multilingual individuals is very limited. I understand that there are individuals within society that may speak more than one language, but I am unsure of what the proper term to be used is. Based on the past two weeks of lectures and individual learning, I have realized how detailed the idea of multilingual and bilingual learners can be. In the first lecture on January 13, we began by introducing ourselves and stating which languages we speak or have a basic understanding of. When I introduced myself, I explained that I only spoke English but did take a French class last year for University. Since I only took one class, I did not think this would consider me to be an individual with an understanding of two languages. However, it was explained that we can consider ourselves to have an understanding of two languages, possibly bilingual, even if we only took one class on the other language. Truly, this changed my mindset drastically and has allowed for me to further understand what is being taught.
While reading the material to prepare for the lecture on January 20, Garcia mentioned that Critical Multilingual Awareness Language (CMLA) requires the understanding of six things. There six things are, “knowledge of (proficiency), knowledge about (subject-matter), pedagogical practice, awareness of plurilingualism and merits for democratic citizenship, awareness of histories of colonial and imperialistic oppression, and awareness that language is socially created, and thus socially changeable” (Garcia, 2017, p. 269). I found this quotation by Garcia to stand out to me because it is incredibly important that I have a strong understanding of what is required of me as a teacher. In my opinion, the base of CMLA is to have a knowledge of and about other languages. Without understanding a bit of other languages, teaching students from several varying demographics may become difficult. As mentioned in class, I could use the main French verbs and translate it to what it would be in the English language, which would allow for my students to further succeed.
When the lecture occurred on January 20, we were put into breakout rooms to discuss answers to questions that were given to us. Personally, I found this to be very beneficial as the people in my breakout room had similarities to my experience. Additionally, there was also an individual who had knowledge of several languages which allowed for me to understand a new point of view. When answering the question, “How do you feel that your ability might affect your performance as a teacher?” (Khanam, 2021, Slide 8), the person in my breakout room that had knowledge of several languages was able to share her point of view. She explained that she moved to Canada in high school without knowing any English and no teachers in her school spoke or understood her main language, Mandarin Chinese, therefore her learning was impacted. She explained that the teachers in her school lacked the ability to provide additional help for those that did not speak English as the main language, and this ended up affecting their teaching performance. Based on this story, she explained that she will not let her ability negatively affect her performance as a teacher. Therefore, she is very open to becoming educated in other languages because she refuses to allow her students go through what she had to conquer. After hearing this story, I felt very motivated. Beforehand, I did not truly understand the impacts it has on a student when they do not speak the majority language, simply because that is not something I have had to personally face. However, seeing how it affected my classmate and how it made her feel unable to speak up in the classroom, I have changed my perspective. It was saddening to hear this story, and I do not want any of my future students to go through something like that. Therefore, I am open to discovering new languages and becoming aware of several languages occurring in the classroom. I feel that this story has helped me have an open mindset during this class.
During this semester, I hope to gain more knowledge about how to incorporate CMLA into my teaching. Additionally, I hope that I am able to gain knowledge about some other languages, whether it be knowledge I can in the class or from personal research.
References
Garcia, O. (2017). Language Awareness and Multilingualism: Critical Multilingual Language Awareness and Teacher Education. Springer International Publishing.
Khanam, R. (2021, January 20). Language Awareness PPT Winter 2021 [PowerPoint].