Raising my Children as Bilinguals
Some of the schools across the Rio Grande Valley offer bilingual education while others implement an English approach. Although bilingual education has been criticized and rejected in the past, some schools in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo (PSJA) schools district aim towards educating students to become bilingual and bi-literate through the dual language program. For this assignment, I chose to interview a parent residing in Pharr, who is raising her children as bilingual and they attend Garcia Elementary. The parents name is Eunice and she herself is bilingual as well. I chose to do this assignment because I wanted to know if parents are aware of the type of programs or methods that are being used in their children’s academic experience. This paper examines the method that Garcia Elementary implements with their students.
To begin with, Mrs. Ortega has three children, Ricky (7), Alexis (9), and Lizannette (14). All three are in the dual language program at PSJA. She told me that she considered her children to be bilingual since they received instruction in both English and Spanish. One of the questions I asked the mother was how she had learned the two languages and she responded that her parents and school played a big role in learning both languages. She told me that everyone spoke Spanish at home and that English was taught in the school context. I continue by asking why she chose bilingual education for her children and she responded that she thinks it was the smartest choice she could possibly make in her children education since English and Spanish are both used locally.
“What bilingual program does Garcia Elementary implement and how does it work?” I asked. Her response was “Dual language where Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are English days and Tuesdays and Thursdays are Spanish days. Los niños deberán de intentar hablar el ingles en los días indicados, pero aun así, Ricky recibe lectura, ortografía y...