Hello everybody!
Welcome to my sixth and maybe the last post.
In this case, I would like to talk about the bilingualism and what a child of a bilingual school thinks. As some or most of you, I am giving some private classes to some students from different courses. Last day, I was with one of them, Lorena (from sixth course), and I thought: “I can create some questions about bilingualism to know what she thinks or does”. So, I started preparing the questions and I provided the child with some language scaffolding because at the same time, she was reviewing the writing skill.
The idea came to my mind because we completed some questions some days ago about our own experience with the bilingual program at the university.
Now, I would like to share with you the student answers to be aware of the strong effort we should make in schools.
- Is your school bilingual?
“Yes, because some subjects are in English“.
- Which subjects do you study in English?
“Science, English, Arts, Computing and Skills“.
- Which of them is your favorite? Why?
“My favorite is science because I like learning about fauna, flora, etc”.
- Can you describe one science class?
“First, we read the paragraph that we need to read that day. We talk about it (*the paragraph) a lot of times. Next day, our teacher says: “Close your books, I am going to ask you some questions, but if you don’t know them, don’t worry, it is only a review”. Then, we do some exercises and we correct them. Sometimes, she puts us a video about the page we write but I would like to do a game sometimes“.
- Can you remember one fun activity? In which subject was it?
“Yes, I liked one of the activities that you need to complete with words in the song. It was very good because sometimes I didn’t know what word I needed to complete.”
- Do you have language assistants? What do they do?
“Yes, in English. She is called Ariana and is from EEUU and we do a lot of activities related with English. We like them a lot! It is very fun!”
- Do you like learning in English? Why?
“Yes, because I would like to know more of this country (*She is referring to England) and I like speaking in English because I think it is very interesting”.
Maybe now, you are thinking the same than me. As you can see in the answers, her favorite subject is Science, but not because of the activities she does or the way she learns, is only because she likes the topics.
Another interesting aspect is the way the teacher develops the classes. The student needs to do games in class, as she said, because we can’t forget that they are children and children, need to play. The description of the science class is only a reflection of the current situation in schools.
When she is talking about one fun activity, she talks about a different subject; she does this kind of activities in English, but not in Science which is her favorite one.
Also, when she is talking about what they do with the language assistant, the enthusiasm and the expressions change: she likes the way native assistants develop their classes. Why? I have my own ideas but we should think about it.
Finally, I hope you like this post because even though there are just a few questions, they are very useful to reflect about education in Spain nowadays and also to know what children think about their classes. Starting from children opinions and thoughts, for me, is the best way to start improving education and we have to be aware of the importance we, as teachers, have in the society.