Shades of sand specs
Argument:
The author Rodriguez argues that bilingual children such as him go through a long process that shapes their individuality by assimilating into public society while bilingual educators disagree with assimilation into the public society. The main point of the argument is that one must lose a sense of how one speaks at home in order to become comfortable in speaking in public with a second language.
In Rodriguez's childhood years, he was scared of speaking English in his classroom and did not realize that this second language was his to use until the teachers spoke to his parents about using English at home. Over time he became more comfortable speaking English at home and in the classroom. It is here where he loses his sense of individuality in his private home in order to utilize English in public. It became his primary language and sees himself as an individual of public society.
Rodriguez believes that he did not miss out on anything. He would've been happier about his achievement if recalling what it was like before wasn't so prevalent. What he had gone through to finally be able to be comfortable with a second language is that assimilation that had to be experienced to gain his individuality in the public society.
Sharing Ideas:
I think reading both of these articles about education in a bilingual and multilingual setting is a great way to help us students become aware and educated about issues we wouldn't have realized exists. It is true for me because while reading both articles and the articles we've all read previously, they all gave me a heads up of how and what a classroom would be like. It makes me realize how very diverse we are and teaching multilingual children is a challenge because if effective strategies are not being applied in the classroom, children may be left out of important guidelines for success in their second language.
Click here to see a video that also supports borrowing words from another language like Collier mentioned in her article.
"What he had gone through to finally be able to be comfortable with a second language is that assimilation that had to be experienced to gain his individuality in the public society." I like the point that you made here. His experience was necessary for him to be able to properly function in society. Had he done so in a different way, the outcome might have been different.
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