Talking points #2

Teaching Multilingual Children
Virginia Collier

Premise
- multilingual children
- ell, esl, and multilingual teachers
-challenges to multilingual students
- problems with classrooom management due to language learning
- respect of culture/ first language
- balance of nativity and first culture and language vs new

Authors Argument
Collier argues that there is a unique set of educational and cultural issues that must be addressed when teaching multilingual children but that if done with care, and properly handled multilingual children can succeed in the classroom.

Evidence
1. "The key is the true appreciation of the different linguistic and cultural values that students bring into the classroom. ... teaching English to second-language learners can become an enriching experience when appreciating students' different languages and life situations."(223)

2. " The critical distinction to maintain is between how children aquire the capacity to converse casually in a second language, and how they learn to become proficient students using second language. These are two entirely different processes."(225)
3. "Teachers are responsible for facilitating academic language development. Academic language does not come to kids automatically just because they are in a dominant English speaking locale."(225)

Questions Comments
I would just like to point out that the above three arguements are only the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that to support her arguement Colliers seven guidelines are the best evidence. However, I did not want to use only three of them since I felt that they were not only the crux of the article, but also that by listing only three and not covering all seven as pieces of evidence it was doing some injustice(what can I say, I wanted to be thorough).
As a side note I like Colliers approach- seemed real matter of fact, and articulate. I thought it was interesting that at one point she comments that it is easier for language learners to have short simpler sentences, and that this was exactly the type of text she used in her article. It was though she wrote the piece with ELL students in mind, so that if they were to come across this article it would be easier for them to break down.