I was going through the BIG Assignment that we have, and relistening to some of the audio clips and videos. There was one particular thing that caught my attention. When ELL students are thrown into new school systems amongst native born americans, ELLs from other countries, etc., it is really scarey. It never occurred to me so much that these students may be embarrassed of their accents or the lack of English proficiency. English is a very intricate and elaborate language with many more words than other languages. It was just the other day in class the students were doing worksheets on verbs. One of the girls, and ELL from India, was having trouble with the worksheet and asked me for help. Many of the verbs she had never heard before, so I did my best to explain each one to her and making sure that she understood them. When we had completed the worksheet together, I asked her if she had similar words in her language. She replied, "no, English has so many more words than my language." I had never thought about it before. Our language has so many words, many of them meaning the same thing and just sounding more elaborate and sophisticated.
Another thing that caught my attention on one of the audio clips was a girl from Japan. She had stated that people made her feel dumb because they would speak loudly to her. I find that so many times people will speak loudly and slowly to others from different languages to try to ensure that they are understanding them. Just because a person speaks another language and has an accent or trouble speaking the language or what have you, this does not mean that they are deaf or dumb. Now I am not talking only about ELLs in the classroom, but in general. Have you ever found yourself speaking loudly and slowly to another person of a different language? I have seen it so many times and am sure that I have done it myself. This just shows how ignorant people can be. Aside from teachers, students, and the classroom environment, people in general need to be more aware of ELLs around them.
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