Language diversity

I chose to look at Learn NC. This site caught my eye because it offers so many resources for educators. One of the purposes of the website is to raise awareness about bridging Spanish language barriers in southern. The website also offers growth in the classroom through lesson plans for k-12 as well as sharing the curriculum standards for NC. One of the best things about this site is, it offers articles dealing with a variety of topics and the NC professional teaching standards, which allow growth in your professional life.

One of the articles that is available is “Bridging language barriers”. The article highlights important facts such as the United States has the largest number of Spanish speakers in the world next to Mexico. I found that information to be very interesting because we are struggling as a whole to accommodate those that have Spanish as a native tongue.  The article pointed out a lot of great information dealing with the debate on the use of language other than English in public schools. It brings up the fact that the Brown V. Board of Education was passed to guarantee equal participation in public schools without affirming the right of minority groups to their own culture and the bilingual Education Act (1968) is suppose to provide supplemental funding for schools to teach those whose native tongue is not English; after reading this I have to ask why are we not offering an equal opportunity for those falling in this category.  I feel that students who learn better in their native tongue should be offered classes where the teacher speaks their language.

Resources:

http://www.learnnc.org/