For my blog post #8, I will be using quotes from Aria by Richard Rodriguez.
The author talks about his childhood, and the language struggles he had to go through growing up as a kid. He mentions the fact that him speaking Spanish rather than English, game him a stronger feeling of belonging and he felt more at home. He then goes on and talks about the struggles it is to be a naturally born Spanish speaker and trying to learn and adapt to an English-speaking school in order to get an education. I can make a strong connection to this reading because in my inspiring minds class that I go to, there are some students who just speak English and others who just speak Spanish and some that know both and I can tell for the one's that only speak Spanish, it is way harder for them to learn due to the fact that they do not know what the teacher is saying and they have to go based off of what their classmates are telling them to do.
Quote: "Again and again in the days following, increasingly angry, I was obliged to hear my mother and father: 'Speak to us en ingles.' (Speak.) Only then did I determine to learn classroom English. Weeks after, it happened: One day in school I raised my hand to volunteer an answer. I spoke out in a loud voice."
Explanation: I chose this quote because I think it shows a really good understanding of how his parents were forcing him every day to speak English even though he hated it and didn't want to do it. He used the words "increasingly angry" which just shows here that he didn't want to speak English and the fact that he was being forced to do it was making her angry. Then he states weeks after, he voluntarily raised his hand in his class and spoke out her English in the whole class. I think this is really important due to the fact that it took him weeks to even volunteer and participate in the class.
Quote: "At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen."
Explanation: I chose this quote because I think that it is really important how after seven years, he is finally realizing that he is an American citizen. He uses the words technically true to show how much of a struggle it has been for him due to the fact that he had known no English when he got here and now, he is calling himself an American citizen.
Quote: "At about the time I no longer bothered to listen with care to the sounds of English in public, I grew careless about listening to the sounds family members made when they spoke. Most of the time I heard someone speaking at home and didn't distinguish his sounds from the words people uttered in public. I didn't even pay much attention to my parents' accented and ungrammatical speech. At least not at home."
Explanation: For my last quote, I chose this because I think that it is important due to the fact that he is now starting to say that he no longer bothered to listen with care of English and public and also stopped caring to listen to the sounds of family members when they spoke. He talks about how he didn't even pay attention to his parent's accent or bad speech because he just stopped caring about it and doesn't care about what it sounds like or how it comes out. This just goes to show how hard it has been for him due to the fact that now he doesn't even care about how his parent's talk or how people talk in public.
Attached, HERE, you can find further information on how to make it easier for a Spanish speaker to learning in an English environmental classroom.
