Blog Post #8

Aria by Richard Rodriguez 

Quotes

1. Rodriguez states, "Without question, it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responded with ease." This quote highlights the comfortability that multilingual students lack in the classroom.  Being a young student, surrounded by peers and adults speaking in an unfamiliar language provides a difficulty called a language barrier. However, the purpose of speaking to children in a language they do not speak like English, is to teach them the language and explain to them the true definitions and meaning of the language being taught. Also, who values and emphasizes the true talent and knowledge it takes to speak two languages overall? Rodriguez emphasizes the struggles he felt as a student in a classroom that does not speak his native language. 

2. Rodriguez starts the reading off by declaring Spanish as a "private language." Rodriguez states, "What they seem not to recognize is that, as a socially disadvantaged child, I considered Spanish to be a private language." Because Rodriguez grew up speaking solely Spanish and then attending a school that speaks solely English, Spanish felt private to him. To me, I find this extremely interesting. Because I grew up in a school that had multilingual learners, I began to think of my classmates who spoke Spanish. For example, in my school, many students who spoke Spanish stuck together. Because of this reading and looking back at my time in public school, could the similarity of language provide a connection between peers? I think so. 

3. Later on Rodriguez speaks on the disconnect between the public and private languages. Rodriguez states, "Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home. At school, words were directed to a general audience of listeners." To a child in a classroom, the audience of the language being spoken could be very confusing. Rodriguez shares that he thought English was a public language because when he heard the language; in his classrooms, it was spoken to multiple people at once; like the whole class. But at home, Spanish was spoken directly to him. This also shows the difficulty multilingual learners face when learning a new language at school, but speaking their native language at home. 

Reflection

To reflect, Rodriguez emphasizes the struggles of learning English in American classrooms. When speaking English in a classroom setting, many words are said in the plural form, creating a sense of confusion. This confusion Rodriguez calls public versus private languages. Before finishing the reading, I thought that public versus private languages were because of the connection between Spanish-speaking students from my public schools simply because of the similarity in languages. Overall, I found Rodriguez's writing very interesting and I hope to really consider the public versus private languages during my time as a teacher in the American school system.