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Reflective Journal There are more and more children in American schools that have English as second language. This is because our society is becoming multicultural and diversified. Children come from families with different ethical backgrounds; they usual have parents who rarely use English as conversational language at home. It constitutes a great difficulty for such children, as they cannot keep up with the rest of students, not being able to simply understand information, which is given to them at places of learning.
Such tendency is especially strong among children of Chinese descend. New Chinese immigrants usually dont bother improving their English conversational skills, as they dont even think of themselves as part of American society. There is a large Chinese community in USA, which tries to promote its culture among newly arrived immigrants. Yet, it goes little too far most of the time, as such people become secularized as result they have their own newspapers, own TV, own Chinese restaurants It doesnt make them feel like theyre required to be able to speak English.
Basically, they just exploit civil rights and freedoms that American society provides them with, without willing to contribute. The worst thing about it is that their children also adopt the same attitude. In some American schools, along the West Coast, Chinese children constitute up to 95 %. They all speak Chinese among themselves and at home.
They dont seem to have any problems blending into society, as the whole society becomes multicultural to such an extent, when English now has good chances of degrading to the status of minority language. In many American towns there are can be seen a road signs in Chinese this, of course, affects children at schools as well. Childs intuitive thinking is much sharper then adults. It makes much harder for children to do something that seems illogical to them. In my opinion, situation cannot be corrected by any other mean than government becoming involved in studying process, by enforcing language requirements. Those who cant speak English should not be able to immigrate to this country, doesnt matter how rich they might be.
The case with Joey shows that her biggest problem is the fact that her parents are totally ignorant of what can make her grades better. The worst thing is that they only speak Chinese at home, which is their right after all, but they also unwillingly instill the same ignorant attitude in her daughter. It is obvious that she wants to study and she tries her best to improve her grades, but she cant do much, because she simply cant understand the simplest questions in English. There is no doubt that she could become a bright student as she really tries to analyze things instead of just memorizing them, like majority of children do. It appears that all she needs at this point, is to be taken away from her ignorant parents for a month or two, into an English speaking family. Children in her age have the amazing ability to pick up languages, but they need to be placed in specific language speaking environment.
My observations confirm the idea that all children of new immigrants from Asia need to be subjected to a totally new educational approach. At the beginning of century there were many Ukrainian immigrants coming to USA and Canada who couldnt speak the word in English, yet their childrens English became fluent in the matter of few years after they started to attend schools. There was no multicultural educational approach practiced back then. Children were being simply forbidden from speaking Ukrainian while they were at school. This idea might appear as being little too over simplified, but as saying goes: whatever is stupid but works, aint stupid.
I dont think that Asian children are any different from others; the same educational criteria must be applied to all equally. If student cant keep up with educational process, he simply needs to be expelled from school so he can try making career in dishwashing. There are two educational theories are being deployed in American schools a present time classic and progressive one. The classic theory emphasizes on the importance of maintaining the quality of educational level, which is given at schools. That is, there are certain requirements for the students, which they whether have to follow or to try finding another school. Because of this approach, American education was maintained on comparatively high level.
The other theory is becoming popular in our days it says that even those students that cant keep up, still need to be given a chance at the expense of lowering educational excellence. Even the dumbest students are thought to be only the victims of social circumstances and therefore cannot be deprived of their chance of getting high school diploma. The result of such theory deployment is the fact that, according to recent surveys, 50 % of high school students in this country cant point America on the map. Learning language is the same as learning how to swim person just need to be pushed into the water, if he really wants to live, hell swim. I myself learned English in this way.
It is not as hard as people might think important is to have strong desire to accomplish the task. Such desire can only originate from within; it cant be imposed on individual forcibly or through different means of encouragement. High school children do not have the feeling of necessity. They always choose the easiest ways, thats why they need to be provided with guidance. The less they are aware of their rights the better, as they wont be tempted to abuse them. It appears that separate educational approaches need to be used for those children who tend to analyze and those who simply follow the pattern.
The best to do this is when they are separated in different classes. As practice shows, bright students dont really influence dumb ones, it happens other way around. Thats why the best thing to do, in this respect, would be separating children, according to their mental abilities. It is important for every educator to clearly understand its task of forming the productive members of society. Thats why it would be a mistake to be getting too friendly with children, as they will exploit every teachers weakness, if they feel that such exist. Teacher needs to understand that children of different cultural backgrounds have different learning abilities.
Chinese much better excel in math then in literature, as there is more memorizing involved. Caucasians generally excel in all disciplines, while Blacks dont seem to show much studying abilities at all. Instead of denying this fact, we need to adjust teaching strategies. Every educational method needs to target particular group of children. Yet, learning the basics of English is a must to all.
Children are nothing but a raw material and it is up to educators to shape what they want out of them. But every raw material has its own physical properties. It has to be taken into account by educators. Childrens psychology needs to be understood, so teacher can find proper way to appeal to every individual student. Of course, it is much better when positive encouragement dominates, but every once in a while, children need to be stimulated by bad grades if they cant keep up.
My educational practice points out to the fact that teachers flexibility accounts for its professional success. Having said this, doesnt mean that teacher has to remain really high above its students. Quite contrary, the mutual trust between them is the key for success. The example with Joey shows that student has to be ridden of its fears of being ridiculed by its own teacher. It wasnt easy on my part to gain her trust and it couldnt have happened right away.
Only after she felt that she could open up to me, I was able to help her. There were also other instances in my tutoring practice, when I was confronted with childrens shyness. Every time it took me a while to deserve students confidence. What proved to be decisive in his respect, is the fact that I was willing to learn about kids social circumstances. Only this allowed me to made necessary adjustments in how I approached every individual case. I learned that children couldnt organically stand lies and half-truths.
My lesson was that when I tried to encourage kid, it wouldnt produce any effect, unless students felt that I was being sincere in what I was saying. Sometimes if Id say youre lazy would be better accepted if I had simply said youre special. Parents influence on their children is among the most important ones and thats why I always strived to have a contact with them. This allowed me to lean more about students, thus enabling me to make adjustments to educational process when it proved to be necessary. Unfortunately, many parents simply dont have time to take much interest in their kids.
They think that teachers can provide them with motherly love, in the way, which is just as effective as their own. This is very far from truth. Among Chinese parents there is a trend to try making their children useful as soon as possible. Instead of encouraging them to attend school, they make them to work in their little restaurants and stores and think that this is their real priority. This, of course, cant have no effect on learning process. Many of such parents simply consider education as symbol of social status and they dont attach any real importance to it.
No wonder that children from such families usually turn out to be just as ignorant as their parents. There is no really effective way to deal with this problem. Educator cannot fix the parents failure. Nevertheless, I think that despite all mentioned above difficulties, tutor still have to perform its duties.
Circumstances can never become ideal; it is up to a teacher find the most effective way to give knowledge to the students, even when sometimes it proves to be very hard. An educator is the profession, which has the same importance as doctor or military serviceman, because teachers are the ones who form the future of this nation.
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