February 25, 2019
Garcia & Rodriguez: Important Quotes
Rodriquez takes a stance on how being bilingual has affected his education, while Garcia explains the concept of "translanguaging," and how it affects bilingual learners. In this blog post, I am going to point out and explain the importance of some quotes from "Translanguaging" and "Aria" that I found interesting.
When giving the reader some background into his education, Garcia writes: "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 explains that he would have been a lot more comfortable if he spoke Spanish, his native language, in the classrooms. Instead, he was to speak "the public language of los gringos" as Garcia explains it, which ultimately caused him to forcibly speak English.
When Garcia explained when the nuns came to his home to intervene about the language he was using at home, he wrote that the nuns had said: " 'Is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English when they are home?' Of course, my parents complied...In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family's closeness." This quote kind of made me upset. The nuns from his school came directly to his house to decide what language the Garcia family will use in the privacy of their own home. I do not think it was the nun's place to decide that, even if it was for the sake of Garcia's education.
Now, to shift my focus on "Translanguaging" with Rodriquez, some quotes I found interesting were centered around Rodriguez's argument that code-switching and translanguaging are not the same thing. The author writes: " The motion of code-switching assumes that the two languages of bilinguals are two separate monolingual codes that could be used without reference to each other. Instead, translanguaging posits that bilinguals have one linguistic repertoire from which they select features strategically to communicate effectively." I found this to be a little hard to wrap my head around. I did not understand the fact that they are not interchangeable. They seem like the same concept to me, but I feel like I don't have a say in this because I'm not bilingual. But, Rodriguez does provide evidence as to why this isn't true.
Another point of interest for me was when the author explained meta-linguistic awareness with bilingual people. Meta-linguistics is a concept based on a person thinking about the language they are using. Rodriguez writes "Putting language practices alongside each other makes possible for students to explicitly notice language features, an awareness needed to develop linguistic abilities." I think this is a huge advantage to being bilingual because people like me, monolingual people, don't have to think about the language they are using, because there is only one. This is a type of awareness unique to bilingual people.
When giving the reader some background into his education, Garcia writes: "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 explains that he would have been a lot more comfortable if he spoke Spanish, his native language, in the classrooms. Instead, he was to speak "the public language of los gringos" as Garcia explains it, which ultimately caused him to forcibly speak English.
When Garcia explained when the nuns came to his home to intervene about the language he was using at home, he wrote that the nuns had said: " 'Is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English when they are home?' Of course, my parents complied...In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family's closeness." This quote kind of made me upset. The nuns from his school came directly to his house to decide what language the Garcia family will use in the privacy of their own home. I do not think it was the nun's place to decide that, even if it was for the sake of Garcia's education.
Now, to shift my focus on "Translanguaging" with Rodriquez, some quotes I found interesting were centered around Rodriguez's argument that code-switching and translanguaging are not the same thing. The author writes: " The motion of code-switching assumes that the two languages of bilinguals are two separate monolingual codes that could be used without reference to each other. Instead, translanguaging posits that bilinguals have one linguistic repertoire from which they select features strategically to communicate effectively." I found this to be a little hard to wrap my head around. I did not understand the fact that they are not interchangeable. They seem like the same concept to me, but I feel like I don't have a say in this because I'm not bilingual. But, Rodriguez does provide evidence as to why this isn't true.
Another point of interest for me was when the author explained meta-linguistic awareness with bilingual people. Meta-linguistics is a concept based on a person thinking about the language they are using. Rodriguez writes "Putting language practices alongside each other makes possible for students to explicitly notice language features, an awareness needed to develop linguistic abilities." I think this is a huge advantage to being bilingual because people like me, monolingual people, don't have to think about the language they are using, because there is only one. This is a type of awareness unique to bilingual people.
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