Teacher Research in Action: Exploring Children’s Multilingual Language Rights

By Vanessa Ibarra, Teacher

I have always known that I wanted to be a teacher. My parents migrated to the United States in 1989 to pursue the so-called “American Dream.” I grew up in East Palo Alto, surrounded by warmth and love from my siblings and parents. Although my parents did not speak English, they always did what they could to support me academically. Sitting at our old dining table, flipping my pencil up in the air and running my hands through my hair, I tried to figure out my math homework. Neither of my parents completed elementary school. They had very little knowledge of academics, especially math. I remember feeling saddened because they couldn’t help me, and I didn’t want to look like I needed help. If I didn’t understand the homework, I would pretend to do it and then put it away, so that I would not cause my parents concern. My mother worried easily, and I knew deep inside that she wanted to help me but just didn’t have the knowledge to do so.

When parent–teacher conferences came around, I sat with my teacher and my mother. It was my responsibility to translate, because I spoke both English and Spanish, and unfortunately my teachers did not speak Spanish. I remember feeling resentful, angry and frustrated because my teachers could not communicate with my parents. It became a burden on me because I had to take on that extra responsibility. Yet I’ve never felt anger toward my parents because they do not speak English. On the contrary, I happily dedicated my evenings to teaching my parents simple phrases and English words. I loved being their teacher, and I was proud of knowing two languages. I am proud of where I have come from and who I have become. These early childhood experiences of growing up bilingual led me to pursue a career in education.

As a Bay Area native who grew up speaking Spanish at home and English in school, I am deeply interested in the impact of multilingualism on young children’s social, cultural and intellectual development. This is an interest I am pursuing as a master’s-degree student at San Francisco State University. In February, I traveled with an SFSU team to Oaxaca, Mexico, to carry out a project aimed at enhancing multilingual education for young children. Our goal was to investigate the ability of teacher inquiry and reflection to empower teachers to support young children’s multilingual language rights. Teacher inquiry is a process that improves the quality of teaching and learning through self-reflection. It challenges teachers to question their practice and pedagogy, bringing to light bias and inequities in educational settings.

Educators in both the United States and Mexico face profound challenges when it comes to teaching multilingual children from immigrant and indigenous families, in part because many educators receive only minimal training that focuses on effective strategies for supporting multilingualism, and they are often unaware of children’s language rights, such as the right to continue to speak their indigenous language.

During our weeklong visit, we met and worked with children and teachers at the Centro de Esperanza Infantil children’s center and at the Andres Portillo elementary school. At Andres Portillo, I was able to speak with two kindergarten teachers about my interest and current engagement in teacher inquiry and reflection. At the Centro de Esperanza Infantil, I was able to sit down and read English books with a group of young children and a high school student. During this visit, the San Francisco and Oaxaca teachers shared strategies they value, such as making strong connections with families and encouraging families and children to honor and use their native language to communicate.

We also had the opportunity to speak with professor Mario López-Gopar about his experience teaching in-service teachers at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca. López-Gopar shared the process of teacher inquiry used by his teachers; some of the challenges he encounters, such as the lack of teacher retention and commitment; and some of the success he has experienced when teachers engage in an ethnographic study of themselves and the children they teach, and reflect on their practice in their teacher journals. López-Gopar and our team plan to continue exchanging ideas about multilingual education and teacher inquiry and reflection.

Upon my return from Oaxaca, I engaged in my own research project in Center PM: “Supporting Dual-Language Learners in the Classroom: Utilizing Teacher Reflection.” This project stemmed from observations I have made and questions I have been asking myself for many years regarding whether diversity is valued and how to best support multilingual learners.

For this study, I collaborated with teachers Amy Shin and Paloma Moreno. They were also dual-language learners growing up (Shin: Korean and English; Moreno: Spanish and English). Together, we reflected on our early experiences as dual-language learners. We also took the time to examine our teaching practices in the classroom. To do this, we started our own teacher journals. Through the journaling process, it became apparent that we were all using our personal and childhood experiences as a base to inform our practice, including the particular challenges we faced at home and in school as dual-language learners. The process of journaling together gave us the opportunity to create a safe and comfortable space to have these important conversations—conversations we might not have had otherwise.

Journaling and engaging together in reflection made evident how much we learned about ourselves and from each other through these practices. My hope is to encourage more of my colleagues to adopt these practices so that they, too, might experience the benefits of reflection.