Blog Entry 2
Hi! Thanks for viewing my second CUIN 4361 blog post! I interviewed my friend Lucas Gonzalez. He and his family moved from Avellaneda, Argentina to Richmond, Texas when Lucas was six years old. His household was a Spanish speaking household, but both his parents could speak English. Lucas’s journey to learn the English language in the American education system was typical of its time. Meaning that there was not much support in place for students entering school who did not already speak English. Yes, there were policy and strategies put in place, but I think that often the policy did not meet practice. Lucas intimated that in his first classroom experience all instruction was taught in English without any consideration to his native language. Wright (2015) calls this, “A submersion approach by placing an ELL in a mainstream classroom where there is no ESL instruction, no sheltered instruction, and no PLS” (p. 111). I can understand how he must have felt. He was in a new countr...