Workforce Language Services

Anyone who has ever tried to learn a second language knows that it’s not easy to express yourself exactly as you’d like, because some words and expressions simply don’t transfer from one language to another. High school teacher Jenny Sonya Patino sees this struggle in her bilingual students all the time, what she calls their lack of “voice.”

Patino’s own mother grew up in a generation that strongly discouraged speaking Spanish in school. Because of her mother’s negative experience, Patino was raised speaking English only.

She remembers being hit for using Spanish when she didn’t know the English words to express herself. Her suffering was common for students like her back then.

It seems that schools have been set up to shame children out of Spanish as a way to accelerate English learning. This is quite obvious in recent generations. Many who were punished for speaking Spanish have chosen to raise their children to speak only English because of the pain they went through.

How then, Patino asks, can we now encourage bilingual students to find their “voice” in school today? Where does Spanish fit in an all-English classroom? How can schools help develop students’ “voice” in both languages?

Imagine the possibilities for our bicultural children if they were able to weave a precise selection of words from Spanish into their writing. They would have much more to offer because their means of expression would increase.

Patino offers the idea of incorporation of Spanish into English because, like Pat Mora’s famous poem “La Migra” written primarily in English with some important Spanish speckled throughout, it would give children the opportunity to include their unique bicultural experience into their expression.

Read Patino’s full column in the El Paso Times here.