"Tongue Tied" (blog #8)

 Three quotes that stood out to me while reading "Tongue Tied" 

"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 chose this quote because it just made me feel so emotional in some way. The fact that all he wanted was to feel apart of his class but he couldn't because of the language barrier. This ties in to today's teaching world too. With the students I volunteer with when I first started...the kids who only spoke Spanish had this sense of relief once I had announced that I spoke the same the language as them. Also they even became more comfortable and talkative. 

"Those gringo sounds they uttered startled me. Pushed me away."

 This quote showed how because he was learning more English at school, he felt as if he was being stripped away from Spanish back at home. Not only did he feel like he was being stripped away from his Spanish but also being stripped away from his family. He felt as if he had lost that connection with his family that was tied together from speaking Spanish. I feel like this happens a lot in multilingual homes, lots of my cousins who never took the time to learn Spanish often aren't able to communicate with my other family members and it really creates that barrier for the relationship.

 

"Following the dramatic Americanization of their children, even my parents grew more publicly confident." 

Although the article did talk about the negatives that the author went through learning English I also wanted to add this quote because I wanted to add the kinda positive about it. As the authors parents learned more English they felt more comfortable with living. It proves that point that although to some people learning English is not a necessary, it has a lot of benefit. My parents were once pure Spanish speakers and immediately when they had the chance they began taking English classes and after a few years or working hard to learn English they appreciate the sacrifice they made cause they felt more comfortable going to public places knowing English and Spanish.