Climbing the school ladder: A challenging task for immigrant Latino students

Teachers play a critical role when helping immigrant children adjust to a new school life. Because immigrants' backgrounds and experiences are so diverse, it is important for teachers no to make assumptions and to get to know individual children.

By Magda Corredor

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Bridging Spanish language barriers in Southern schools

These articles provide background on Latino immigrants in North Carolina, administrative challenges in binational education, and strategies through which teachers can build on what Latino students bring to their classrooms to create a learning environment that meets the needs of all students.

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• Reaching Latinos through social studies: Teachers can help immigrant students feel more comfortable in the classroom by basing social studies lessons on students' own knowledge and backgrounds.
• Helping students from rural Mexico feel comfortable in your classroom: Most students from rural Mexico have experiences, family backgrounds, and expectations that conflict with the expectations of the American classroom environment. By understanding the expectations of these students and their parents, teachers can help them to succeed.
• Bridging language barriers: How schools can ease the transition for Latino immigrant students.

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• Learn more about English language learners, Latin America, Latinos, achievement gap, classroom culture, classroom environment, immigrants, and second languages.

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The diversity of the Latin American population

The Latino population in the United States is composed of people whose roots are from Mexico and Central American including El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras; the Caribbean area that comprises Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic; and lastly from South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It is important to understand that even though these peoples have a similar history in that they were colonized mainly by European countries of Latin background, Spain and Portugal, they differ in languages, accents, ethnicities and local cultures. It is also important to recognize that even people coming from the same country may differ in terms of socioeconomic status, education, ethnicity and geographical origin. Moreover, even though Spanish is the dominant language in most countries except for Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken, there are many indigenous languages still spoken by ethnic minorities, descendants of native populations all over Latin America.

It is important to recognize additional factors that contribute to the diversity of the Latino student population. Typically, Latino children attending schools in the United States bring a variety of educational and life experiences and resources when they arrive to the United States. Moreover, depending on the specific conditions of their immigrant experience such as age at which they came to the United States and length of time of permanence in the United States, they exhibit different levels of familiarity with the English language and other cultural environments.

Factors influencing school achievement

Research shows that consistency in schooling, educational level of parents, parental support, previous school experience and individual differences are some of the major factors influencing school achievement.

A great majority of Latino immigrant children who come to school in the United States have an educational background characterized by limited exposure to educational resources and books, inconsistent and fragmented schooling, and often insufficient parental support. Moreover, in their early years, many students’ lives have focused on helping the family with survival chores and very little on school readiness. This represents a disadvantage for these children, who are supposed to meet the academic expectations of native English speakers once in the United States in a rather short period of time. Immigrant students often face additional stressors related to the experience of leaving their homeland, including family’s economic struggles, instability, undocumented status, culture shock, and being caught between two cultures and languages — sometimes even three, as in the case of children from indigenous families. Additionally, they often lack the necessary parental support due to their own parents’ limited schooling and English proficiency, which limits parents’ ability to support their children and get involved with their school life.

The psychological side of the immigration journey

The transfer from their place of origin is usually a challenging experience for immigrant children. Separation from their familiar foundations and milieu means leaving behind relationships with family members and peers, and a social and material environment with its own rules and practices. Consequently, not infrequently children experience feelings ranging from confusion, excitement, anxiety, sadness, disorientation, uncertainty and fear. The emotional state that accompanies this transfer of immigrant students is largely ignored by teachers and school personnel. Educators should acknowledge the emotions that children are undergoing when arriving to a new place and adapting to the new practices and expectations. Educators can be of great help by encouraging them to talk about their feelings in ways they are able to communicate such as drawing and sculpting. Acknowledging the fact that they have arrived from a different country and showing interest in their previous living and school circumstances will make them feel welcome and validated. This component of the child’s life should be accounted for when trying to support the child’s adjustment to the school life.

How educators can help

Teachers play a critical role when helping immigrant children adjust to a new school life. A rule of thumb is to avoid making assumptions and generalizations. Instead, using resources such as other bilingual children in the classroom, a relative or an interpreter, will be most helpful to get to know the child’s individual story in terms of:

• Country and region of origin and language spoken at home.
• Specific immigration history of the child. For example: how long has the child lived in the United States? Who does s/he live with? Which significant people or experiences where left behind?
• What was the child’s previous school experience like? Was it an urban or rural school? Did the child present difficulties in school?
• Get to know the parents’ skills, strengths and resources. What did the parents do for a living in their native country? How can their previous experiences be utilized in the school?
• Potential stressors the child may be facing such as family conflicts, work hardships, financial limitations.
• Availability of medical services. What kind of medical support does the child have in the United States? Do parents know about services available for them?
• Help the child stay connected with his cultural roots.
• Encourage immigrant students to express their feelings in ways they are able to communicate such as asking them to draw pictures of their previous school, familiar objects, stories, etc.

What educators should know about second language acquisition

It is important for teachers to have realistic expectations of immigrant children in terms of their English language development.

Studies about second language acquisition show that learning a second language follows a similar pattern as learning a first language. Native language proficiency is a predictor of second language acquisition. Moreover, loss and delays in both languages in the early stages of second language acquisition are common occurrence for children who are exposed to two languages at a young age.

BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) is also known as survival communication skills. Typically, it takes about 1-3 years to learn and is used for basic interaction, to express basic needs and socialize with peers. It allows for a personal level of functioning. CALPS (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency), also known as academic language, takes about 5–7 years to master. It is the language needed to understand academic tasks, subject content, textbooks and tests. These are the skills that allow students to acquire and process higher thinking knowledge.

Considerations for grading, testing and promoting multilingual students

Being familiar with the most current guidelines for evaluating immigrant students is of utmost importance when making decisions regarding their promotion.

These guidelines often change from year to year and it is the teacher’s responsibility to keep up to date in this area. Teachers that work with multilingual learners (including but not limited to ESL) play an important role in providing input and feedback about the student’s performance since they work closely with the immigrant students in the first stages of their educational journey.