As an immigrant family living in Canada, I have experienced racism and stereotypes myself. When going to school, I didn’t make friends with local Caucasian students because I couldn’t communicate with them. I didn’t have the language to build relationship with others and I sometimes felt other students didn’t like Asian students because we were labelled as “perfect academic students” or “study machines”. This was clearly bias and I hated it but I couldn’t do anything to stop people’s thinking. Language is such a big barrier for immigrants to merge into the new society and the culture. Enough now, I have been living in Canada for more than half of my life, people still treat me by looking at my skin color and my race.It has influenced my own well being as working with young children. When seeing families coming to the program with limited English, I always try my best to help them ease any hurdles they might have, especially for young children. They are sensitive and fragile, needing our assistance so that their transition to the program will be easier and smoother. I know language is a big part in people’s every life while in another country, from my own experience. So I like to arrange interpreters to make communication with families more fluent, to help reduce families’ pressure about not understanding what teachers say, and have more ideas of how to help their own children getting settled in the program.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
week 5 blog assignment
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Hi Lufei,
ReplyDeleteIt is true that langue can be such a big barrier for people to communicate with others. I have seen many children who cannot speak English in the class, and they did not make any friends or play with anyone in the first month. They will not start to join in play groups initiatively until they feel they are comfortable of communicating with others. It is our teachers' responsibility to make sure children can transit well in a new environment, and it will be really helpful if we can find someone for children to go to when they need to express themselves. Both families and children need to have their voices heard by school and peers. For young children, a new environment can upset them. If they cannot understand what is going on in the classroom, that can be scary for them. Like what you stated above, making the communication with children and family smooth and effective is a good start to settle down children. Thank you for sharing.
Xiyue
Lu Fei,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear about the difficulties you faced as a child.I attended university in Canada. Despite being at a very diverse school, i found myself met with that same stereotype. I remember feeling shocked that educated adults could be so ignorant.
You mentioned that language is a difficult barrier to cross. It is so positive that you arrange for translators. This is a challenege that I fear in schools, especially in Bermuda. The reason is that we are limited in resources. We had a child in our school last year who spoke no English, and there were no translators available on the island. He coped very well thankfully, but I felt so horrible that we were limited in how helpful we could be! Have you ever run in to that issue?
Hi LuFei,
ReplyDeleteYou learn something new everyday, because I did not know Asian students were labeled as “perfect academic students” or “study machines”. This was totally an insult to you and a hurtful statement as well. This is why I want my students that enter the class and speak little English to be able to speak English fluently and I want to be able to speak Spanish as well. I think the ideal of having an interpreter in the classroom is great.
Why couldn't you communicate with caucasian? Was it a race issue with you parent and family? Speaking another language could be difficult and uncomfortable.
ReplyDelete