Language Lessons

Using native Spanish speakers to instruct their classmates in more than just verbs and pronunciation.

‘Is This Just Regular English?’

They were in their seats before the bell rang: 28 spit-polished 10th graders waiting silently in their chairs. In my four years of teaching, I had never encountered a room […]

Welcoming Kalenna

When I was a child, our home was filled with the sounds of Spanish, mariachi music, and boisterous conversations. At home, my Nana cooked enchiladas, menudo, and tamales. During family celebrations we broke piñatas, danced, and […]

Strawberry Fields Forever?

When I was a child, my mother couldn’t help us with our homework. She had gone to work as a maid in a Mexican hacienda at age 11 and hadn’t learned to […]

Testing Lang

Lang was a student of mine last year, an eight-year-old with big brown eyes and a shy, quiet nature. He hated writing; putting pencil to paper was a brutal task […]

My First Year as a Teacher of Color

A teacher of color writes about obstacles he faced during his first year in the classroom and the support he received — and did not receive — from other teachers and administrators.

English-Only to the Core

Is the Common Core better than current approaches to English language learners—or the next salvo in more than a decade of attacks on bilingual programs?

Rethinking Bilingual Education book cover

Rethinking Bilingual Education

Rethinking Bilingual Education is an exciting new collection of articles about bringing students’ home languages into our classrooms. How do we bring social justice curriculum into our bilingual classrooms? How […]