What's up with Welsh

In consideration of what we learned from Prof. Toncelli and the readings, it is clear that traditional attitudes towards teaching emergent bilinguals has been inadequate to meet their individual learner needs. Instead of considering what they lack, or deficit-based, we need to consider them as assets to the classroom and "start from what students can do" (Fu 22). Requiring emergent bilinguals to communicate and write solely in English is absurd, for as Toncelli mentioned, humans only have one set of linguistic tools. Some have a more complex and stronger linguistic skillset than others, but by allowing emergent bilinguals to use their assets and knowledge of their native tongue, their English acquisition will be improved. Yet I also understand that this may be challenging for teachers. If a student's native tongue is Chinese, chances are the teacher will have no clue what their student is writing. While this might be uncomfortable as an educator, it is critical to consi...

Throughout my experiences in learning Italian, my training to become a Writing Center tutor, and my English courses both in high school and here at RIC, I've learned that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. It's a conglomeration of Anglo-Saxon, French, German, and other borrowed terms from other languages. Since it is so irregular, it is hard to pick up on, whereas other languages such as the Romance Languages of Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese are rather formulaic and much easier to learn. Yet native English speakers sadly take this for granted way too frequently. English, while not the most widely-spoken language in the world, is the language of commerce and capitalism, so it is the dominant language upheld by the dominant narrative. Because of this culmination of factors, those who are privileged enough to learn English as their native tongue and are SCWAAMP frequently look down upon those who cannot understand their language or are learnin...