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Language & Cultural Barriers in Education

18/08/2020 Ladon Team 1963 views 0 comment

To gain a better understanding of the challenges immigrants face, Ladon Language Team talked to Sue Pon, Director, Oakland Adult & Career Education, Oakland Unified School District. She has dedicated her life to helping people overcome language and cultural barriers to receive an education in the United States and to be successful in life.

“I have been in adult education for more years than you both have been around,” Sue said, cheekily.

In 2008, Oakland was the seventh largest recipient of adult education funding in California. According to the East Bay Express, Oakland had the highest number of immigrants in California. A total of 25000 adult students enrolled for their English as a Second Language (ESL) Programs and Edward Shands Schools was housing close to 60% of this student population.

The purpose of an adult school is to provide multilevel ESL academic and literacy instructions and education to parents. Adult education has been traditionally designed for immigrants, refugees, high school dropouts, ex-convicts, and elderly or disabled individuals. The aim of the programs is to ensure that those who aren’t educated enough to succeed in the workforce can learn to read, write and speak English or even earn a high school diploma. In an adult school, especially in a multicultural district like Oakland, there is a diversity of language and culture as there are students from different parts of the world, mostly Hispanic, Arab, Vietnamese, Chinese parents from all ages.

When immigrants try to settle down, the biggest issue they face is their inability to speak English. The United States is not known for being multilingual, so trying to get a job, making friends or even completing basic chores like filling a form or even buying food becomes difficult tasks.

Immigrants with limited English proficiency not only face language barriers, but also cultural barriers. When they see that their way of living, dressing, and thinking differs from the majority in the host country, they end up either being in an inferiority complex or feeling weak and helpless. When they finally realize they need to enroll into an ESL class, their main goal is to to learn basic English only. The adult school teachers find it hard to inspire their students to not only learn English but also go to community college and do more in life. When students from diverse cultures join a class, it is important for the teachers and students to embrace the diversity in order to teach and learn successfully.

A worth mentioning story here is about an Arab mother, who was an immigrant. Being a non-English speaker and requiring translation for everything she heard or tried to read caused her to be a stay at home mother. However, she realized that it’s important for her to learn English. She got herself into Oakland Unified School. Initially, she was worried how she will manage taking the classes with a baby but the school offered her free baby-sitting which encouraged her even more. Later, she not only learnt English but also got into a community college, got a degree in Early Childhood Education and went back to Oakland Unified School District as a teacher. She adapted herself to the culture by not only getting a degree and earning but also by earning respect in the society.

However, in 2008, the financial crisis hit California hard. Edwards Shands Adult School was forced to shut down. Patricia Jensen, a former teacher at Edward Shands, recalled fondly, “Every time we go back to Shands to get something, people come out to the parking lot and ask when we’re opening back up.” The closing of the school undeniably left a huge hole in the community.

Despite the drastic budget cut, Edward Shands teachers never gave up. They understood too well the importance of education to the empowerment of underprivileged communities. As the main campus was shut down, classes are held at other “host” schools in Oakland. Despite tremendous efforts, Oakland adult education is still a shadow of its past. It now serves around 1000 students, which is about just 7% of Edward Shands School’s student population at its peak.

The new model hass also brought positive changes. For Arabic moms who are bound by their culture to stay at home, they now have a chance to take classes as classes are now held at their child’s school. Albeit subtle, its impact can propagate.

Sue explained the importance of building family literacy, “How could you ask the kids to study well if their parents don’t think of giving them a space to do homework in the house? To improve quality of education in the long run, you must work with the family and community to get their support. It must be about educating the community, raising income of the community, and having role model in the community.” This also explains her dedication to adult education.

The importance of adult education is something that can’t be stressed enough and really needs a highlight. If the parents don’t understand the language or the importance of education, they will not be able to help their children grow and the family will be trapped in a viscous circle of poverty. Despite the difficulties and challenges faced in the adult education sector, the adult educators still persevere because they understand the importance of family literacy and of bridging language and cultural barriers.

When they see that their way of living, dressing, and thinking differs from the majority in the host country, they end up either being in an inferiority complex or feeling weak and helpless.

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Tongue-tied and trying

18/08/2020 Ladon Team 1815 views 0 comment

Language barriers and the opportunity gap

Language barriers do exactly as the name suggests: it prevents us from connecting, effectively creating gaps between people — a reality for many immigrant students in the United States. Wealth disparity and language barriers lead to education gaps, which in turn result in poor school performance and in opportunity gaps. And it’s not hard to imagine why.

When you find yourself lost in an unfamiliar place, the gut reaction is panic. Fear comes first, but soon you can force yourself to find someone to ask for help. And yet when a child sits in a classroom eight hours a day, unable to understand or keep up with half of what the teacher is saying, then there is no one to ask. The child remains lost.

Students have to translate back and forth in their heads. An English sentence is translated into their native language before they can process the information. And when they respond, they also translate sentences from their native language to English before they speak. It’s a process that slows down learning.

Studies show that even though students may excel in their native language, the demands of standardized testing in English and a U.S.-focused classroom hinder them from performing as well as they could, resulting in education gaps.

Classrooms are supposed to be safe spaces for learning, and yet they rarely accommodate the need to foster the encouragement for children to study their own language and culture. Reports show that when the language used to teach children isn’t the language they’re most familiar with, then there’s a negative impact on how well they learn.

Reports also show that immigrant students perform worse than non-immigrant students, with language barriers as one of the primary reasons, together with poverty.

In California, where there are more Hispanics than whites, student performances are well below the national standard. A 2014 report shows that the state’s 4th and 8th grade students rank at the bottom ten nationwide in both math and reading.

Havenscourt in Oakland, for instance, is a diverse neighborhood, with 95% of the population being people of color, primarily African-American and Hispanic. 25% of kids in Havenscourt don’t pass the 9th grade, while 48% don’t make it to high school.

Hispanic students are also at a disadvantage, said a study on overcoming language barriers, because the families felt “a certain level of disconnect from the school system.”

“It’s hard to push [the students] to dream high because their family has low expectations of what the kids can achieve,” said the Vice Principal of Bayview Elementary School in California.

However, Hispanic families’ participation increased when meetings were translated in Spanish. With the involvement of their language, the language barriers preventing them from being active in their children’s education was broken down.

Poverty as a barrier to education for immigrant students

California has one of the highest income disparity rates in the U.S. In fact, almost 70% of the Havenscourt population live twice below the federal poverty level.

“There is a long history of inequitable distribution of resources in our education system,” said Richard Pelayo, managing director of GO Public Schools West Contra Costa.

“This can only be fixed with alignment in vision, strategy, and tactics between decision-makers and local community,” he added.

The Public Policy Institute of California reports that “the gap between the highest and lowest incomes grew 10 to 40 percent between 2007 and 2014,” making the income inequality in 2014 9.9 percent higher than it was seven years before.

“In many ways, it’s the sheer size and diversity of California’s many competing needs that makes it so hard for policies to effectively address the problems,” said David Moren, Bay Area Executive Director of Generation Citizen.

So how do we address these barriers to education?

We bridge education gaps and opportunity gaps by bridging the gaps created by language and cultural barriers. Involving families and communities in the education of children will help them be more comfortable in their learning environments.

Families can start by reading to their children. This will help children advance in reading and language performance, as well as social development.

Technology can also help. Translation has become easier with the increasing accessibility of internet, with applications like Google Translate. There are also services available for more complex translations, such as for parent-teacher meetings. Whenever they need help with the language, teachers could call Ladon Language Hotline to be connected to a bilingual who can help them on the phone.

“To improve quality of education in the long run, you must work with the family and community to get their support,” said Sue Pon of Oakland Adult & Career Education, Oakland Unified School District.

“It must be about educating the community, raising income of the community, and having a role model in the community,” she added.

Educators must also do their part by attempting to break language barriers and trying to understand cultural differences. Teachers should sympathize with students and make them feel like they are in a safe learning environment.

With the help of families and communities, there is no stopping students from learning. Language barriers and cultural barriers are temporary problems that can be solved through cooperation, so that a child is no longer lost and so education can be attained.

Ladon Language Project was created in a Spring 2016 class in the University of California, Berkeley – a school with a rich history of social and political activism. Ladon brings the community together to bridge language barriers. We form a network of compassionate, well-trained, bilingual and bicultural language assistants who will go the extra mile to provide language support. More than half of Ladon language assistants are first-generation college students. We strongly believe that by bridging language barriers, we can help bridge the opportunity gap for underserved communities.

Ladon » Translation

Lost in translation: How Ladon is solving the communication gap for immigrants

18/08/2020 Ladon Team 1339 views 0 comment

Lost in translation: Bridge language barriers with Ladon

“ The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

– George Bernard Shaw

Communication is a complex sphere where emotions and logic are dependent on languages to take shape. In a world of increased migration of populations across countries, clear communication becomes even more important. Technology has opened up channels of interactions between people who were earlier isolated from each other. However, not all technology enables these people to speak to each other in a way that they can understand.

In a world where people are increasingly moving to new lands for better opportunities as well as survival, maintaining clear channels of communication is crucial at every level. From documentation efforts to learning a new language to gain access to public services, communication can make or break a person’s immigrant experience.

According to a Global Citizen article, difficulty in speaking and learning English is one of the most prominent problems immigrants face in the United States. As the writer notes, “ . . .my country, the United States, is not known for being multilingual. So imagine arriving here, unable to speak English. Try getting a job, making friends, or even completing basic tasks like buying food or filling out forms.”

Even though the Silicon Valley is abuzz with tech start-ups trying to disrupt the world order and make the world more open and connected (Facebook’s mission), there are rarely any initiatives that help address this issue of massive immigrant populations and diasporas getting sidelined during to the communication and information gap.

Ladon Language Project was created in a Spring 2016 class in the University of California, Berkeley – a school with a rich history of social and political activism. Ladon uses technology to bring the community together by bridging language barriers. It consists of a network of compassionate, well-trained, bilingual and bicultural language assistants who will go the extra mile to provide language support. More than half of Ladon language assistants are first-generation college students.

At Ladon, we understand the importance of clear communication for people who are trying to find a foothold in a new nation, away from their homelands. Unlike other translation services, we treat our customers individually, trying to understand their story and providing them with the best solution that we can. It helps that our language assistants are bilingual students, a lot of them from different countries rather than native English speakers.

Ladon is social initiative rather than a commercial one, and therefore our prices are way less than other services available in the market. In this current political climate where the world is yet unsure about how to accept immigrants, we believe in making a world that supports people irrespective of their national identities. Immigrants need the power of clear communication more than anyone else as they struggle to find a foothold in a world that is far different from their own.

Check out this space for more articles on the immigrant experience and come join us to make this world a better place – one document, one speech and one clear channel of communication at a time.

“At Ladon, we understand the importance of clear communication for people who are trying to find a foothold in a new nation, away from their homelands.”