Celebration of multicultural and multilingual heritage is becoming more important than ever in America today. As I pointed out through my presentation at the 1st Multilingual Education conference at TX A & M University, ESL educators need to respect and encourage their multilingual students' native languages and cultures so they would become self-empowered, fledging learners who use the full range of their language capabilities as a strong scaffold in the long journey of language acquisition.
Here's my thoughts on TRANSLANGUAGE in the form of an acrostic poem.
TRANSLANGUAGE
by Jean Lee
Tossed into the world of different
cultures
Rebuilding your life with a
new language
Agitated
by letting your originality go
Not
ready to acculturate to your new home yet?
Scared of being sidelined in
this community?
Let yourself face up to your
own fear
Ambivalent feelings towards
your new identity
Not a problem to nestle in your
mother tongue
Go with the flow of your
heart and mind
Unbiased way of teaching and learning
a language
Above and beyond will you go
Goal
posts in language learning move at your pace
Every single language learner
counts for much
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