This chapter had my favorite idea of the whole book! The teacher that Cary describes gives each student in her class a week to be the language teacher. The student would use resources such as family members and research to find several phrases that he or she could teach the class for the week. For example, once the language teacher taught the words yes, no, please, and thank you, students would use those words throughout the week instead of the English. The students loved this practice and looked forward to their week.
Cary is an advocate for bilingual education, but understands that this is not a possibility everywhere. So he suggests ways to support first languages when it cannot be developed.
~Use the language teacher role. With this practice, students' first languages are valued and used.
~Use the students' parents who speak other languages for help translating and also to teach the class about their language and culture.
~Finally, when available, use bilingual volunteers from other areas of the school, parents, or universities and other organizations to help during instructional times.
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