Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Chicano Students

Valencia spends his second chapter (27) addressing segregation of Chicano students, both purposeful and de facto. Chicano, and primarily Mexican students, often endure substandard school buildings and curriculum, and even teachers (29). This description, however, is of "early conditions" and may not so much be the situation now. Nowadays the schools are not necessarily improved but they are more integrated, and Hispanic, Chicano, European, African, and Oriental heritage American students are stirred in together in one school where the paint is still peeling and substitutes are the full-time teachers.

Thus, the one characteristic that still segregates the Hispanic student is language. That they do not speak English necessitates a bilingual teacher, ESL and bilingual classes, and classrooms grouped according to language, which means a de facto separation by race as well. Into this classroom, because of the high concentration of a people of similar cultures, comes their habits, beliefs, practices, and celebrations along with the students. Valencia summarizes the history and characteristics of second language acquisition and then concludes chapter 4 with "General Policy and Practice Implications for Education," such as "One major goal of Chicano language minority education should be the development of the full repertoire of linguistic skills in English, in preparation for participation in mainstream classes" (113).

Valencia notes that children can learn more than one language at a time (95). What this means for the bilingual student Valencia explains in ch. 3. He notes that a model of "concurrent translation" using both languages at teacher's discretion was very successful and so was the preferred model in the U.S. "It soon became apparent, however, that this approach was not so successful in the context of public schools, with children from families with few resources" (123). The model was developed at an American school in Ge...

Page 1 of 8 Next >

More on Chicano Students...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Chicano Students. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:08, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701356.html