Draft

Is Bilingual Education Worth Implementing in Colombia?

Flora Lewis once said, “Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things but learning another way to think about things". It is in this sense that we are able to understand in a clearer way that this is a process in which we broad our cognitive reasoning. Therefore, one can say that the implementation of bilingual education may represent an advantage not only for learners to acquire a second language but also for them to learn from it. Since this type of education may have problems for its implementation in countries where there is not a high sense of importance for bilingualism, it is fair to wonder is it worth implementing in a country such as Colombia? Nevertheless, given its positive impacts in learners’ cognitive processes such as improvement of memory, acquisition, and reinforcement of language skills, and development of wisdom and creativity, it should be a question to be considered carefully.

As mentioned above, bilingual education improves learners’ memory and attention. When students are exposed to new knowledge, concepts, and experiences, they develop better process capabilities.  A study conducted at the University of Granada and the University of York in Toronto has revealed that bilingual children develop a better working memory than monolingual children do. Additionally, according to Sorace (as cited in Kamenetz, 2016) “Bilinguals can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in their ability to switch from one task to another”. However, there may be people who argue that learning specific content can be difficult, especially when there are not qualified teachers for teaching specific content through the target language, as it is the case of Colombia. Nevertheless, the use of both, first and second language may ease the learning processes when it turns hard. In this sense, the teacher can appeal to the first language to support some explanations; as Ellis (1985) points out, "the learners' first language is one vital determinant in the process of the second language learning".

As a second advantage, one can consider that bilingual education provides second language skills and, at the same time, it reinforces the ones of the first language. As the process of learning the first language works along with the process of learning a second, learners can link the two languages and in this sense make connections between them (Horst et al, as cited in Salmona, 2014). Therefore, they become aware of some aspects of their native language they did not know. On the other hand, the interference of the first language can be seen as a great problem because it may avoid the second language learning process from being as natural as the one for the native language. Nonetheless, the learners’ mother tongue can be a valuable contribution to the second language classroom. As Krashen and Terrell (1983) suggest, learners should draw upon their first language to fulfill the gaps in communication.

Finally, as a third argument, one can take into account that bilingual education encourages wisdom and creativity. A person who speaks more than one language has the capacity to find different solutions for a problem. Moore (2012) establishes in her study that “bilingualism can have demonstrable benefits not only in the language but in arithmetic, problem-solving and enabling children to think creatively”. In contrast, others may insist that bilingual education can hinder the learner’s ability to develop the skills that they need in other areas. In spite of that, learners who are prepared to adapt to the rapidly changing world will be much better equipped to face the problems of the future. In Bhattacharjee’s view, “speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world” (2012). 

Summing up, Bilingual education provides a range of advantages for learners. It not only involves acquiring a second language but also being able to function in two different languages and cultures. It provides the opportunity to enhance learners’ cognitive processes and the first language skills since some knowledge about the first language may be useful for the second language and vice versa. It also will prepare our learners to face the world and the problems of the future making use of a broader understanding of the world itself and the issues and circumstances. Even though bilingual education is a huge challenge, it is worth implementing in our Colombian classrooms.

References

Bhattacharjee, Y. (2012). Why Bilinguals Are Smarter. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=0

Ellis, R. (1989). Understanding second language acquisition (Vol. 31). Oxford University Press.

Julia Morales, Alejandra Calvo, Ellen Bialystok. Working memory development in monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2013; 114 (2): 187 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.09.002

Kamenetz, Anya. 6 Potential Brain Benefits Of Bilingual Education. nprEd How Learning Happens. 2016. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/29/497943749/6-potential-brain-benefits-of-bilingual-education

Krashen, S. D., & Terrell, T. D. (1983). The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom.

Moore, A. (2012). Bilingual Kids Better at Creative Thinking. Medical Daily. Retrieved from https://www.medicaldaily.com/bilingual-kids-better-creative-thinking-241752

Salmona, M. (2014). The Use of First Language in the Second-Language Classroom: A Support for Second Language Acquisition. Gist Education and Learning Process Journal, 2014; pp. 50-66. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1062663.pdf

Essay Outline

Question: Is Bilingual Education worth it?

Thesis: Implementing bilingual education may be a good strategy for improving the students’ learning process.

Introduction

• Hook/Topic sentence: "Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things but learning another way to think about things". Flora Lewis
• Background information: Using bilingual education within the classroom may represent an advantage not only for learners to acquire a second language but also for learners to learn from that second language.
• Thesis: Bilingual education provides many advantages related to students’ memory, acquisition of second language skills at the same time that the first language ones are reinforced, and students’ wisdom and creativity.

Body (1)

• Topic sentence: Bilingual education improves learners’ memory and attention.
• Supporting sentence: When students are exposed to new knowledge, concepts, and experiences, they develop better processing capabilities.
• Opposing opinion: Learning specific content can be difficult.
• Counter-argument: The use of both, first and second language may ease the learning processes when it turns hard.

Body (2)

• Topic sentence: Bilingual education provides second language skills and at the same time it reinforces the first language’s ones.
• Supporting sentence: The process of learning the first language works with the process of learning a second, which encourages development as well.
•  Opposing opinion: The interference of the first language represents a great problem.
• Counter-argument: The learners’ mother tongue can be a valuable contribution to the second language classroom.

Body (3)

• Topic sentence: Bilingual education encourages wisdom and creativity.
• Supporting sentence: A person who speaks more than one language has the capacity to find different solutions for a problem.
• Opposing opinion: This can hinder the learner’s ability to develop the skills that they need in other areas.
• Counter-argument: Learners who are prepared to adapt to the rapidly changing world will be much better equipped to face the problems of the future.

Conclusion:

Bilingual education provides a range of advantages for learners. It not only involves acquiring a second language but also being able to function in two different languages and cultures. It provides the opportunity to enhance learners’ cognitive processes and the first language skills.

Seventh Task

How to Critically Spot Fake News?

How do you think we can empower our Colombian students to critically spot fake news?

The society in which we currently live is one that exposes us to the events happening every minute around the world. That is possible thanks to the digital media we possess. However, having this digital media is not only an advantage but also it might be a disadvantage. That is to say, everyone can post on the internet whatever they want or claim something that may not be true. This affects us in terms of being exposed to news, events, discovers or facts that someone thought would be interesting to share even if they are not true. Therefore, we would go around taking as authentic something that is just fiction and living in nescience.

As Henry Giroux claims, students must learn to think critically and not just acquire an entire piece of information without questioning it. And that it is the teacher the one that should provide their students with the necessary tools for taking power and taking part in society. Besides, it is the teacher who should make their students understand that they are the ones with that power, that the future lies in their hands, and that a real, good change is possible when they are aware and have the understanding of their surroundings. Additionally, students must learn that knowledge is a social construction in which not only the teacher knows, but in which it is the teacher who along with their students constructs the knowledge.

Hence, how is it that we can empower our Colombian students to critically spot fake news? Well, as Peter McLaren sees it, the curriculum may be a form of cultural politics. In other words, it means that we can use the curriculum in helping students to learn to question and doubt, to learn to selectively appropriate the knowledge they are provided with. By doing so, students are acquiring foundations for transforming rather than for just being one more piece of a puzzle. On his perspective, Ira Shor establishes that "we build ourselves in a world that is building us. That world addresses us to produce the different identities we carry forward in life". That means that as society evolves and changes, we are also in constant change. Therefore, not only are we what we think we are but are we what we read, what we say, what we think, what we believe, what we know, what we watch and see, what we acquire, and what we do. And all those are provided by society, by our surroundings. Thus, it is remarkable that we teach our students to question critically, to look for answers, and to go beyond what a source or an author is telling us.

Sixth Task

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN DARK TIMES

According to Henry Giroux, education is surrounded by political, economic, and social structures. Pedagogy is related to politics because it remarks on the relationships among knowledge, authority, and power; with questions like who has control over the conditions for the production of knowledge. Regarding the cultural and social structures, pedagogy attempts to influence how and what knowledge are being produced and acquired within a certain context.

What Henry Giroux points out is the need for students to raise their voice and defend the university, to demonstrate that the university is important in a democracy. Students must get engaged in the importance of social issues, they must learn to think critically and not just acquire an entire piece of information without questioning it. However, for being capable of doing so, the beginning is the teacher. Teachers are the responsible ones for getting their students engaged in political, economic and ethical conditions, which they will use to think, question, doubt, and imagine.

The education we currently have is one in which students are getting prepared only for presenting exams and not for what is coming next in their lives. It is in this context where we live, where we have the opportunity and possibility to build a critical society in our own life. Nevertheless, the education is still in that lethargy where only a few have the advantage for going beyond. For Henry Giroux, pedagogy is the essential tool for eradicating this problem. He proposes a certain pedagogy in which students be social agents and learn from their own reality; in this case, one in which the student be the main character of their learning process and where the teacher does not have the control, but they learn along with the students. This pedagogy is about the teacher being in a continual learning process with their students and understanding that there is not paramount knowledge but the one they find out and build together. 

Summing up, education has real power because it is through it that individuals become critical. It is only when students look from a critical perspective of what is going on in the world that they are able to reflect and work on the gaps between learning and everyday life.

Stereotypes

STEREOTYPES

Every day and everywhere we can find ourselves listening to some stereotypes. Whether we like it or not, stereotypes are part of our lives and they are a way in which society is shaped. As we are either classified or classifying others into categories, in a certain way, we are playing along with those stereotypes and make them stronger. Therefore, it is up to us believe or not what society has established for certain behaviors and ways of thinking. To a certain extent, those categories may be annoyed for the people involved due to the fact that they might be false or they are just an exaggerated version of the truth. On the other hand, they might make people laugh because they are nonsense.

We are the responsible ones for making stereotyping grow, not only when we contribute to creating them, but when we take them as the absolute truth without questioning them. We have grown up in a community where it is normal to define people because of the groups they have been classified as part of. Consequently, stereotypes can damage the image of a person just because according to that person's behavior they are part of a group or community which is not well accepted. 

In the particular case of Colombia, people all around the world have many stereotypes and misconceptions about what Colombia and Colombian people really are. Whenever a Colombian goes abroad they will find with people's rejection because people from other countries believe that we all are drug dealers or that our country is very dangerous due to the thieves and guerrilla fighters. Those are two of the main wrong stereotypes about Colombia, we Colombian people neither go around taking a drug bag with us nor is Colombia a dangerous place to live in. In that way is how a few people screw up the image of a whole country. However, there are also some stereotypes that although they are not bad, can make feel people uncomfortable or out of place. For instance, when people think that every Colombian must dance very well like Shakira or that we all must be good Salsa dancers. Another stereotype is the one that makes people think Colombia just has good and beautiful beaches. Well, for some people it may be a surprise to find out that not every Colombian likes dancing and that in Colombia there are many beautiful places aside from the beaches.

On the whole, stereotypes are a way in which we may think we can recognize and categorize a person into a group, but that does not mean those characteristics are true for everyone in a group. That is why it is important to get to really know different cultures instead of just believe what we hear or what we perceive about them.  

Critical Thinking skills

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Opinion Column: My patients are dying. But it's their right to keep going.

By: Isaac Shan

Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-patients-are-dying-but-its-their-right-to-keep-fighting/2018/08/24/487c71ba-809a-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ba13b464e9de

Explanations:

• I am watching a 68-year-old man fall apart. He has been through five different types of chemotherapies, yet his kidney cancer continues to grow and metastasize, spreading to different organs. He now sits hunched in his wheelchair. With his worsening diarrhea, and sores in his mouth, he no longer eats with pleasure. Sleeping a few hours without pain has become a luxury.
• I have been talking to him about palliative care, how focusing on reducing symptoms instead of treating his cancer directly can provide him relief.

Position:

• He believes what will help him live longer is more chemotherapy.

Argument:

• This leaves me in an uncomfortable state: caught between my medical recommendation to pursue less aggressive care and my patient’s primal desire to rid his body of cancer.

Description:

• She is only 34 years old, but after two rounds of chemotherapy, her youth is steadily leaving her. 

Disagreement:

• I have been speaking to her and her husband about palliative care since the diagnosis, but they admit they do not really hear these conversations. All they hear is the loud drumbeat of what the next chemotherapy will be. 

Conclusion:

• These cases are not unique in medicine. The biggest lesson I have learned is that our role is to support our patients so that they can have the dignity to make these difficult choices and feel empowered to make their own paths, no matter how frightening the decision may be.

Reasons given to support the conclusion:

• Aggressive treatments, such as more chemotherapy, are not going to cure these two patients. Therapy aimed at controlling their symptoms will help them live their remaining days more comfortably. Meanwhile, we still struggle with one of the primary challenges of modern medicine: end-of-life communication.
• Many physicians encourage early palliative care for terminally ill patients, to make the process of dying less painful, more cost-effective and patient-focused. But if the patients are not ready, instead of feeling relief, they may experience this advice as abandonment. 

Introduction:

• Isaac Chan is a medical oncology fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.
  “Dr. Chan, please, please keep me alive a little longer and God will surely bless you.”

Author's consideration of opposite arguments:

• Many physicians encourage early palliative care for terminally ill patients, to make the process of dying less painful, more cost-effective and patient-focused. But if the patients are not ready, instead of feeling relief, they may experience this advice as abandonment. 

Summary:

• As a young oncologist, I confess I am not an expert in balancing aggressive treatment with preserving quality of life. But it is clear to me that end-of-life care is not checklist medicine. It is not just about statistics or studies. Achieving true shared decisions is an interactive process that takes time and engagement, leading to mutual trust. It is about continuously setting honest expectations for what is possible and making sure all parties truly understand what the consequences are likely to be. Sometimes what our patients need most is just more time: time to accept the terminal diagnosis and time to grieve and hopefully to find peace. Part of our guidance involves agreeing on the personalized therapies, be it “aggressive care” or more symptomatic control, that can deliver that meaningful extra month, hour or minute.

LECTURE: CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING BY STEPHEN BROOKFIELD - SUMMARY

CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING

For starting with his lecture, Dr. Stephen Brookfield made a biographical disclosure in which he told his audience about his academic process and how he was not prepared enough for going on to an undergraduate program. 

He believes a good teacher is someone who enters a classroom and sees what is valuable for them, then, adapt it to their own setting. Besides, he considers that who we are as teachers is significantly framed by who we have been as learners, which means that the way we teach is linked to the way we learn. And how we as teachers, that have been in the students' position before, can understand many problems students may be through.

He also points out that the freedom to control the direction and the pace of where we are going is important for the student because it feels as though they are in charge of the learning process and therefore they will do better. At that moment is when he talks about experiential positions for carrying out activities or being in charge of students that have the same problem the teacher had had before since that teacher knows how it feels to be in that situation.

Aside from that, he mentions the trust that is built between instructors and students and the relational dimension of teaching and learning. He explains that this dynamic is important since when a teacher asks their students to do something they are afraid to do, that teacher entails thinking creatively and critically.

Dr. Brookfield believes that...

someone who thinks critically can...

• Identify the assumptions behind thinking and actions.
• Check assumptions for accuracy and validity.
• Tale informed action.

Someone who thinks creatively is able to...

• View ideas and practices from multiple viewpoints, which means that person moves outside of their habitual typical mental framework.
• Generate interpretations, perspectives, and responses different from the usual mode of thought or practice. 
• Communicate through a variety of different ways. 

In this way, on the one hand, he perceives critical thinking as the focus on understanding and checking out assumptions. And on the other hand, creative thinking as the ability to look at things from multiple viewpoints and have multiple responses to familiar ideas or practices.

A critically and creative informed action is...

• One based on evidence/experience that can be justified.
• One that has its assumptions known and checked.
• One that stands a chance of achieving its intended consequence.
• One that has been viewed from multiple perspectives.
• One that is enacted via multiple modalities.

Kinds of assumptions

• Causal: this one explains a consequence.
• Prescriptive: this one tells how things should happen.
• Paradigmatic: this one has to do with common sense.

4 key intellectual traditions

• Analytic philosophy: logical fallacies; argument analysis; inductive, deductive, analogical, inferential reasoning.
• Natural science: hypothetical-deductive method, principle of falsifiability.
• Critical theory: uncovering power dynamics and ideological manipulation.
• Pragmatism: experimental and creative pursuit of beautiful consequences.

What most helps your students to think critically and/or creatively?

• Instructors modeling.
• Critical incident questionnaire.
• Assumption inventories.
• Ending presentations, discussions, and exercises with questions.
• Chalk talk - Visual discussion.