It was a Friday morning in Year 3 about fifteen minutes before morning recess. Fridays for my beautiful little seven year olds were usually a mixture of exhaustion after the week and excitement for the weekend. They had been working on a writing piece but I could see many were beginning to flounder. I think it’s time for a story. Once everyone was seated comfortably I began. The book was about a little fish asking for advice from various sea creatures: a whale, a seahorse, and a crab. We came to a page with an illustration of a jellyfish yet the text referred only to a “meduza”. I said to the class, “that’s funny, I wonder why the author has called the jellyfish a meduza… this makes me think of the Greek goddesses who has snakes for hair.” There were a few mythology experts in the room so I knew my comment wouldn’t fall on completely deaf ears yet the conversation took a turn I didn’t expect. One student went on to tell me that in her language, they “don’t call it a jellyfish, it’s a meduza.” The class erupted into conversation! “That’s what we call it in Spanish,” “Lithuanian too,” and “We call it a meduze in Romanian.” Before we could finish it was time for morning recess and the children shuffled out of the room enthusiastically discussing and comparing languages.
I wonder…
Twenty minutes later the students returned to the room to find a large sheet of paper covered with “jellyfish”. While they were at break, I had used a digital tool to individually translate “jellyfish” into all twenty five languages that the students in my class identified with. We had students that covered the spectrum of multilingual learners. Some were literate in their others languages, while some could speak only one or two words. Students crowded around the paper, pointing at their language, drawing comparisons, asking questions… here are some of their comments:
This experience burnt itself on my memory. The pride I could see in the eyes of these children – the joy they exhibited when Seeing and Sharing their languages was beautiful… I wanted to know more, I wanted this to be infused into my classroom practice, and I wanted for all teachers to be able to achieve this experience quickly and effectively…
This is the beginning of PerLinguas. It is exciting to see how far we have come but even more exciting seeing what might lie ahead… will you join me?