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First-hand experience
Umatilla teachers apply Mexico trip to everyday interactions
By ERIC FLORIP
The East Oregonian
October 28, 2008
Every year, thousands of immigrant families come into the United States with little or no background in English, tossing themselves into a sort of "sink or swim" environment.
Scott Smith knows how they feel.
The McNary Heights Elementary School reading coach traveled with 17 other Umatilla School District representatives to Morelia, Mexico, to brush up on their Spanish skills and absorb a bit of Hispanic culture last summer. Smith said he carried a Spanish-English dictionary with him the whole way.
"What Mexicans experience when they come here, I experienced that going there - not knowing how to talk to people," he said.
The trips, which included classes at Morelia's Centro Cultural De Lenguas, were part of an effort by the district to better prepare staff to interact with a Hispanic community that makes up more than half of Umatilla's student population. About 25 percent of the total population there speaks almost exclusively Spanish, said Umatilla Superintendent Heidi Sipe.
"One of the constant challenges in our district is trying to be certain that we are open to parents in our community," she said.
And with language classes too expensive, Sipe said, "we started to get creative."
The district first secured a $24,000 federal grant for the program. Participants then began preparing in February for their trip through an online language instruction program. They ate out at least once per month - usually at Mexican restaurants - to practice their Spanish conversation. That way, when the week-long trips finally happened in July and August, unfamiliar teachers were prepared with at least basic language skills, said David Lougee, an English-language instructor at Umatilla High School.
Travelers ranged from novice Spanish speakers like Smith to the more experienced, like fellow McNary Heights instructor Laura Broderick, who acts as the school's native language literacy coach and said she's taken two other month-long trips to Mexico before this summer.
On this trip, Broderick said she learned that for many Hispanic immigrants, English comes as a third language, not a second. In the Morelia area - where several current Umatilla students' families came from - children often speak a different native dialect in their homes, she said. They go to Mexican schools and use Spanish as an "academic" language, but usually leave it there at the end of the day, she added.
As a result, Broderick said some English-learning students struggle with Spanish instruction, too.
"Now I know why. It wasn't the mother language," she said. "They understood us in Spanish, but it was difficult to make that leap to teaching in Spanish because they didn't have enough background."
Broderick now teaches some Spanish vocabulary to her students to ensure they can follow along while learning English as well.
For Smith, the trip provided better conversational skills - a key change that's given him confidence to interact better with Spanish-speaking parents this year, he said.
"My receptive language is much higher now," Smith said. "My spoken language is not close, but I can understand if a parent is talking or having a conversation. I can pick up key words and have a pretty good idea ... before, I was pretty lost."
A little culture also goes a long way, Lougee said. Even something as simple as a greeting helps teachers make a better connection with parents they wouldn't otherwise get, he said. While some focus mainly on language, immersing oneself in Hispanic life and culture adds another crucial element, Lougee said.
"They go hand in hand," he said. "You can't have one without the other."
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