Evangelina Brignoni

Teacher Education

National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE)

Bilingualism for all was the overall message of this year’s NABE conference and the workshops that I attended fully supported that goal. In this conference summary, I will be highlighting three separate events that inspired me to continue my scholarly pursuits in the area of bilingual education.

Plenary Keynote Address by Donaldo Macedo, PhD
Beyond the language juggernaut: It’s biliteracy that counts

On Thursday, February 6th, Dr. Donaldo Macedo passionately spoke to the NABE attendees of the complexities and challenges educators face in bilingual education. As I was listening to Macedo’s plenary keynote address, I was reminded of two axioms I believe in: Being an educator is a political act. However, deciding to become a bilingual educator is an even more daring political act.

That morning, I wrote quickly the words Donaldo spoke. Some of the key points that this distinguished lecturer made include:

• As bilingual educators, “the challenge we have – the use of English to hide raw racism via high stakes testing.” This was the juggernaut or destructive force that woke me up that very morning. I asked myself, “How complacent have I become to not speak up enough against high stakes testing for English learners?” By not speaking up, how complicit am I? How complicit have school districts become? In this challenge, Donaldo Macedo continues, “We cannot be complicit – we cannot be neutral – that is taking a position.” He adds, “Learning English is not a neutral activity. Test scores can now neglect a borrowed reality.” In addition, he shared that to speak in English only is a sign of cultural subordination.
• Dr. Macedo shared that “Voice is a human right”. He asked bilingual educators and educators of English learners to “create pedagogical structures to allow voice to emerge.” This statement speaks to the work that I currently do in my teacher education courses and I hope that this one phrase will inspire my pre-service teachers and graduate students to create the structures for honest oral discourse.
• Bilingual teachers in dual language immersion programs should remind students about social justice, democracy, and change by weaving these notions into the curriculum. That was a challenge or a reminder to us in the audience.

I end this recap of Dr. Macedo’s inspirational keynote speech by sharing how he encapsulated his talk. He concluded that there is always Hope. Hope has two daughters – Anger and Courage. As critical educators, we should get angry and have the courage to dare to change.

As a footnote, Dr. Macedo is an invited speaker for the PTO conference that will be held at UNO in May 2008. I recommend that everyone listens to his passionate oratory.

Honoring Our Immigrant Roots: Learning from Family Histories
Workshop presented by Shelly Wong, President Elect TESOL 2007-2008

This workshop was a valuable one for me to attend because of the notion of people are situated in historical events and history repeats itself. Dr. Wong methodically compared the treatment of immigrants in two different natural disasters, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to Hurricane Katrina. In this workshop, she reminds me of the grand narrative stories of the capitalistic entrepreneur versus the micro story or lesser-known story of the immigrants. Every human being is situated in historical context and this workshop supported that. When studying immigration trends, Dr. Wong presented a problem-posing question, “Why do people come to the United States?” By asking this question in a classroom, we can begin the dialogue and sensitize our students to the immigrant story. Dr. Wong did this in her workshop as she shared her own Chinese American story via family pictures, books, posters and power points. I left encouraged by her work and will read the reference she provided the attendees. Displaying and making public family stories helps to perpetuate pride in our history and identify the universal themes all people share. To conclude this very important presentation, Dr. Shelly Wong challenged us to reflect, dialogue and transform, “How can we make that knowledge serve the community?”

Thursday’s Award Luncheon
A Student Essay Award
Proud to be Bilingual by Jessica Hua, a 10th grader from
Aloha High School in Beaverton, Oregon

Listening to bilingual students share their essays is a highlight for me at these conferences. Jessica Hua wrote her speech in English and Vietnamese and I was very impressed with her words because they came from her own personal experiences. As Jessica left the ballroom with her mother, I told her how impressed I was with her speech and asked if I could share her words with my university students. She was honored by my request and consented. I am including just two paragraphs, the opening and the closing ones.

“Let’s begin by going around and introducing ourselves,” Ms. Caverzan said to us as we all squashed into a circle on the mat. By the time it was lunch, we second graders all scrambled into the lunchroom, desperate to find a seat. As I took out my lunch-box and opened it, Omar yelled, EW! What is that? It looks like brains!” and all heads turned to me and laughed.”………..

……“Some people can sing, some can do back flips, some can break-dance, or be an all-state athlete. Well, I can speak another language! Having two dialects has benefited me with allowing me to appreciate my culture, associate with my family, and just feeling darn good about myself. So beat that, Omar. My wonton soup can beat your typical baloney sandwich any day. And, I bet you don’t have a second language or another characteristic to “spice” up your life as I do!”

The content of her speech enriched my perspectives on bilingual students and I was never more proud to be a bilingual teacher as I was that day listening to Jessica’s speech.

My concluding remarks

For me, this was a very important conference to attend. It re-energized my purpose, it challenged my assumptions, and recharged my batteries. There is more to share but I selected the moments that I will never forget.

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