Litz Reflection

Being raised in a Mexican family, Litzy communicated in Spanish only for the first three years of her life. Her mother, an elementary school teacher decided it would be beneficial for Litzy to “master” Spanish since they have relatives who only speak and understand Spanish. With the goal of achieving bilingualism, Litzy’s mother did not introduce English until Litzy turned 4 years old; a year before entering school. Litzy’s mother, and stepfather tend to communicate in both languages often using Spanglish at home, but now at 11 years of age, and a soon to be a six grader Litzy has dominated the English language, putting aside what she had previously learned in Spanish. Litzy says that the only time she speaks Spanish is when she is communicating …show more content…
As I observed I thought she was an English Learner, and that maybe she was feeling insecure about her answers since her responses were repetitive, and short. The fact that the class demographic consisted of African-Americans and two Hispanics made me believe that maybe Litzy and her partner were not able to communicate properly; especially because I often tried to encourage Litzy to share her opinions, but I not successful. The second week of lab school, we decided to change everyone’s seat in order to meet every student’s needs. Litzy was placed next to Arely the other Hispanic in the class; we thought that having them sit together would help improve her English; to our surprise Arely spoke no Spanish, but then neither did Litzy. After being placed together Litzy began having discussions with Arely, and she was clear and detailed. Before changing Litzy’s seat she would keep quiet unless asked to participate, but after changing her seat she began raising her hand, having class discussions, and when called on she did not hesitate to share her response. Then I realized Litzy oral language skills were as good if not better than many of the students who were in the class. Now that I think about it, I believe that she was trying to avoid having to work with students who performed in a lower level than she did. During the break Arely would talk to every student in the class while Litzy only talked to Arely; I believe Litzy felt socially, and culturally connected to Arely since they were both Hispanics. The last week of school Arely stopped attending lab school, and Litzy began talking to some of her classmates, but even then she was conservative, and kept her distance. Overall I believe Litzy was trying to avoid speaking Spanish because on one occasion she told me about