Students Breaking Language Barriers

<figure id="attachment_41025" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41025" style="width: 671px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-41025 " src="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/19576900_101588…; alt="" width="671" height="503" srcset="https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1957690… 1024w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1957690… 300w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1957690… 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 671px) 100vw, 671px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-41025" class="wp-caption-text">Wednesday, June 28, members of the Binational Migrant Education Program and CABE met in Tecate, Baja California, to discuss strategies of a language acquisition program. Photo/Marinee Zavala</figcaption></figure>

In California, 1.4 million students suffer the cultural shock of arriving to a country from which they have no knowledge of the education system and language.
Although that problem exists in a smaller proportion in Baja California, more than 57,000 students already register with this condition, which forces them to adapt to new educational protocols in Mexico after studying for years in the United States.
“It was frustrating because the communication part of my English class was easy, but I was failing Spanish, chemistry, geography, and other classes because of the language barrier,” Erika Lopez, a student in Mexicali, Baja California said.
The Binational Migrant Education Program and the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), through strategies from the Guided Language Acquisition Design project (GLAD), are working to end this problem and demonstrate the collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. in an effort to more effectively integrate students into the school systems.
Most students involved in the programs are now living in Mexico as a result of parental deportations or because their parents chose to move back to Mexico due to a lack of employment opportunities because of their legal status in the U.S.
“The State’s education system has a method to support these families and children, and in California we have the CABE program, which we need to put into practice in school districts,” Jan Gustafson Corea, executive director of CABE said. “So that when they are faced with a new system and situation, they have support from the school and district to help their children succeed in the future. It really is a global job, in relation to the community, the school and home.”
State Coordinator for the Binational Migrant Education Program Amparo Lopez said 98 percent of those students are United States citizens; and although some know how to speak Spanish, they do not possess the skills needed at an academic or professional level to succeed in Mexico.
Students who are registered directly into the program have support systems and it is easier to keep track of how they adapting as opposed to those who register directly to schools, Lopez said.
California is a leader in bilingual education having passed Proposition 58, which repealed an English immersion requirement that was in place since 1998, allowing schools to implement multiple programs to educate “English Learners” like bilingual education.
“What really matters is how the teacher is preparing to work with these students, because many times when they arrive in Mexico they speak more English than Spanish or when they arrive to California, they speak more Spanish than English,” Gustafson Corea said. “Teachers should be prepared to help students wherever they are.”
<figure id="attachment_40965" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-40965" style="width: 371px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-40965" src="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/19551749_101588…; alt="" width="371" height="278" srcset="https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1955174… 2048w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1955174… 300w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1955174… 1024w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1955174… 768w" sizes="(max-width: 371px) 100vw, 371px"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-40965" class="wp-caption-text">Students who enter directly into migrant education programs can be helped more effectively than those who enter directly into schools.</figcaption></figure>
In contrast to Mexico, the U.S. has students known as “English Learners” but the strategies used to educate them differentiate among States and classifications are determined not only on their country of origin but also their parents’ first language.
During the 2014-2015 school year, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that nearly 4.6 million students in the United States were “English Learners.”
Corea said there needs to be a strong collaboration between both countries and Mexican teachers need to have a better understanding of the U.S. school system.
The Baja California Department of Education is working with organizations in the U.S. like California Association for Bilingual Education to adequately train Mexican teachers on how to educate those students.
“It is about the ability to certify a group of teachers here in Baja California and to also implement these strategies within our classrooms, remember there are a lot of students coming from outside, most of them are Mexican American,” Mario Alberto Benitez Reyes delegate of the State Educational System in Tecate, Baja California.
Reyes said learning the language is not the only challenge, they also have to adapt to the culture and school systems in Mexico.
In the Mexican school system, students either attend a morning session from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or an afternoon session from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Lopez said it can be a strange transition for students adapted to attending school in the morning in the U.S.
Because a large percentage of those students are U.S. citizens, it is likely they will eventually move back to the States and will need to become proficient in the English language.
Lopez said students who gained some level of education in the U.S. before moving to Mexico have an advantage over those who did not because if they return to U.S. they will be completely bilingual and bicultural.