27
By Will McClelland | 04/24/19 4:30am
In 2011, then-ASU masters in education student Tracey Flores was teaching a writing workshop to a group of English-language development elementary students and their families in Glendale when she had a powerful realization.
It was one thing to teach students how to write, she said, but it's especially powerful to enable whole families of English-learners to communicate with each other, their communities and with educators.
Flores, now an assistant professor at University of Texas at Austin, has adopted that eureka moment into her work with El Puente, a program at the University that pairs student-teachers with adults trying to improve their English communication skills.
"I am really interested in the sharing of stories and how that builds community and how it can open spaces in schools for advocacy and empowerment, not just for the families, but also for the teachers and communities," Flores said.
Once a week, the student-teachers go to a local elementary school where they meet one-on-one with their adult learners. The students make the lesson plans, but the adults choose topics that fit their
individual needs, such as conversational English, grammar or
idioms.
Flores said the large Hispanic population in Austin means many people face language barriers in their day-to-day lives. She said El Puente aims to bridge those gaps between the English and non-English speaking communities.
There are more than 84,000 predominantly Spanish-speaking households in Austin, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There are around 153,000 in Phoenix.
Flores said some parents, who were enrolled in El Puente through a collaboration with The SEED program, are able to learn how to become comfortable engaging with their child’s teacher despite language barriers.
She describes the relationship between the student-teacher and the adult as a “partnership”, which she said is an important lesson for the student-teachers to take into their own future classrooms.
To read more on this click here.