Challenging Difficult Circumstances: Appreciating Identities in the Neighborhood, the Classroom, the Home, and the Natural World in Fourth Grade

Abstract

This chapter describes a 4th grade English language classroom in a poor suburban context in the city of La Plata in Argentina. It was a difficult context characterized by poverty, unsatisfied basic needs and lack of family support. The children were familiar with linguistic and cultural diversity as several of them had Bolivian, Paraguayan or Brazilian backgrounds and spoke Guarani or Quechua at home in addition to Spanish. English was consequently a third additional language for many of them – a language they had just begun to learn at school. The teacher fostered participation and reflection by engaging children’s creativity and imagination in addition to their linguistic resources in all available languages. In this way, the children developed a sense of self and identity as their languages, backgrounds and interests were valued and appreciated in the classroom. Furthermore, the teacher encouraged them to act against what they considered unfair, oppressive and unjust. In this case, the children chose to protect animals and the environment by denouncing hunting and polluting practices in the local area.