Power of Language

You might hear students complain and ask, “Why is studying language so important?”

I'm here to tell you how you can answer this question without just saying” because it is, or it’s

just something we have to learn.” According to Leonardo De Valoes a faculty member at Trinity

University, Language impacts the daily lives of members of any race, creed, and region of the

world. Language helps express our feelings, desires, and queries to the world around us.” (De

Valoes, 2015). We use some type or form of language to communicate every single day of our

lives, whether it being through body, sound, or movement. In order to successfully communicate

you should be able to understand what you are communicating and where it came from. Without

language, we would struggle to communicate. Language is a critical skill for well-educated

children of our future. When it comes down to it communication is Key, it is our duty as

educators to shape the minds of our students, What we need to keep in mind that these students

could be key pieces to our future whether they become doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers, or

any type of person within the workforce.

According to David Bloome who wrote the article Language and Education. ” Students

learn to read and write (academic written language), and they learn the discourse of academic

disciplines (sometimes called academic languages and literacies). Both definitions of language

are important for understanding the relationship between language and education.” (BLOOME,

2011) As an Educator, we need to understand that we need to make sure we prepare out Students

and help them to be able to successfully communicate out in the real world and without an

academic written language and academic languages and literacies.

In my classroom, I will make sure to include a very thorough lesson on language. I feel

that it is so important for all educators to reinforce what the students have learned and to teach
them new things as they develop my student's language. I also plan on having posters around the

room with key ideas around language. Finally, I will have a daily discussion on either a rule on

grammar or syntax or a word of the day. To make sure the students stay excited about our daily

discussions I will be offering prizes including treats and extra credit points to the groups who

have the most thoughtful participation, who knows some days all the groups will get it! My goal

is to keep students engaged!

According to the Committee for Economic Development, or CED, “US Secretary of

Education Arne Duncan has stated, ‘We must improve language learning and international

education at all levels if our nation is to continue to lead in the global economy; to help bring

security and stability to the world, and to build stronger and more productive ties with our

neighbors.’” (Committee of Economic Development ). This just shows how important the

development and the power of language is. We need to make sure we do not fail our students, or

our future and make sure our students have a well-developed idea and knowledge of language.

The best time for our students to learn this is from first to third grade. This is the time where our

students have the best intake for learning. From that point on we should be focusing on Helping

students retain previous knowledge and slowly introducing new information along the way.

As a future teacher, I think I have more of an ethical imperative to teach children to

understand language. We live in a world where so much of our communication depends on the

language. We also live in a country with multiple languages and cultures. I think it is our duty as

teachers to help our students the ability to succeed out in the real world and without a clear

understanding of the language, it will cause them to struggle. Every day we speak, read, write

and communicate. With the lack of these abilities, we would not be able to function in life. Our

whole world revolves upon language and communication It would be ethically wrong not to
teach our students the proper knowledge they need to be successful in the world, and in order to

be successful in they need to have an understanding of written, and spoken language.

 Resources

BLOOME, D. A. V. I. D. (2011). Language and Education - Learning Language, Learning through

Language, Learning about Language, African-American Language and Classroom Education.

Retrieved December 16, 2019, from https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2154/Language-

Education.html.

Committee of Economic Development . (n.d.). Language Learning in the 21st Century. Retrieved

December 16, 2019, from https://www.ced.org/events/single/language-learning-in-the-21st-

century.

De Valoes, L. (2015). Protected: Order – September 14, 2015 @ 04:09 PM. Retrieved December 16,

2019, from https://discover.trinitydc.edu/continuing-education/2014/02/26/importance-of-

language-why-learning-a-second-language-is-important/.