For Searingtown students, speaking another language is a point of pride. Now it’s also something they can point to on the school’s walls, thanks to the Searingtown Language Board.
“It’s nice that the school acknowledges every language and that they’re happy to accept all the languages,” said fourth-grader Leon Ahmed, who speaks Slovak.
Students who speak or understand a second language other than English can choose to put their names up on the Searingtown Language Board, which is hung prominently in the hallway near the cafeteria. Teachers and students say it has given students the chance to celebrate their heritage, knowledge and culture while also spurring educational conversations.
As of May, at least 33 languages are represented by the names of dozens of students on the board.
“This school has so many students and families that speak a great number of languages. Several students speak not just one additional language to English, but two,” said Stefanie Vespoli, a reading specialist at the school. “I felt like it would be such a wonderful way to celebrate the linguistic diversity at our school and a way to highlight the students’ strengths and a way to build connections between new families and existing families.”
“I feel good when I see the board,” said third-grader Mehran Hussain. “Walking to get to lunch, I can see it, with my friends’ names under Spanish and my name on there under Bengali.”
Vespoli and school social worker Kathy Wong said the board has grown organically over the school year since it’s been up. Students who speak different languages ask to add their names as they walk past and enjoy learning that other students speak their language, they said.
“We’ve seen, on multiple occasions kids stopping at the board to either find their name or to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know this person also speaks the same language as me and then making connections that way,” Wong said.
She said the board has also provided learning opportunities for students about their own and other languages.
“There were many students who also didn’t know that there are dialects under one language,” Wong said. “For example, Chinese. So I had to follow up and ask, ‘When you say you speak Chinese, is it Mandarin? Is it Cantonese? Is it another dialect?’ And some students said, ‘I just speak Chinese.’ It was a learning opportunity for them to also understand that there are dialects under each language, which was pretty cool.”
“It’s nice that students and staff can see that there’s not a monolith. There are differences that we need to be sensitive to and understand,” Wong added. “It opens up conversations about history and about how families came here. It just really forms that deeper relationship that we’re looking for at our school.”
For some students like Jessica Liu, it’s even helped them connect with new friends who share a language with them that they wouldn’t have otherwise met.
“It helped me know some other students who speak the same language as me, which was helpful,” said Liu, who speaks Mandarin and moved into the district this year.
“It’s a special way to tell other people that you speak this language or that language,” she added. “It’s a very special way of communication and getting to know other people and other teachers.”
Some teachers like Gulnoor Khwaja say this board is exactly what they wish they had when they were in school.
“I grew up in a multilingual home where my parents communicated in Urdu. My father spoke to us in Uzbeki, and my mom spoke to us in Farsi,” Khwaja said. “Now I get to connect with so many of my students, and I think that really gives them a sense of belonging, which I really didn’t have growing up on Long Island.”
“I think the beauty of language is that no matter where you are, it gives you the opportunity to connect to different cultures and people, whether it’s locally in my community or traveling abroad as well as in the classroom,” she added.
Students will continue to be able to place their names on the board until the end of the school year and when they return in the fall.
