Category: Why become a teacher?

Award-winning master’s student researches immigrant mothers’ experience of their children’s language loss

Willow Iorga

Willow Iorga (MEd’22) was recently awarded one of two Spring 2022 Associate Dean’s Graduate Student Thesis Awards. Willow is currently an Employment Instructor (just promoted to Team Lead of Work Experience and Employer Relations) with the Open Door Society, where she teaches newcomers Canadian workplace skills. She has a BA in geography and an after degree in elementary teacher education, both from the University of Regina. Willow’s award-winning thesis is entitled, “The Immigrant Mother’s Experience of Their Children’s Heritage Language Loss.” What follows is Willow’s research story:

Willow grew up on Pender Island, BC, located off the west coast of Canada, on a 3-acre organic farm/garden. When she was 11, her parents introduced her to world travel, selling their Pender Island property and traveling to Hawaii, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan and Australia. “We backpacked and camped a lot,” says Willow, “Sometimes I liked traveling, but a lot of times I missed my friends back in Canada.” In Australia, Willow experienced a foreign school system. “It was really different, we had to wear uniforms, it was a lot more strict, they taught Japanese instead of French as a second language, and I was really behind in math,” she says.

It wasn’t so much these younger childhood experiences, however, that have given her insights into what it feels like to be a newcomer, informing her current work and research with newcomers. Willow points to living in Quebec in her late 20s as an experience that really helped her feel what it is like not to speak the language of the context in which one lives. “We were living outside of Montreal and no one spoke English and I was in language classes .… In my French classes, I couldn’t understand anything, unless they translated into English, I was just so lost all the time in that class. I know how confused and lonely that period in Quebec was.”

What led Willow to her research topic, immigrant mothers’ experiences of their children’s heritage language loss, was an experience teaching at the Regina Immigrant Women’s Centre, where the majority of her students were Syrian refugee mothers. Willow says, “They would come to class part time, all were homemakers, responsible for taking care of the children and cooking. They had virtually no time to do homework or practice outside of the class. It was a real struggle to make any progress. When we would chat we would use Google translate to communicate, so we could have real conversations. A lot of them would tell me that their kids were starting to forget Arabic. The kids were put into the school system, into ESL classes, and they were forgetting how to speak Arabic. I wondered, ‘How on earth can they have children that don’t speak the same language?’ cause they can’t communicate in English at all, how can they communicate with their kids? That’s why I chose this topic.”

Due to ethical considerations, Willow did not conduct her research with these particular mothers, but she had relationships with newcomer co-workers and peers who participated in her research. Willow’s findings include the following:

  • Language is fluid. It can be learned and lost at any age, by any family member, depending on their environment and whether one is using their language or not.
  • English quickly becomes the dominant language for newcomer children no matter how much reinforcement they receive at home.
  • Even if kids share a language, they will convert to English rather than their home language.
  • Online resources are important resources that parents can utilize in maintaining their children’s language. “For example, when I asked what mothers did to maintain their child’s language, they all used YouTube channels that they had their kids watch,” says Willow.
  • A lack of shared cultural framework can create a divide between mother and child.

What impressed Willow during her research is a story that a Chinese-speaking participant told her: “Her daughter was in Grade 4 or 5, and a new student who came from China joined their classroom. The teacher sat two Chinese Canadian girls next to the newcomer, to help the new student. But the girls couldn’t understand the newcomer. Even though they all spoke Chinese and understood the words, the context didn’t make sense,” says Willow. This story showed Willow how “language evolves and it is really dependent on context and culture. It’s not just the words.”

The recommendations coming out of Willow’s study target schools and administrators, settlement agencies, and the Government:

  • Schools and school administrators should move toward more inclusive linguistic policies in the classroom.
  • Settlement agencies should move toward more inclusive linguistic policies.
  • Governments should allocate greater resources towards language heritage centres and education.

Willow explains her use of “inclusive linguistic policies” saying, “In my research I found that as a teacher you don’t have to know, speak, or include the child’s language in the classroom. Your attitude alone toward that language can determine whether the student retains it or not. A lot of classrooms and workplaces have English-only rules.”

When asked what she hopes will be the outcome of her research, Willow responded, “For a lot of teachers to change the way they approach language; there are a lot of misconceptions, such as children need to know English to be successful and English needs to be dominant. If you have two or more languages, it is better for your brain development.”

As for future plans, at this point, Willow doesn’t plan to pursue a PhD. For the past four years, she has been a busy mom, full-time instructor at the Open Door Society, part-time teacher at the YWCA, and a master’s student, as well as while a student working as a teaching assistant or research assistant; she is now looking forward to some rest and a slower pace. That decision may or may not sit well with her dad, Dr. Patrick Lewis, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Regina, who was a major influence in her decision to pursue a career in the field of education (and also influenced her to take a thesis-route master’s program). Willow says, “When I was little, I would go to school with my dad who was a teacher, and then I would have to wait after school until he was done his prep work at the end of the day. I was always in his classroom. And when I had to do co-op hours for the career and personal planning program in high school, I always did those in my dad’s classroom.” Another influence was her teaching assistant work with Dr. Fatima Pirbhai-Illich, a professor of language and literacy education at the University of Regina. Willow says, “While I was a geography student, I was a teaching assistant for about 3 years and Fatima had a SSHRC grant and we were doing a pretty big project at Cornwall Alternative School. I was in the classroom a lot with the kids.”

After her geography degree, Willow earned a 2-year elementary education after degree. What Willow enjoyed about her after degree program in education was the internship and field experiences because, she says, “Instead of doing a degree with an idea in your head about the career, you get to be in that environment and decide if you actually want to be in that environment. I was in a Grade 2 class for my internship, and I really didn’t like it. I love kids but I don’t love trying to get them to do math, or be quiet at assemblies, or not hit each other on the playground.” When she graduated, Willow did not chose to apply to teach in a K-12 school system. She says, “You can do so many things with an education degree. There are so many possibilities; you don’t have to be in the K-12 system. I applied to settlement agencies to teach English with adults. When I started teaching I was assigned students who had really low English levels, the majority were refugee women from Syria or Sudan … I did have literacy skills from the elementary program but adult brains are pretty different. So I ended up going back to do my master’s.”

What makes education significant enough to choose a life career in it? Willow says, “I enjoy it. It’s that simple. You have to work your whole life and you have to spend your time doing something, and teaching is something that, no matter what, it’s always enjoyable, always different. I can always change things, and renew things. You have so much creative control. If I’m bored of something, I can change what we’re doing this week.”

 

Why become a teacher? To be a role model

A story can be told about each of Education student Nahanni Evelyn Rose (Adams-Lindberg)’s names, which is not surprising when you consider that she was named by her mother, Carol Rose GoldenEagle, the 9th poet laureate of Saskatchewan. She was named after the Nahanni River located near Yellowknife, in Canada’s beautiful North West Territories (NWT). Yellowknife is where Nahanni spent her early years until the end of Grade 6, when her family moved to Saskatchewan. “Nahanni” is a Dene word that means “strong rock,” referring to a large rock that juts out of the Virginia Falls on the Nahanni River. Nahanni herself is a mix of Cree and Chipewyan (Dene). Her middle name, Evelyn, was given to her after the Evelyn Falls in the NWT. Given the meaning of her names and a childhood lived out in Yellowknife, it is little wonder that Nahanni loves to spend time in the outdoors and to hike.

Nahanni feels little connection with her current last name Adams-Lindberg. Adams is the name of the family who raised her mom after she was scooped in the 60s. And Lindberg is the family name of her father, who left when she was very young. “I still have a close relationship with my dad, but my name has no significance to me; that is why I want to change it to Rose, which has more meaning.”

Rose was name of the family’s first pet dog, adopted when they relocated to Saskatchewan. The significance of the name Rose, says Nahanni, “is that there are four letters in the word and there are four people in our family. Roses are beautiful but they have some thorns, like we have.”

Rose, the pet, brought their family together through the hardships they experienced after moving away from Yellowknife and through the difficult financial and emotional time while Nahanni’s mom, Carol, transitioned from being a journalist with CBC to a full-time artist/writer. Carol had been working on her first novel, Bearskin Diary, on top of her regular job and single parenting while the family lived in Yellowknife. But after a friend who had deferred his dreams until retirement passed away, Carol decided not to put off working on her art.

A year or so after settling down at Regina Beach, Carol left her job with CBC to establish herself as an artist. Nahanni says, “We ended up getting poorer at first. I know what it is like to grow up without money. But it all paid off in the end.” Nahanni points to the struggles faced by their family as showing, “what it’s like being raised by a single mom from the 60s scoop.” The difference being, “My mom ensured we grew up with a loving mom, something she never grew up with, a mom. I am living a happy life regardless of the obstacles my family has faced—we always make it out strong.” This outcome aligns with the oft-repeated family mindset of “Everything is going to work out.” And it has. Carol is now a successful published novelist, poet, playwright, visual artist, and musician and Nahanni is on her way to her chosen profession: teaching.

Growing up in Yellowknife was a great experience for Nahanni: “I loved it! I grew up with my brothers, grew up on the back rocks, playing outdoors, in the bush.” Nahanni is the twin sister of her younger brother (by 11 minutes) Danny, and the younger sister of Jackson. “It was like growing up with your best friends. They really looked out for me and made sure I was included,” says Nahanni.

Comparing her schooling experiences in Yellowknife to Saskatchewan, Nahanni says, “In Yellowknife, the students were mostly Indigenous. We didn’t see each other as colour; we saw people as their personalities. We were also taught Indigenous culture in our curriculum with activities like sewing class and a hunting class where teachers and Elders would take us out to the bush to learn how to snare rabbits and to dry meat. When we moved here, I felt like it was Danny and I, probably two out of the five Indigenous people in the school. It was hard making friends here. I’m just happy that I had Danny, he was kind of my best friend. I felt like I didn’t get bullied a lot. It took adapting to a new environment to learn who I am and I am happy in my place in life. I didn’t experience racism the way my mom did, but I felt that people did judge me by my look and not my personality.”

A couple years after moving to Regina Beach, however, their family became accepted as “locals” in the small town, and life became easier. “Now I work at the Beach Bar and I’m a local and everyone knows me,” says Nahanni.

When the time came for choosing a career, Nahanni couldn’t decide. “When I graduated high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do at all,” she says. It wasn’t until she turned 21 that Nahanni took steps towards deciding on a career. She made a pros and cons list for a variety of career options, and education was the option that stood out for her. “It checked off all the boxes: I’m good with people, love kids, and I want to be a good role model. I want kids to grow up with someone who actually cares because I feel like I’ve had teachers in the past, where some cared and some didn’t. I could see myself as a teacher who cares. Something inside of me spoke to me: ‘Be a teacher.’ You just get those gut feelings.”

While many of her family and friends affirmed and encouraged her choice to become a teacher, Nahanni remembers specifically one of her Lumsden high school teachers, Ms. Winter, who was a great influence on her. “She was the one who paid close attention to me; she built that student-teacher relationship. She made me feel seen and heard. Ms Winter would say, ‘Your mom raised you well’ and ‘You’re a good kid.’ That made me feel seen as an individual who is capable, able to do things, even if I didn’t understand something right away.”

Nahanni considers her older brother Jackson a role model as well because he tutored her throughout high school in math: “Jackson was patient even when I was frustrated. He would calm me down and encourage me.”

Being a role model is why the teaching profession is so significant; Nahanni says, “We are the educators that need to be there for students, not just as a job, but as they develop. A teacher should be someone that students look up to for the rest of their lives. Someone who is a role model. I want to be a role model.”

Nahanni chose the University of Regina (U of R) for her elementary teacher education program for several reasons: She wanted to stay in Regina because it was close to her mom and her twin brother. Nahanni adds, “I thought it would be a great place to study. I had heard from friends and friends of friends that this education program is the best in Canada.”

Her experience at the U of R has been positive. Nahanni says, “I love it. I was first accepted into the Faculty of Arts. I didn’t get into the Faculty of Education, I think maybe because I was a bit late sending in forms. I took three classes in the Arts program that all transferred over into my education program.”

The next year Nahanni was accepted as a transfer into the Faculty of Education. “I was so happy. It was the best thing ever. I called my mom and my dad and I cried and danced. It was a lot of emotion. I was alone in my house. I am really happy. It all worked out. That mindset of when I was a kid—I stay true to that today. Everything will work out,” she says.

A major obstacle Nahanni had to overcome to go to University was her tendency toward procrastination. Nahanni says, “I kept making excuses and putting it off, telling myself I was going to apply. Mom and Jackson kept saying, ‘Just apply!’ Jackson on a daily basis asked ‘Have you applied yet?’ One day I just did it because I didn’t want him asking me anymore. The next time he asked, I could say, ‘I did it already.’”

As advice to others considering becoming a teacher, Nahanni says, “Just put in your application. Don’t make excuses and see where it goes. Who knows, it might change your life. If you’re nervous or scared, that’s the point where you push yourself a little, because you know you want to become a teacher. I was nervous, too, afraid I wasn’t good enough to be a university student. Now I don’t think that at all. I know I can do it.”