We are at the grocery store and my daughter starts to run away, I yell after her "Thea, kom her nu" and other Danish after her until she comes running back. As I turn back to the cash register I notice the glance from the cashier and I think, "Yes, I am foreigner too." Being a Dane with every stereotype personified (tall, blonde) in America means people in general do not realize that English is not my first language. While this is a blessing most of the time, it always astounds me how much of that perception is based on my looks and my name. I married into a big farm name in this area so my last name "Ripp" means most do not give me a second glance even after stumbling through my first name, which is as about as typically Danish as one can get.
I also do not have an accent. An early gift from my mother was living in San Francisco at the age of 6 and being thrust into a 1st grade classroom not speaking a single word of English. Directions were mimed and friendships were formed through glances and lots of hand movement. Perhaps this is why I speak so much with my hands now? Either way, research shows that children pick up the native accent if they are exposed to a language before a certain age and I happen to fall into that category. So when most people discover that I am indeed fresh off the boat so to speak, there are two reactions: "Wow, I had no idea" or "Oh, I thought I heard an accent" (to which I always think, no, you didn't).
So why am I bothering share this story? Because it made me think of how we treat students who may be a higher level ELL (English Language Learners). Those non-native speakers that speak so well that we forget that English is not their first language. We generally remove our support in the classroom, expecting them to do just as well as their English-first speaking peers and then are surprised when sometimes they don't. We get fooled by their conversational language and perhaps even their academic one, and then do not understand why their written work may be not as strong or another academic area.
So as I think of my own experience as an ELL student, I recognize my own need to re-support those students that may "sound" just fine. Those students that are very strong but are still learning. After all, although we are all still learning, when something is not your native language it does add another exciting dimension to your progress. So enough with my own assumptions, I must not forget about the whole history of the child and not just their present day status.
