Ms. Tocci is responsible for starting the new Peer Language program and decorating the halls of TJ with multilingual stickers. photo by Daniella Prime-Morales
New program aims to give multilingual students a better opportunity to understand content in their non-native language.
In recent years, the population demographics of Thomas Jefferson have changed significantly. Ten years ago, the school only had around 60% minority and bilingual students. That number has now jumped to 67.84% in 2024. With such a gradually changing student body, providing adequate resources for all students can be hard, especially for those whose first language is not English. Teachers and counselors at TJ have found a way to conquer this new issue through a new program called Student-Peer Language Helpers. These helpers aim to provide translation services for multilingual students and be a friendly face for students new to TJ.
Started by English teacher Meghan Tocci and counselor Maggie Kennedy at the beginning of this fall semester, the Peer Language Helpers program was created to help students new to not only TJ, but the country in general, adjust to learning material in a different language. Tocci first noticed the need for this program last year when she had a student she felt she wasn’t providing proper resources for, resulting in her constantly having to run things through google translate. Tocci had recognized that there are many multilingual students at TJ, and that many of them have a strong desire to help their friends who struggle with English. She felt that aspiration to help should be rewarded, so she brought the program up to her coworkers. Tocci said, “I just had that moment of, this is just not fair, and I recognize that as someone who has spoken English their whole life that I take for granted the experience of having my whole world be immersed in something I understand, and how dysregulating it probably feels to not only be in a setting where you may be missing some of what you’re hearing but you’re also being expected to deliver something in that other language, so I just started thinking, there has to be a better way.”
Tocci and her coworkers’ solution to this problem was creating a resource for these students that could allow them to recieve oral and written instructions in their native language while actively participating in class, rather than needing to wait until the teacher is done with other students to have instructions translated for them. They determined a great resource that could fix this problem was other students.
Multilingual students, mostly upperclassmen, were recommended by teachers at the beginning of the year to be these peer helpers. Other teachers who feel in need of a student assist of this kind can request one of these helpers that match their language needs by reaching out to both Tocci and Kennedy. The assist will then be an active translator and mentor for the student in need. The helper is chosen based on not only language needs, but also the skills they possess at a given subject, so there is even less of a chance for misunderstanding. These assists are students who excel not only academically, but are also leaders in the classroom and exceedingly sociable to their classmates. By having these helpers be older students, Tocci hopes to foster more of a community and have underclassmen feel more comfortable in a new environment by having someone with experience in a high school setting help them. She said, “my other hope in this is that students who are in the early stages of high school here can feel like they’re part of a community too and allow themselves to feel included in class, and so if they have a student assistant that is there for them, it’s someone they can look up to, the more that someone feels like they could ask questions and that’s just the baseline for how you open the door to grow.” This program is now listed as a class at TJ worth five credits, so not only does this help younger students develop skills in a second language and receive adequate education, but is also a good opportunity for assists looking to apply to college to demonstrate their skills in multiple languages.
Both Tocci and Kennedy saw the need for this kind of resource for students fairly recently, but even so, they were passionate about helping stop the problem before it grew. Tocci explained, “I think that you see so many stories of people who immigrate here, like, ‘my dad was a doctor in Thailand, and now he’s a grocery store clerk.’ People push the rhetoric of thinking that anyone speaking a different language doesn’t have the same abilities and that’s what breaks my heart, because I know what it feels like to sit in the classroom and feel stupid, and it sucks. So for someone to feel like that only because their ability to communicate is hindered to me is cruel. That doesn’t make school a safe or fun place to go, and school should be fun.”
There are many new students at TJ who do not necessarily lack the ability to demonstrate a skill; however, they lack the ability to communicate that they know how to perform the skill. The goal of these student assists is to help both the student and the teacher communicate what skills a student possesses, and what they may need help with. This way, students can feel like they are able to demonstrate their skills and not feel like they are unable to keep up with their peers because of a language barrier.
Tocci hopes to continue this program not only at TJ, but throughout Denver Public Schools. She believes an initiative like this can significantly help students all across Denver to further their education, and encourage them to pursue higher education as well. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a great solution to benefit the education of multilingual students. If a student at TJ is interested in becoming a language specific student assistant, they can talk to Tocci about becoming a part of this program.
