Tuesday, September 16, 2008
ELL and Diversity
I feel that diversity is extremely important in classrooms. There are many forms of diversity and I know that it was not until high school when I realized that diversity was more than having multiple races in one classroom. Each person adds to the diversity of the learning environment, and I think that it the students know that, they will be more willing to share ideas. I think that if students know that I value what they say then they will be quicker to start to respect each other. I feel no different about an ELL student than I do about other students. They all have something to contribute to the group. I would encourage them to share with me and the other students as much as possible about their own culture and ideas. Depending on the language skill of the student, this could be difficult or fairly easy. No matter the skill though, it could increase literacy of the ELL student and encourage conversation among the other students. I really agree with Gibbons on combining the subjects. Having an ELL student could allows me to do a geography lesson or a lesson on other cultures due to questions that they have incited in other students during conversation. Literacy can definitely be added as well such as write down your own family culture, family tree, family story, etc. You can also expand your classroom library to include books on other cultures and assign each student or group of students and different one to report to the class about. I want everyone to feel welcome in my learning environment, and I feel that since diversity is important it is worth spending some time on. Also, if the students feel welcome and bring that home to their parents, then their parents will feel more at ease coming to me. Having a good relationship with the parents will only help me more in understanding the child’s zone of proximal development and how to help them individually the most. It will also help me to have an ally at the student’s home that will continue to encourage the student and reinforce what I am trying to accomplish.
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2 comments:
Caitlin,
It also took me until high school to realize that diversity was more than just race. As a future elementary school teacher, would you try to get students to realize this before then? And, how would you plan on doing this if you were in a non-diverse classroom? I think it is great that you plan on treating ELL students as equals, but from reading this concept seems hard to make the students feel included since many have trouble understanding their classmates as they begin developing English skills. I also agreed with Gibbons that combining the curriculum with language learning is a very affective teaching method. I liked how you discussed the importance of the relationship between teacher and parents. I think many people overlook how important this relationship is to helping the students, especially in ELL families. How do you plan on doing this? I know I want to make sure my student’s parents will feel comfortable with me and address any concerns or questions they have. I also think this teamwork will help the student’s learning by having a whole team of support.
Jessica
Caitlin,
I think you are definitely right about involving parents in the classroom; I know that is something that I often overlook in my focus on the students themselves.
But I wonder what we as teachers will do if parents are not accessible or if children themselves do not want to share any information about themselves. As you said in your post, diversity is a multi-faceted concept, so it isn't necessarily limited to ethnicity and family trees...but for instance, what should we as teachers do if we have a large number of refugee children in our classrooms and we have a unit on racial diversity? (i had worked at a refugee center in Lansing this summer; i hadn't realized what a high percentage of refugees come to the lansing school district).
in that case, what topics would we cover and what topics do we stay away from? again, more fine lines :)
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