Building a Culturally Responsive Classroom, Part 1

First let's talk about the components of a culturally responsive classroom and why that should be your goal, then we can talk more about the how-to's.

According the Powell and Rightmyer in their book Literacy for all Students, the curriculum in culturally responsive classrooms is designed to do the following:

• make explicit links to student' cultural knowledge
• affirm students' identities
• prepare students to understand multiple perspectives 
• involve students with real-world, relevant issues in order to empower them to transform their communities

Creating a culturally responsive classroom will create an inclusive environment in which every student is respected and set up for academic and social success. As Powell and Rightmyer tell us, "Students whose language, ethnicity and race are not represented in the school's dominant culture experience varying degrees of success in school" (p. 127). As educators, we want our classrooms to represent the language, ethnicity and race of all of our students so that they feel an integral part of the culutre of your classroom.

But Can Your ESL Students Understand You?

One term that ESL teachers and researchers often use when talking about instructing ESL students is guarded vocabulary. Yesterday, I posted a video link to Stephen Krashen talking about comprehensible input and how important it is that your students be able to understand you. One way to help with this is by using guarded vocabulary, so I wanted to explain the term a little more so you can be sure to implement it in your classroom.

According to Herrera and Murry in their book Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods, guarded vocabulary does NOT involve "unnatural speech or raising the volume of instruction" (p. 275) but rather involves " linguistic actions on the part of the instructor that increase the comprehensibility of instruction" (p. 275). So what does that mean? What are these linguistic actions? Well here are some ideas...

• Slowing the rate of speech
• Emphasizing word enunciation
• Simplifying the vocabulary used. In other words, stating things as simply as possible
• Using more consistent vocabulary with appropriate repetition (songs, raps, chants, etc)
• Using shorter sentences with simpler syntax
• Inserting more pauses between phrases

I hope these ideas are helpful and you are able to implement some of them right away! First, try making some observations about your speech and see which of these ideas your students could most benefit from. 

Sending the "Right" Message

Stephen Krashen maintains that people acquire language when they can understand the message. You may have heard the term comprehensible input but are wondering what it means and how you can use it with your ESL students. Here is a short video where Stephen Krashen explains and demonstrates comprehensible input. If the concept of comprehensible input is new to you, I think this video will really help clarify!

25 Online Games for English Language Learners

Check out this blog post at http://broadyesl.wordpress.com for some great ideas for games to teach and review English!

http://broadyesl.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/25-terrific-online-games-for-english-language-learners/

Welcome to My Blog!

A short podcast I created to welcome you...

Ways to Involve Parents in Your Classroom

"Strong parent involvement is one factor that research has shown time and time again to have positive effects on academic achievement and school attitudes" (Ovando & Collier, 1998)

If you are looking for a way to increase achievement among your English Language Learners, and students in general, then make room for them to volunteer in your classroom. Realize that some of the parents of your ESL students may work multiple jobs in order to provide for their children and may be intimidated by the school environment. These are possible reasons why parents may not volunteer, so don't assume it's because they are disengaged or indifferent to the child's education. When parents are able to volunteer, here are some ways they can contribute:

• Setting up learning centers
• Working with projectors, recorders, listening posts
• Sharing about their culture
• Accompanying small groups to the library
• Recording primary-language stories
• Supervising individual testing

Tips for Choosing Appropriate Materials for Use with English Language Learners

Diaz-Rico and Weed, in their book The Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook, give the following tips on how to choose appropriate material for your English Language Learners. The two most important questions to ask are these:

• Are the content objectives for the lesson adequately presented by the material?
• Is the material comprehensible to English learners?

How do you know if it's comprehensible to all students? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the information accurate, up-to-date, and thorough?
• Are the tasks required of students appropriate to the discipline?
• Is the text clearly organized, with print and layout features that assist students' comprehension?
• Does the text appeal to a variety of learning styles?
• Is the language of the text straightfoward, without complex syntactic patterns, idioms, or excessive jargon?
• Is new content vocabulary clearly defined within the text or in a glossary?
• Are diagrams, graphs, and charts clearly labeled and complement and clarify the text?
• Will most of the students have prior experience with the content, or will much time be necessary for schema building?

These questions are attributed to Allan & Miller, 2005)

I know all of these questions may seem overwhelming but hopefully they just give you some ideas for how to look at your materials with fresh eyes, taking all of your learners into consideration.