Scholars 6 | - Freelance Writer
Apr 24, 2018 | #1
Multicultural education is a necessity in the 21st century, as the racial and ethnic makeup of public schooling has changed significantly in the past couple of decades. We are no longer in a situation in which teachers can merely teach as if everyone is the same, and that a student's cultural background is not of importance. Students come to school with prior knowledge and linguistic referents that are significant and hold that student's well of information about the world, and though he or she cannot express this in English, it is imprudent, at best, to dismiss it.
Dewaele reports that students-all humans, in fact-respond differently when confronted with a language not their own. Some gravitate to the new language, find it invigorating, and learn it quite easily. Others tend to avoid contact with the new language or those who speak it, preferring to have primary contact with their own linguistic communities. A learner's feelings and attitudes toward the target language are significant, and must be taken into account if a student is to be fully engaged and be fully effective in learning the target language. One of the ways in which this can occur is for teachers to become bilingual themselves.
Spanish is a common language among immigrant children, since most immigrants to the US are of Hispanic heritage. Even those who are from countries like Brazil, where Portuguese is the national language, can benefit from a teacher knowing Spanish, as Portuguese is very similar in structure and vocabulary to Castilian Spanish, or what is commonly referred to as "Old Spanish." Children from Central America, Latin America, and south America all speak Spanish or derivatives of Spanish though the accents and dialects may be quite different from each other. A teacher whose native language is English but who also has an understanding of Spanish can quickly engage Spanish-speaking children, especially those at lower levels down to preschool.
The National Association of Bilingual Education has developed an action plan aimed at the education of bilingual learners. Among other things, NABE recommends that, in order to close the historic gap between non-native speakers and their native peers, which has often resulted in a rate of more than 50% dropout among non-native speakers, children who are non-native speakers be taught using their own language to learn academic concepts while learning English. Cummins, Thomas and Collier and Thomas and Collier conducted studies that show that not only does literacy development in a child's native language facilitate literacy learning in a second language, but that the learning gap is most effectively narrowed or closed when enrichment forms of bilingual education that provide instruction in both languages throughout the elementary years are implemented. In this model, teachers who have no or little knowledge base of the language and culture of these students are ill-equipped to provide the best education for their students. In order to provide it, a school must then look to outsiders or those others in the building who have that kind of linguistic fluency, ultimately costing more and forcing staff reduction times in other areas of the school.
The purpose of this research is to determine whether bilingual teachers who speak both languages at school are more effective in preparing their students than those who are not. Effectiveness can be measured in a variety of ways, from student satisfaction to test scores to, in a longer-term study, whether these student acquire the necessary information to perform well at higher levels without intervention. If one could track these students through all 12 years of their schooling (or more, if they are in preschool), one could learn how this kind of teacher preparation and linguistic effectiveness could impact the graduation rates of children who came to school as immigrants.
It stands to reason that the more mainstream multicultural education is, the more likely it is that obstacles to that education are removed and that students from varying racial and ethnic/cultural backgrounds feel that they can progress just as any native speaker can. Jay and Jones found that when schools and teachers examine their own multiculturalist tendencies, they move from what the authors see as "celebratory multiculturalism" to "critical multiculturalism." When schools and teachers are critically multicultural, school decisions in curricula and policy become more universal in their application, and the trickle-down effect in communities of color change to reflect less bias toward the school and teachers.
One of the ways in which this can be addressed effectively, according to Caruthers is to educate teachers by allowing storytelling among the faculty of the school, so that the school can truly become multicultural. This is done by presenting opportunities to and allowing teachers to engage with each other in dialogue, stories and inquiry so that on multiple layers of communication, they can begin to understand each other and develop sensitivity for all of the meanings inherent in the communication of "the other." With sensitivity comes openness. With openness comes the dropping of barriers to learning, for the teachers first, and ultimately for the students in their charge.
Some believe, of course, that students have a right to their own language. If language is a basis for, or a background to, who we are as individuals and as cultural groups, then it is crucial to students, as a matter of course and as an entry point into the new culture and new language, to be able to depend on that background for learning new material. Traditionally, that is the way in which education has been structured. One moves progressively from easier material to more difficult material, with the goal of mastery in mind. When mastery is removed, as when one's language is removed, the student, who may well understand the concepts being taught, will have to begin again as a novice. This does an incredible disservice to the child and to his or her future, because time will have to be spent teaching what is already known, rather than moving that student toward mastery and progress in the ways in which native children do. Kinloch discusses this, and the 1974 NCTE resolution that declares a student has a right to his or her own language, and that by honoring that language we positively benefit that child as well as others and the community at large.
There is also benefit seen from the other side. In schools where there is a large population of non-native speakers, there is significant intermingling among students, both native speakers and non-native speakers. Those who are native speakers of English benefit from these exchanges, learning about other cultures as they learn about themselves. As students become empowered to see things from different perspectives, all education becomes more powerful (Carter). Success in school depends on more than just mastery of academic content; one becomes equipped to enter into the larger adult world when one is conversant with, and understanding of, those whose backgrounds are clearly different, and whose perspectives are not always the same as those of native speakers. One is able to give and take, negotiate, and come to basic understanding with others much more easily when there is shared commitment to multicultural exchanges and a familiarity with the culture from which a person comes.
Elementary students have a preference for collaborative activities over those which are individualistic, passive, or competitive (Johnson). This natural preference is most suited to multicultural education-students enjoy helping each other, particularly in the early grades, and as students interact, they naturally learn from each other, not just academic tasks but about what it means to get along, to work with others who are different, and to understand the roles that people play in groups. When language is not a barrier to this kind of collaboration, there is no difference in these collaborative groups and those made up of native speakers except for the cultural possibilities that are inherent in such groupings. Thus, it can be seen that multicultural groupings are in fact not only preferred, but that they carry with them some advantages in multicultural settings that other collaborative groups do not. A teacher with some facility as a linguist can help this process, further enhancing the effect. In this kind of situation, everyone wins-the collaboration works, the students learn and the teacher is much more effective as a leader and also as a learner.
Even when teachers themselves are not bilingual, there are things that they can do to enhance multiculturalism and diversity in their classrooms. Nieto and Bode offer many suggestions in their text for affirming diversity in the classroom. One of these suggestions is to become informed, and a related on is to understand and be open about what one does not know. These are the very basic first steps to becoming truly multicultural. Merely having students from many cultures in one's classroom does not make one multicultural. To the contrary, multiculturalism means being informed about one's students, who they are, what they know, how they learn, particularly if their ways of knowing and learning are different from the teacher's own experiences. Trust between a teacher and his or her students is an important variable in student achievement. When one is not informed, and does not display any curiosity about the students' cultures, there can be no real trust that develops naturally between the teacher and the students. Anyone who has taught for any length of time knows this. Nearly everyone has had a teacher who knew the student's family members, their father's occupation, the names of household pets, for example. There is a sense of security in that for young students-a teacher who cares to know those things must like me, they think, and then the attitude toward learning is affected, and a deep trust develops. It is the same with all students. When a teacher is informed and open, students will try harder and will have confidence that they will learn.
Other suggestions that Nieto and Bode make are to use the curriculum critically, enliven the environment (collaborate!), create inclusive disciplinary practices, and promote family and community outreach. An effective teacher may also show respect for student differences, research family finds of knowledge (someone always knows something others don't know), accept students' identities and languages, and expand perspectives of success. It is all of these ways that we become inclusive, and inclusiveness is the core goal of multiculturalism in the schools.
I am a preschool teacher, and have students who come to school with no English skills. Even the ones who are native speakers, at this age, are not fluent in English. This is the perfect place for engaging in multicultural instruction, bit conceptually and linguistically. I believe that, as mentioned above, students have a right to their own language. To strip them of the very basic abilities which they have, and to expect them to come to school and speak only in a language that they don't know makes the task of educating the effectively and efficiently nearly impossible. I can see that, through the school years, student's who are continually penalized for not speaking English well would not then ultimately graduate-by that time, school will have become a place where who they are and what they know is not valued, not is their culture. Passing from teacher to teacher, when the teachers are not prepared for them, would be deeply discouraging, and make schooling something that is seen as not for them. It is a double bind: they don't do well in school, because what they may know isn't valued, and because they don't do well in school, others pass them and it all becomes an exercise in futility, making them do less well in school that they may have done had their language and cultural identity been recognized, respected, and incorporated into what schooling means for them.
The suggestions made by Nieto and Bode are significant. My first responsibility as a teacher is to be informed and to take responsibility for what I don't know. It is important for me to have a classroom that is free of obstacles to learning, including linguistic ones. It is important for me to know that the curriculum is sometimes biased, and I need to always be watchful for that. It is important for me to expand what I consider success, to honor those who are different, not just linguistically and culturally, but in all ways. It is important for me to collaborate with other faculty in gaining an understanding of who our students are, to talk frequently about our students and their cultures, and to apply what I have learned from others in my own classroom. It is important for me to be fair in discipline, to straddle multicultural boundaries whenever I can.
Most importantly, it is requisite that I learn another language, in my case, Spanish, since most of my immigrant students are of Hispanic heritage. By understanding their language and culture, I am truly a teacher for them too, just as I am with my native speakers. When there is no difference, when I can teach in either language effectively while helping my non-native speakers acquire academic concepts as they learn English, we will genuinely have a multicultural classroom, full of engaged students, full of students who trust that the school is deeply interested in them and that the communities from which they come are valued, as is their own heritage and skill.
In any classroom, the teacher makes a huge difference in his or her students' lives. I do not choose who my students are, not do I choose what language they speak, or what cultural experiences they may have. I do, however, choose how I respond to that. I can, as some teachers do, ignore all of that and complain all year that my students just "don't get it." Conversely, I can enter into their world jut as I expect them to enter mine, trusting that we can learn from each other, trusting that the students are people of good will who are ready to respond to school in the ways that students typically respond. How well that goes is completely up to me.
REFERENCES
Cummins, J. Interdependence of first- and second-language proficiency in bilingual children. In E. Bialystok (Ed.), Language processing in bilingual children (pp. 165-176). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nieto, S. and Bode, P. (2008). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. 5th ed. Pearson Education.
Thomas, W.P. & Collier, V.P. Assessment and evaluation. In C.J. Ovando & V.P. Collier, Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in multicultural contexts (2nd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P. A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, University of California-Santa Cruz.
Dewaele reports that students-all humans, in fact-respond differently when confronted with a language not their own. Some gravitate to the new language, find it invigorating, and learn it quite easily. Others tend to avoid contact with the new language or those who speak it, preferring to have primary contact with their own linguistic communities. A learner's feelings and attitudes toward the target language are significant, and must be taken into account if a student is to be fully engaged and be fully effective in learning the target language. One of the ways in which this can occur is for teachers to become bilingual themselves.
Spanish is a common language among immigrant children, since most immigrants to the US are of Hispanic heritage. Even those who are from countries like Brazil, where Portuguese is the national language, can benefit from a teacher knowing Spanish, as Portuguese is very similar in structure and vocabulary to Castilian Spanish, or what is commonly referred to as "Old Spanish." Children from Central America, Latin America, and south America all speak Spanish or derivatives of Spanish though the accents and dialects may be quite different from each other. A teacher whose native language is English but who also has an understanding of Spanish can quickly engage Spanish-speaking children, especially those at lower levels down to preschool.The National Association of Bilingual Education has developed an action plan aimed at the education of bilingual learners. Among other things, NABE recommends that, in order to close the historic gap between non-native speakers and their native peers, which has often resulted in a rate of more than 50% dropout among non-native speakers, children who are non-native speakers be taught using their own language to learn academic concepts while learning English. Cummins, Thomas and Collier and Thomas and Collier conducted studies that show that not only does literacy development in a child's native language facilitate literacy learning in a second language, but that the learning gap is most effectively narrowed or closed when enrichment forms of bilingual education that provide instruction in both languages throughout the elementary years are implemented. In this model, teachers who have no or little knowledge base of the language and culture of these students are ill-equipped to provide the best education for their students. In order to provide it, a school must then look to outsiders or those others in the building who have that kind of linguistic fluency, ultimately costing more and forcing staff reduction times in other areas of the school.
Purpose of the Research
The purpose of this research is to determine whether bilingual teachers who speak both languages at school are more effective in preparing their students than those who are not. Effectiveness can be measured in a variety of ways, from student satisfaction to test scores to, in a longer-term study, whether these student acquire the necessary information to perform well at higher levels without intervention. If one could track these students through all 12 years of their schooling (or more, if they are in preschool), one could learn how this kind of teacher preparation and linguistic effectiveness could impact the graduation rates of children who came to school as immigrants.
Bibliographic Results
It stands to reason that the more mainstream multicultural education is, the more likely it is that obstacles to that education are removed and that students from varying racial and ethnic/cultural backgrounds feel that they can progress just as any native speaker can. Jay and Jones found that when schools and teachers examine their own multiculturalist tendencies, they move from what the authors see as "celebratory multiculturalism" to "critical multiculturalism." When schools and teachers are critically multicultural, school decisions in curricula and policy become more universal in their application, and the trickle-down effect in communities of color change to reflect less bias toward the school and teachers.
One of the ways in which this can be addressed effectively, according to Caruthers is to educate teachers by allowing storytelling among the faculty of the school, so that the school can truly become multicultural. This is done by presenting opportunities to and allowing teachers to engage with each other in dialogue, stories and inquiry so that on multiple layers of communication, they can begin to understand each other and develop sensitivity for all of the meanings inherent in the communication of "the other." With sensitivity comes openness. With openness comes the dropping of barriers to learning, for the teachers first, and ultimately for the students in their charge.
Some believe, of course, that students have a right to their own language. If language is a basis for, or a background to, who we are as individuals and as cultural groups, then it is crucial to students, as a matter of course and as an entry point into the new culture and new language, to be able to depend on that background for learning new material. Traditionally, that is the way in which education has been structured. One moves progressively from easier material to more difficult material, with the goal of mastery in mind. When mastery is removed, as when one's language is removed, the student, who may well understand the concepts being taught, will have to begin again as a novice. This does an incredible disservice to the child and to his or her future, because time will have to be spent teaching what is already known, rather than moving that student toward mastery and progress in the ways in which native children do. Kinloch discusses this, and the 1974 NCTE resolution that declares a student has a right to his or her own language, and that by honoring that language we positively benefit that child as well as others and the community at large.
There is also benefit seen from the other side. In schools where there is a large population of non-native speakers, there is significant intermingling among students, both native speakers and non-native speakers. Those who are native speakers of English benefit from these exchanges, learning about other cultures as they learn about themselves. As students become empowered to see things from different perspectives, all education becomes more powerful (Carter). Success in school depends on more than just mastery of academic content; one becomes equipped to enter into the larger adult world when one is conversant with, and understanding of, those whose backgrounds are clearly different, and whose perspectives are not always the same as those of native speakers. One is able to give and take, negotiate, and come to basic understanding with others much more easily when there is shared commitment to multicultural exchanges and a familiarity with the culture from which a person comes.
Elementary students have a preference for collaborative activities over those which are individualistic, passive, or competitive (Johnson). This natural preference is most suited to multicultural education-students enjoy helping each other, particularly in the early grades, and as students interact, they naturally learn from each other, not just academic tasks but about what it means to get along, to work with others who are different, and to understand the roles that people play in groups. When language is not a barrier to this kind of collaboration, there is no difference in these collaborative groups and those made up of native speakers except for the cultural possibilities that are inherent in such groupings. Thus, it can be seen that multicultural groupings are in fact not only preferred, but that they carry with them some advantages in multicultural settings that other collaborative groups do not. A teacher with some facility as a linguist can help this process, further enhancing the effect. In this kind of situation, everyone wins-the collaboration works, the students learn and the teacher is much more effective as a leader and also as a learner.
Even when teachers themselves are not bilingual, there are things that they can do to enhance multiculturalism and diversity in their classrooms. Nieto and Bode offer many suggestions in their text for affirming diversity in the classroom. One of these suggestions is to become informed, and a related on is to understand and be open about what one does not know. These are the very basic first steps to becoming truly multicultural. Merely having students from many cultures in one's classroom does not make one multicultural. To the contrary, multiculturalism means being informed about one's students, who they are, what they know, how they learn, particularly if their ways of knowing and learning are different from the teacher's own experiences. Trust between a teacher and his or her students is an important variable in student achievement. When one is not informed, and does not display any curiosity about the students' cultures, there can be no real trust that develops naturally between the teacher and the students. Anyone who has taught for any length of time knows this. Nearly everyone has had a teacher who knew the student's family members, their father's occupation, the names of household pets, for example. There is a sense of security in that for young students-a teacher who cares to know those things must like me, they think, and then the attitude toward learning is affected, and a deep trust develops. It is the same with all students. When a teacher is informed and open, students will try harder and will have confidence that they will learn.
Other suggestions that Nieto and Bode make are to use the curriculum critically, enliven the environment (collaborate!), create inclusive disciplinary practices, and promote family and community outreach. An effective teacher may also show respect for student differences, research family finds of knowledge (someone always knows something others don't know), accept students' identities and languages, and expand perspectives of success. It is all of these ways that we become inclusive, and inclusiveness is the core goal of multiculturalism in the schools.
Applications
I am a preschool teacher, and have students who come to school with no English skills. Even the ones who are native speakers, at this age, are not fluent in English. This is the perfect place for engaging in multicultural instruction, bit conceptually and linguistically. I believe that, as mentioned above, students have a right to their own language. To strip them of the very basic abilities which they have, and to expect them to come to school and speak only in a language that they don't know makes the task of educating the effectively and efficiently nearly impossible. I can see that, through the school years, student's who are continually penalized for not speaking English well would not then ultimately graduate-by that time, school will have become a place where who they are and what they know is not valued, not is their culture. Passing from teacher to teacher, when the teachers are not prepared for them, would be deeply discouraging, and make schooling something that is seen as not for them. It is a double bind: they don't do well in school, because what they may know isn't valued, and because they don't do well in school, others pass them and it all becomes an exercise in futility, making them do less well in school that they may have done had their language and cultural identity been recognized, respected, and incorporated into what schooling means for them.
The suggestions made by Nieto and Bode are significant. My first responsibility as a teacher is to be informed and to take responsibility for what I don't know. It is important for me to have a classroom that is free of obstacles to learning, including linguistic ones. It is important for me to know that the curriculum is sometimes biased, and I need to always be watchful for that. It is important for me to expand what I consider success, to honor those who are different, not just linguistically and culturally, but in all ways. It is important for me to collaborate with other faculty in gaining an understanding of who our students are, to talk frequently about our students and their cultures, and to apply what I have learned from others in my own classroom. It is important for me to be fair in discipline, to straddle multicultural boundaries whenever I can.
Most importantly, it is requisite that I learn another language, in my case, Spanish, since most of my immigrant students are of Hispanic heritage. By understanding their language and culture, I am truly a teacher for them too, just as I am with my native speakers. When there is no difference, when I can teach in either language effectively while helping my non-native speakers acquire academic concepts as they learn English, we will genuinely have a multicultural classroom, full of engaged students, full of students who trust that the school is deeply interested in them and that the communities from which they come are valued, as is their own heritage and skill.
In any classroom, the teacher makes a huge difference in his or her students' lives. I do not choose who my students are, not do I choose what language they speak, or what cultural experiences they may have. I do, however, choose how I respond to that. I can, as some teachers do, ignore all of that and complain all year that my students just "don't get it." Conversely, I can enter into their world jut as I expect them to enter mine, trusting that we can learn from each other, trusting that the students are people of good will who are ready to respond to school in the ways that students typically respond. How well that goes is completely up to me.
REFERENCES
Cummins, J. Interdependence of first- and second-language proficiency in bilingual children. In E. Bialystok (Ed.), Language processing in bilingual children (pp. 165-176). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nieto, S. and Bode, P. (2008). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. 5th ed. Pearson Education.
Thomas, W.P. & Collier, V.P. Assessment and evaluation. In C.J. Ovando & V.P. Collier, Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in multicultural contexts (2nd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P. A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, University of California-Santa Cruz.