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We, as teachers, should believe that . . .

1. Teachers and teacher educators must respect all learners and themselves as individuals with culturally defined identities.

2. Students bring funds of knowledge to their learning communities, and, recognizing this, teachers and teacher educators must incorporate this knowledge and experience into classroom practice.

3. Educators need to model culturally responsive and socially responsible practices for students.

4. All students need to be taught mainstream power codes/discourses and become critical users of language while also having their home and street codes honored.

5. Teaching is a political act, and in our preparation of future teachers and citizens, teachers and teacher educators need to be advocates for and models of social justice and equity***

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Preamble

As public intellectuals and agents of change, we recognize that English teachers and teacher educators are complicit in the reproduction of racial and socioeconomic inequality in schools and society. Through critical, self-reflexive practices embedded in our research and our teaching, we can work against racial, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic inequalities by creating humane classrooms where students and teachers learn to use language and literacy in critical and empowering ways.

Toward these ends, we have assembled a document that states our beliefs and recommendations for action. This document is built upon our values and democratic sensibilities in addition to a generation of literacy research conducted via multiple methods on cultural and linguistic diversity inside and outside of schools.

Structure and Scope of the Document

We intend this document to provide teachers and teacher educators with a philosophical and practical base for developing literacy classrooms that meet the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse learners. Accordingly, we will first briefly enumerate our eight principles and then follow with a more detailed discussion about and expansion of each principle, particularly in terms of what each means for literacy and literacy education classrooms. This expansion includes an unpacking of the belief followed by a chart of suggestions and resources for K-12 teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. Although not comprehensive-given space and time, we could have easily added more ideas and resources-this document represents what we consider to be a minimum philosophical outline for supporting learners whose cultures and language fall outside the boundaries of mainstream power codes. Additionally, all suggestions made for teachers and teacher educators, with some adapting, can work in nearly any classroom.

Eight Beliefs for Supporting Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners in English Education

We believe that . . .

1. Teachers and teacher educators must respect all learners and themselves as individuals with culturally defined identities.

2. Students bring funds of knowledge to their learning communities, and, recognizing this, teachers and teacher educators must incorporate this knowledge and experience into classroom practice.

3. Socially responsive and responsible teaching and learning requires an anthropologically and ethnographically informed teaching stance; teachers and teacher educators must be introduced to and routinely use the tools of practitioner/teacher research in order to ask difficult questions about their practice.

4. Students have a right to a variety of educational experiences that help them make informed decisions about their role and participation in language, literacy, and life.

5. Educators need to model culturally responsive and socially responsible practices for students.

6. All students need to be taught mainstream power codes/discourses and become critical users of language while also having their home and street codes honored.

7. Teachers and teacher educators must be willing to cross traditional personal and professional boundaries in pursuit of social justice and equity.

8. Teaching is a political act, and in our preparation of future teachers and citizens, teachers and teacher educators need to be advocates for and models of social justice and equity.

The Beliefs Expanded

Belief 1: Respect for All Learners
Teachers and teacher educators must respect all learners and themselves as individuals with culturally defined identities.
We recognize the uniqueness of all cultures, languages and communities. As teachers and teacher educators, we understand the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of our society and that we enter our classrooms with our own social identities and cultural biases. We see all classrooms as multicultural, and we work towards respecting, valuing, and celebrating our own and students' unique strengths in creating equitable classroom communities.

Teacher Education Activities/Assignments

Go into and document our own as well as different cultural communities.

Conduct a critical historical survey of one or more groups.

Interview/research multiple generations (young and old) to gain insights into their dreams and aspirations.

Develop locally and historically situated blueprints for the realization of these dreams.

Have students investigate their cultural privilege as well as ways they have been marginalized.

Relevant References

James and Cherry McGee Banks, Handbook on Research on Multicultural Education, Jossey-Bass.

Bob Fecho, "Is This English?" Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom, Teachers College Press.

Korina Jocson, "Taking It to the Mic": Pedagogy of June Jordan's Poetry for the People and Partnership with an Urban High School, English Education.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Dreamkeepers, Jossey-Bass.

Sonia Nieto, Language, Culture, and Teaching, Lawrence Erlbaum.

Belief 2: Funds of Knowledge
Students bring funds of knowledge to their learning communities, and, recognizing this, teachers and teacher educators must incorporate this knowledge and experience into classroom practice.
Students do not enter school as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Rather, they bring with them rich and varied language and cultural experiences. All too often, these experiences remain unrecognized or undervalued as dominant mainstream discourses suppress students' cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1990). Ethnographic research conducted inside and outside of schools reveals rich language and literacy practices that often go unnoticed in classrooms (Dyson, 2005; Fisher, 2003; Heath, 1983; Mahiri, 2004). When teachers successfully incorporate texts and pedagogical strategies that are culturally and linguistically responsive, they have been able to increase student efficacy, motivation, and academic achievement (Lee, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1994).

For these reasons, we believe that teachers and teacher educators should actively acknowledge, celebrate, and incorporate these funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1994) into classroom practice. In addition, teachers need spaces to learn about the communities in which they will teach. This includes opportunities to explore and experience the contexts in which students live and form their cultural identities. Educators also need to learn more about sociolinguistics both in teacher preparation programs and in ongoing professional development. Developing this kind of knowledge may help to avoid linguistic racism or language marginalization (Delpit & Kilgour Dowdy, 2003; Gee, 1996; Gutierrez, Asato, Pachco, Moll, Olsen, Horng, Ruiz, Garcia, & McCarty, 2002; Perry & Delpit, 1998; Smitherman, 1999)

K-12 Activities/Assignments

Teacher Education Activities/Assignments

Relevant References

Lisa Delpit, "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's children," Harvard Educational Review.

Carol Lee, "Is October Brown Chinese? A cultural modeling activity system for underachieving students," American Educational Research Journal.

Luis Moll, et al., "Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and families," Theory into Practice.

Ernest Morrell, Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding connections for lifelong learning, Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

Belief 3: Inquiring into Practice
Socially responsive and responsible teaching and learning requires an anthropologically and ethnographically informed teaching stance; teachers and teacher educators must be introduced to and routinely use the tools of practitioner/teacher research in order to ask difficult questions about their practice.
To empower students who have been traditionally disenfranchised by public education, teachers and teacher educators must learn about and know their students in more complex ways (e. g., MacGillivray, Rueda, Martinez, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 1994). They must be learners in their own classrooms (Michie, 1999). Using the tools of classroom-based research to develop more complex profiles of their students, teachers and teacher educators can use their growing knowledge of the lives and cultures of these students to design appropriate teaching methodologies and curriculum. Developing these tools would require new ways of collecting and analyzing information about students and their families, and then reflecting upon the appropriateness of their curriculum and practices to be more effective educators. Consequently, such investigation would mean using or creating new lenses to interrogate the impact of one's own teaching and planning. These lenses might involve designing methods for getting ongoing feedback from students and their families and responding to that feedback. Ultimately such reflective work implies that teachers and teacher educators have a right to choose, create, appraise, and critique their own responsive and responsible teaching and learning curriculum.

K-12 Activities/Assignments

Attend and participate in community meetings.

Document the efforts of a student in your classroom through periodic journals.

Form/join a group of colleagues who periodically use inquiry protocols that facilitate looking closely at the work of students.

Talk to parents and students to learn about their linguistic and cultural backgrounds and experiences.

Invite parents into the classroom to speak to all students on family life and cultural traditions, or to share an area of their expertise.

Teacher Education Activities/Assignments

Design action research projects that incorporate socially responsive methods and material.

Have students write a "border crossing" essay about a time when they were the "other."

Expect students to read and critique multiethnic and multicultural children's and YA literature (e. g., House on Mango Street; The Color of Water; Miracle's Boys; Uncle Jed's Barbershop).

Relevant References

JoBeth Allen, Class Actions: Teaching for Social Justice in Elementary and Middle School. Teachers College Press.

Linda Christensen, Reading, Writing, and Rising Up. Rethinking Schools.

Gregory Michie, Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students. Teachers College Press.

Laurie, MacGillivray, Robert Rueda, and Anna Martiza Martinez, "Listening to Inner-City Teachers of English Language Learners. " In Boyd, Brock, with Rozendal's Multicultural and Multilingual Literacy and Language: Contexts and Practices. Guilford Press.

Belief 4: Variety of Educational Experience
Students have a right to a wide variety and range of high quality critical educational experiences that help them make informed decisions about their role and participation in language, literacy, and life.
A wide variety and range of high quality critical educational experiences should be centered in learning environments and educational curricula that affirm children's language and rich cultural identities. At the same time, these experiences should lead students to build a deep awareness and understanding for the many forms of language, literacies and varying lifestyles that exist in their communities and in the world. Curricula experiences should serve to empower students, develop their identities and voice, and encourage student agency to improve their life opportunities. A range and variety of high quality critical literacy practices will create opportunities for high student engagement and capitalize on their multiple learning styles and diverse identities and personalities. When contexts for learning resonate with purposeful and meaningful activities that touch learners' emotional wellspring, deep learning occurs, making deficit views of teaching and learning unviable and untenable.

K-12 Activities/Assignments

Teacher Education Activities/Assignments

Relevant References

Linda Darling-Hammond, The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools that Work, Jossey-Bass.

Maisha Fisher, "From the coffee house to the school house: The promise and potential of spoken word poetry in school contexts." English Education.

Rebecca Oxford, "Personality type in the foreign or second language classroom: Theoretical and empirical perspectives." In Horning and Sudol, Understanding Literacy: Personality Preference in Rhetorical and Psycholinguistic Contexts, Hampton.

Ira Shor and Caroline Pari, Critical Literacy in Action: Writing Words, Changing Worlds. Boynton/Cook.

Belief 5: Modeling Practice
Educators need to model culturally responsive and socially responsible practices for students.
When English educators model culturally responsive practices they explicitly acknowledge and incorporate students' funds of knowledge. Modeling effective teaching practices involves building on and consciously referring to the knowledge base of said practices. The process of modeling depends on carefully planned demonstrations, experiences, and activities. As part of this process, educators help students collectively examine experiences in light of their own learning, knowledge, and goals. These discussions may help learners not only develop language for how or if experiences support learning, but also will aid in identifying experiences that help learners examine whose English "counts" and in what contexts.

K-12 Activities/Assignments

Initiate explicit discussions on reading by disclosing your own reading preferences and processes. The discussion may lead to a subsequent discussion on what texts students have read during their formal school careers. Who wrote these texts? Whose texts aren't being read? Does this matter? Why is this problematic?

Invite students to bring in culturally relevant texts (e.g., songs, self-written poetry) and ask them to create a glossary for difficult (for the teacher) to understand language. After this experience, teacher may initiate discussion on being bi-lingual/cultural. In addition, teachers can also bring in texts relevant to the lives of students.

Researcher Stance and Research Questions

Types of research:Participant-observer; ethnographic; action research; self-study.

Sample question: What does modeling in action look like? What sorts of moves do teachers make to initiate it? What sense do students make of these experiences?

Relevant References

Geneva Gay, Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press.

Carol Lee. "Bridging Home and School Literacies: Models for Culturally Responsive Teaching, A Case for African American English, In Heath and Lapp, A Handbook for Literacy Educators: Research on Teaching the Communicative and Visual Arts, Macmillan.

Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, Christine Cziko, and Lori Hurwitz, Reading for Understanding, Jossey-Bass.

Belief 6: Critical Users of Language
All students need to be taught mainstream power codes and become critical users of language while also having their home and street codes honored.
English language arts teachers live a contradiction. We find ourselves charged to teach native speakers and second language learners alike. Yet, according to contemporary research, native speakers know all of the rules of their native dialect (typically by the time they enter public schools at the age of five or six), and second language learners need not so much instruction, but immersion. Ultimately we know both groups and, indeed, all language users have a right to be informed about and practiced in the dialect of the dominant culture, also mythologized as "Standard English." Teachers are responsible for giving all students the tools and resources to access the Language of Wider Communication, both spoken and written. However, it is not enough to just "teach" the mainstream power codes; teachers need to foster ongoing and critical examinations with their students of how particular codes came into power, why linguistic apartheid exists, and how even their own dialectical and slang patterns are often appropriated by the dominant culture. Thus, our dilemma: how do we offer both groups ample opportunities to learn and practice their usage of this "prestige dialect" while at the same time recognizing the communicative equality and linguistic validity of their home dialects and languages? This document seeks to provide an answer, additional resources, and questions in answering that charge.

Relevant References

Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill, Language Myths, Penguin.

David and Yvonne Freeman, Essential Linguistics, Heinemann.

Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation, Penguin.

Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory, Bantam Books.

Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English, Blackwell.

Belief 7: Crossing Cultural Boundaries
Teachers and teacher educators must be willing to cross traditional, personal and professional boundaries in pursuit of social justice and equity.
While there are discussions about whether "we" can or cannot teach "others," the fact remains that English educators do just that every day. There is and will continue to be a disparity between the racial, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds of English educators and their students. Whereas the percentage of white female English educators-estimated at about 85-90 per cent-in U.S. schools has remained constant (Snyder & Hoffman, 2002), the students with whom they work have and will continue to become increasingly diverse. Teacher candidates will need to understand and acknowledge racial and socioeconomic inequities that exist and that schools perpetuate.

As part of their teacher education, they will need to acknowledge the limits of their personal knowledge as well as experience the privileges afforded them by virtue of their race and class. Part of the curriculum for English educators will involve crossing personal boundaries in order to study, embrace and build understanding of "other." The purpose of boundary crossing is not to simply have an experience with the "other," but to use that experience to advocate for the advancement for all. While the stereotypical demographic teacher population of the white, middle-class, female will often have to cross more distinct boundaries, other preservice teachers who are more linguistically, culturally, racially, and socioeconomically aligned with the growing diverse student population will have to engage in "making the strange familiar, and making the familiar strange."

Ultimately, teacher candidates will need to engage in projects that allow them to study their lives as a way to recognize their limits and to complement the work they will do in crossing personal boundaries. This may involve learning language, studying culture, and visiting with students and their families. In short, we can't do what we've always done because we don't have the same students we had before (Kansas National Education Association, 2003).

Relevant References

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Owl Books.

Victoria Purcell-Gates, Other People's Words, Harvard University Press.

Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words, Cambridge University Press.

Deborah Hicks, Reading Lives: Working-Class Children and Literacy Learning, Teachers College Press.

Mike Rose, Lives on the Boundary, Penguin.

Victor Villanueva, Jr. Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color, NCTE.

Belief 8: Teaching as a Political Act
Teaching is a political act, and in our preparation of future teachers and citizens, teachers and teacher educators need to be advocates for and models of social justice and equity.
We recognize that teachers and teacher educators have the potential to function as change agents in their classrooms, schools, and communities. Social justice-oriented teachers and teacher educators play a significant role in seeking alternative ways to address various forms of official knowledge with their students, especially forms of official knowledge that marginalize certain groups while privileging others. We also believe that effective literacy teachers of diverse students envision their classrooms as sites of struggle and transformative action in the service of academic literacy development and social change.

Towards these ends, we recognize the importance of employing a critical lens when engaging preservice and inservice teachers, a lens that enables these teachers to understand and value a stance toward literacy teaching that also promotes critical consciousness, social justice, and equity. Through praxis, the combination of active reflection and reflective action (Freire, 1970), teachers and teacher educators are able to build and strengthen collective efforts toward individual and social transformation. Our desire is for teachers and teacher educators to continue to expand relevant course materials, activities, methods, and experience in serving diverse students in the 21st century in the pursuit of equity, achievement, and justice.

K-12 Activities/Assignments

Encourage students to develop critical perspectives through community-based research and action projects.

Increase the shared knowledge base with students, parents, and other local actors; regularly tap into students' funds of knowledge.

Use classroom approaches that empower students socially and academically.

Negotiate roles and go beyond teacher-as-expert and student-as-novice.

Be explicit with students about your own positions as political agents.

Relevant References

Michael Apple, Ideology and Curriculum, Routledge.

John Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum, University of Chicago Press.

Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum.

Henry Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, Bergin & Garvey.

Bell Hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Routledge.

Peter McLaren, Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium, Westview Press.

References and Additional Recommendations

Allen, J. (Ed.). (1999). Class actions: Teaching for social justice in elementary and middle school. New York: Teachers College Press.

Allington, R. L & Walmsley, S. A. (Eds.). (1995). No quick fix: Rethinking literacy programs in America's elementary schools. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Apple, M. (1990). Ideology and curriculum. New York: Routledge.

Bank, J. & Banks, C. (2003). Handbook on research on multicultural education (2nd Ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bauer, L. & Trudgill, P. (1998). Language myths. New York: Penguin.

Boyd, F., Brock, C. H. with Rozendal, M. S. (Eds.). (2004). Multicultural and multilingual literacy and language: Contexts and practices. New York: Guilford Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. (R. Nice, Trans). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Christensen, L. (2000). Reading, writing, and rising up. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn. A blueprint for creating schools that work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Daspit, T. & Weaver, J. A. (1999). Popular culture and critical pedagogy. Reading, constructing, connecting. New York, NY: Garland.

Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's children. Harvard Educational Review, 58 (3), 280-298.

Delpit, L, & Kilgour Dowdy, J. (Eds.) (2003). The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. New York: The New Press.

Dewey, J. (1932/1990). The child and the curriculum/The school and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dyson, A. H. (2005). Crafting "The humble prose of living": Rethinking oral/written relations in the echoes of spoken word. English Education, 37(2), 149-164.

Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Fecho, B. (2004). "Is this English?" Race, language, and culture in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.

Fisher, M.T. (2003). Open mics and open minds: Spoken word poetry in African Diaspora Participatory Literacy Communities. Harvard Educational Review, 73 (3), 362-389.

Fisher, M T. (2004). "The song is unfinished": The new literate and literary. Written Communication, 21(3), 290-312.

Fisher, M.T. (2005). From the coffee house to the schoolhouse: The promise and potential of spoken word poetry in school contexts. English Education, 37 (2), 115-131.

Freeman, D. & Freeman, Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London, UK: Routledge-Falmer.

Giroux, H. (2001). Theory and resistance in education: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition (2nd Ed.). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Gordon, L. (2000). Existenia Africana: Understanding Africana existential thought. New York: Routledge.

Gutierrez, K., Asato, J., Pacheco, M., Moll, L., Olson, K., Horng, E., Ruiz, R., Garcia, E., & McCarty, T. (2002). "Sounding American": The consequences of new reforms on English language learners. Reading Research Quarterly, 37 (3), 328-343.

Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hicks, D. (2002). Reading lives: Working-class children and literacy learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hoffman, E. (1990). Lost in translation: A life in a new language. New York: Penguin.

Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.

Jocson, K.M. (2005). "Taking it to the mic": Pedagogy of June Jordan's Poetry for the People and partnership with an urban high school. English Education, 37(2), 44-60.

Kansas National Education Association (2003). Retrieved September 5, 2005 from http://www.knea.org/news/stories/2003/workteam.pdf

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities. Children in America's schools. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lankshear, C., & McLaren, P.L. (Eds.). (1993). Critical literacy. Politics, praxis, and the postmodern. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Lee, C.D. (1995). A culturally based cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching African American high school students skills in literary interpretation. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(4), 608-631.

Lee, C.D. (2001). Is October Brown Chinese? A cultural modeling activity system for underachieving students. American Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 97-142.

MacGillivray, L., Rueda, R., & Martinez, A.M., Listening to Inner-City Teachers of English Language Learners. In F. Boyd, C. Brock, with M. Rozendal (Eds.). (2004). Multicultural and Multilingual Literacy and Language: Contexts and Practices. (pp. 144-160). New York: Guilford Press.

Many, J. (Ed.) (2001). Handbook of instructional practices for literacy teacher-educators. Examples and reflections from the teaching lives of literacy scholars. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Mahiri, J. (Ed.). (2004). What they don't learn in schools: Literacy in the lives of urban youth. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

McCarty, T. (2002). A place to be Navajo: Rough Rock and the struggle for self-determination in indigenous schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

McLaren, P. (1997). Revolutionary multiculturalism: Pedagogies of dissent for the new millennium. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Michie, G. (1999). Holler if you hear me: The education of a teacher and his students. New York: Teachers College Press.

Moll, L.C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31, 132 - 141.

Moll, L. C. & Gonzalez, N. (1994). "Lessons from research with Language-Minority children." Journal of Reading Behavior, 26(4), 439-456.

Morrell, E. (2004). Linking literacy and popular culture: Finding connections for lifelong learning. Norwood, Massachusetts: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

Morrell, E. (2004). Becoming critical researchers: Literacy and empowerment for urban youth. New York: Peter Lang.

Oxford, R. L. (1997). Personality type in the foreign or second language classroom: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. In A. Horning & R. A. Sudol (Eds.), Understanding literacy. Personality preference in rhetorical and psycholinguistic contexts (pp. 153-179). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.

Nieto, S. (2002). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives for a new century. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Perry, T., & Delpit, L. (1998.) The real Ebonics debate: Power, language, and the education of African-American children. Boston: Beacon Press.

Purcell-Gates, V. (1995). Other people's words: The cycle of low literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rodriguez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory. New York: Bantam.

Rose, M. (1989). Lives on the boundary: The struggles and achievements of America's underprepared. New York: Free Press.

Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf, R., Cziko, C., & Hurvitz, R. (1999). Reading for understanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Shor, I. & Pari, C. (Eds.). (1999). Critical literacy in action. Writing words, changing worlds. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Smitherman, G. (1999). Talking that talk: Language, culture, and education in African America. New York: Routledge.

Snyder, T. D., & Hoffman, C. M. (2002). Digest of education statistics 2001 (No. NCES 2000-130). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Villanueva, V. (1993). Bootstraps: From an American academic of color. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Wolfram, W. & Schilling-Estes, N. (2005). American English (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

This document was created in part as a result of the 2005 Conference on English Education Leadership and Policy Summit, Suzanne Miller, CEE Chair, and Dana L. Fox, CEE Leadership and Policy Summit Chair.

Participants and authors in the "Supporting Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners in English Education" thematic strand group of the CEE Summit included:

Co-Conveners: Bob Fecho and Fenice Boyd

Mary Ariail, Georgia State University

Fenice Boyd, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Bob Fecho, University of Georgia

Maisha Fisher, Emory University

Mary K. Healy, University of California, Office of the President (Retired)

Korina Jocson, Stanford University

Kezia McNeal, Georgia State University

Ernest Morrell, Michigan State University

Tom Meyer, State University of New York, New Paltz

Jeanne Smith Muzzillo, Bradley University

Gertrude Tinker Sachs, Georgia State University

Charnita West, Georgia State University

Robert Williams, Radford University

If you wish to send a response to this CEE belief statement, please email elate@ncte.org and specify which statement you are commenting on in the Subject of your email. This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

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Supporting Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners in English Education

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"All teachers should allow the classroom to move from a monolingual to a plurilingual space, using multilingual signs to decorate the walls, including bilingual books in the library, etc. Languages ​​and cultures should be considered in terms of collective resources and placed on an equal footing. The bilingualism of pupils who speak a language other than that of the school must be valued to allow them to find their place in the classroom"
This article stressed the challenge for students and what teachers, schools, and parents can do to help in these circumstances. The "challenge" for teachers in mainstream classrooms would be researching students' backgrounds and the languages they speak. Also incorporating culture in the classroom.

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Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Barcelona, 2017

You can download this essay as a pdf here:
MLM_Dealing-with-linguistic-diversity-in-the-classroom-a-challenge-for-teachers
This article is part of a reflection on a model of education whose aim is to familiarize students and teachers with the linguistic and cultural diversity present in our classrooms. Given the notable divergence between the language and culture of the school and the languages and cultures of a growing number of its pupils - the divide between schools and families -we would like to reflect on some educational strategies to bridge this gap. One of the key strategies is to understand the importance of representing the language knowledge of pupils in the classroom and to embrace this linguistic diversity as a learning resource for all classmates.

These ideas stem from a project developed for the Council of Europe's European Centre of Modern Languages involving pupils whose first language is different from the school's. This project, carried out in several primary schools over a period of three years, showed the impact on pupils when first exposed to the existence of other languages and cultures, not as a result of teaching a foreign language to all children, but via direct contact with the large number of languages and cultures specific to some of their classmates. The project provided many positive outcomes, from a sense of inclusion for all class members to the realization of the value of parents' knowledge as a collective resource for the positive visibility of plurilingualism. In addition, the project highlighted enhancements in the bilingualism of some students, and showed how to transform the monolingual and monocultural classroom into a more open, multilingual and multicultural space.
Linguistic diversity should be considered a wealth, not a problem
As teachers, we should to take into account the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of the pupils, the variety of languages ​​spoken and the multiplicity of their cultural affiliation. In an educational environment often marked by practices anchored in a monolingual system, this is a great challenge for a teacher. The child who leaves the language of her family outside school does not understand why this language is not entitled to be used in the classroom. She often feels that the language of her family is considered to be some kind of problem at school. It is well known that negative representations of bilingualism among children of immigrant origin particularly affect their language skills. Rather than refer to heterogeneity we prefer to speak of diversity, a notion that is both broader and more positive. The latter makes it possible to consider the plurality of languages ​​and cultures as a wealth rather than a problem. Moreover, the notion of diversity has been adopted by the Council of Europe in numerous works in the field of language education policies (Beacco and Byram, 2003).
Making plurilingual children feel welcome at school
As mentioned before, this article intends to provide teachers with pedagogical strategies to avoid language and cultural discrimination of pupils who have a different language from that of the school and seeks to encourage the consideration of diversity as a learning resource.

First, the notion of linguistic variety must be emphasized. Every child experiences this variation even before entering school, since he encounters his "mother" language in exchanges with multiple persons and in various situations. As such, from birth, even the monolingual child hears different ways of speaking. Later, upon entering school, he will have to face new challenges presented by the language of schooling. But at school, the variety of dialects spoken is rarely taken into account. It seems important to us here to insist on the fact that a language is always pluralistic, that no one speaks a language in the same way because no one lives it in the same way. Plurality exists within a single language spoken by the same person, for example a child who speaks with his parents at home or answers a question asked by his teacher is not in the same linguistic context as when he is playing with his classmates in the yard.

What teachers will notice first of all in the bilingual talk of children of immigrant origin will be the deviations from the norm in the language of schooling. The greater the pupil's competence in the language of the school, the less developed his dominance of his native language may appear. However, these deviations are merely traces of an interlanguage, the journey towards mastery of a language. They do not always reveal competence in the other language of the bilingual child, since the latter has no place in the school and, in general, teachers have no knowledge of these languages ​​and rarely have a bilingual or plurilingual experience that could have made them aware of what it means to be bilingual or plurilingual. The lack of training in language varieties, the importance given in the curriculum to the priority of teaching the national language (Young and Helot, 2003), and more recently the introduction of learning a foreign language at the age of six in many European countries, often prevents teachers from thinking about the different languages and learning processes existent at school.

It is generally accepted that the teacher, as the person responsible for the transmission of knowledge and know-how to pupils within the institutional framework of the school, must ensure that the pupil feels comfortable at school, creating a climate of trust in which exchanges are facilitated. It is therefore a question of recognizing the pupil's own linguistic and cultural knowledge, in order to understand his identity.
What can be done to make students benefit from this linguistic diversity?
It is obvious that schools cannot teach all languages ​​to all pupils, even in primary schools, but there are pedagogical approaches that allow the different languages ​​present in a classroom to be taken into account. These models are known as the Awakening to Languages ​​(Candelier, 2003a) or Education and Openness to Languages ​​at School (Perregaux, 1998; Perregaux et al., 2003) and can be considered as a complementary learning model. They make it possible to integrate family languages ​​and cultures as pedagogical resources within a classroom and to legitimize them in the eyes of pupils and teachers.

Key to the integration of languages ​​and family cultures are the parents. Our studies show that it is through the participation of parents that teachers and their students have discovered the linguistic and cultural diversity existing in their school community and have been able to transform this diversity into knowledge.

Parental involvement in the project also contributed to the development of a more global vision of languages ​​and cultures among teachers. Through this experience, they have been able to recognize the value of bilingualism, regardless of the languages ​​of which it is composed, and improve their understanding of the schooling of bilingual children in their classrooms.

We observed how teachers developed a transdisciplinary and inclusive approach in class, enabling them to decompartmentalize languages ​​and create a link between disciplines, thus reducing the usual gap between them. This inclusive approach to education addressed all children in the class, with no one being excluded from the group.

The aim of awakening languages ​​and cultures is not only addressed to bilingual children, but it is opened up to all, monolingual and bilingual, in order to build plurilingualism, a culture common to the whole class. The co-intervention of parents and teachers arouses in children an awareness of the richness of linguistic and cultural plurality which does not remain superficial nor rooted in a stereotyped vision.

All teachers should allow the classroom to move from a monolingual to a plurilingual space, using multilingual signs to decorate the walls, including bilingual books in the library, etc. Languages ​​and cultures should be considered in terms of collective resources and placed on an equal footing. The bilingualism of pupils who speak a language other than that of the school must be valued to allow them to find their place in the classroom.

Scientific research shows that it is easier for a child to become bilingual or plurilingual when all their languages are valued and when making connections between languages is encouraged. It is important that parents keep using their family language(s) with their children and that teachers use family languages to help children establish connections between the language(s) of their environment.

It is easier for children to engage in the languages that are taught at school when their own languages are recognised, because these languages are practised in the family environment and by the children. Placing value on childrens' different languages and cultural backgrounds boosts the self-confidence and self-esteem necessary for educational and professional success.

Parents' participation in school activities establishes a relationship of mutual confidence between schools and families, and helps children to dedicate themselves to their schooling.

We should give future citizens the opportunity to construct positive representations of the multiple identities of their peers and their families so that they can be proud of who they are and so that they feel accepted and understood by those around them. This is a necessity if we want to live together in peace.

To allow everyone to build their own identity based on their family life and relationships within and outside school, it is vital that the school takes up the challenge. For today's school is not only a place where one acquires knowledge, it is also the place where one pools one's skills and one's knowledge and where one learns to live together not by sharing a single language but by embracing several ​​to build common values.
References http://christinehelot.u-strasbg.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2006-Chap-Young-He%CC%81lot-Diversite%CC%81-ling-et-cult-a%CC%80-le%CC%81cole.pdf
Beacco, J-C. et Byram, M. (2003). Guide pour l'élaboration des politiques linguistiques éducatives en Europe. De la diversité linguistique à l'éducation plurilingüe. Strasbourg, France: Éditions du Conseil de l'Europe.

Candelier, M. (2003) L'éveil aux langues à l'école primaire. Evlang: bilan d'une innovation européenne. Bruxelles: De Boeck.

Perregaux, C. (1998) " Avec les approches d'éveil au langage, l'interculturel est au centre de l'apprentissage scolaire ", Bulletin Suisse deLinguistique Appliquée, 67, p. 101-110.

Perregaux, C. ; De Goumoëns, C. ; Jeannot, D. et De Pietro, J.F. (2003). Education et Ouverture aux langues à l'école: EOLE, vol 1& 2. Neuchâtel : Conférence Intercantonale de l'Instruction Publique de la Suisse Romande et du Tessin.

Young, A. et Hélot, C. (2003) " Language Awareness and/or Language Learning in French Primary Schools Today. " In Language Awareness 12 (3&4), Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, Royaume Uni, p. 234-246

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Dealing with linguistic diversity in the classroom - Make Literacy Meaningful

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Dealing with linguistic diversity in the classroom: a challenge for teachers Dr. Xavier Pascual Calvo Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Barcelona, 2017 You can download this essay as a pdf here: MLM_Dealing-with-linguistic-diversity-in-the-classroom-a-challenge-for-teachers This article is part of a reflection on a model of education whose aim is to familiarize students and teachers with the linguistic and cultural diversity present Continue Reading

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* Remember that each student is an individual
* Be mindful of students' native languages and cultures
* Learn to speak and recognize simple phrases from the students' languages
* If needed, make assessments in the students' own languages
* Know the difference between social language and academic language

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"Learn about your students’ cultural backgrounds and demonstrate an appreciation of those cultures. Teachers show students how to embrace different cultures by modeling respect and acceptance"

Bring cultural diversity into the lesson

Using different teaching, and cognitive styles results in lessons with a greater chance of reaching all students.

"Encourage students to relate the benefit of a lesson to their own lives"

"Bring diverse guest speakers into the classroom"

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Honoring the mandate to provide all students with an equal education requires adaptation. Shifting demographics in the United States have dramatically altered the ethnic and racial makeup of student populations, and a growing number of students do not speak English fluently. These changes present significant challenges for educators, requiring them to rethink their curricula and teaching strategies.

Examining the growing need for diversity and exploring ways to modify behavior in the classroom constitute a critical step toward creating linguistically inclusive and culturally sensitive learning environments.

The Growing Need for Diverse Teaching Strategies

US school districts are required to provide equal educational opportunities to language minority students, but meeting that standard has become more challenging as the number of students classified as an "English language learner," or ELL, has grown.

Generally, the term "English language learner" describes a student who is learning English in addition to their native language. Exact definitions of ELL vary, as do delineations between ELL and ESL (English as a second language), but by any measure, the number of students for whom English is not their first and primary language is growing as a percentage of all students enrolled in US public schools.

An average of 10 percent of students in US public schools are English language learners, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). In cities, the average is close to 15 percent. (NCES defines ELL students as those being served by programs of language assistance, including ESL, high-intensity language training, and bilingual education.) Among ELL students in the US, Spanish is the most common language spoken at home (75 percent), followed by Arabic (3 percent).

The increase in ELLs in public schools reflects a larger demographic shift. The percentage of non-white students in US public schools has increased significantly over the last decade, from 48 percent in 2010 to an estimated 54 percent in 2020. The percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in public schools grew from 23 percent to 28 percent over the same period.

While addressing diversity in the classroom largely consists of focusing on ELL students, cultural and linguistic divides are not exclusive to that segment of learners. In 2018, 47 percent of students and 79 percent of teachers in US public schools were white. This contrasts starkly with the student-teacher ratio for Hispanics (27 percent of students, 9 percent of teachers), Blacks (15 percent of students, 7 percent of teachers), and Asians (5 percent of students, 2 percent of teachers). Such disparities in representation of races and ethnicities among educators constitute a longstanding issue in US public schools.

Teaching Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

The first step in addressing cultural and linguistic diversity is to be aware. The very act of considering culture and language skills when developing curricula and activities makes it more likely that lessons will be inclusive. Teaching culturally diverse students entails the following additional steps:

Learn about your students' cultural backgrounds and demonstrate appreciation of those cultures. Teachers show students how to embrace different cultures by modeling respect and acceptance.

Learn more about students' lives outside of the classroom, and let that information inform lessons. For example, try to find examples that are relevant to students with different cultures and backgrounds.

Embrace diversity in teaching styles. Making an effort to accommodate different communication preferences, cognitive styles, and aptitudes results in lessons with a greater chance of reaching all students.

Encourage students to relate the benefit of a lesson to their own lives.

Bring diverse guest speakers into the classroom.

Educators can also benefit from the following tips for teaching linguistically diverse students:

Develop a relationship and work closely with an ESL teacher or interpreter.

Incorporate more group work. This allows students to practice their language skills in a more personal, less intimidating setting than the front of the classroom.

Make things as visual as possible by writing on the board, diagraming, and using pictures.

Allow ELL students to preview materials before a lesson when possible.

Understand that some students may experience a silent period. Students learning a new language commonly go through a period of several weeks or longer when they are taking in the new language but do not yet speak it.

Efforts to better serve culturally and linguistically diverse student populations are not limited to the classroom. Developing responsive curricula and teaching strategies is critical, but a holistic approach that includes families and the larger school community promises better outcomes.

Working With Parents

Positive parent-teacher relationships can influence any student's success, but they can be particularly important for students whose culture or dominant language differs from that of the majority of their classmates. Developing a relationship with the parents of ELL students or any student who is outside the dominant cultural or ethnic group, or whose culture or ethnicity differs from that of the teacher, builds a sense of trust and acceptance among students and their families. Making the effort to build such relationships can be challenging for teachers, and in cases where there is a language barrier, it may be necessary to engage with a language instructor or interpreter for support.

Support From Schools

Schools can address linguistic and cultural diversity by working to recruit teachers of color and instructors who can teach and tutor in languages other than English. Demonstrating support for student diversity is also crucial. Measures such as providing school signage in different languages, encouraging students to speak their first language at school, and displaying non-English books and materials creates an environment of acceptance and appreciation that benefits all students.

Schools can also play a role in supporting more training designed to mitigate implicit bias. Research has shown that teachers are just as likely to have a racial bias as non-teachers.

Create Inclusive Classrooms

American University's Online EdD in Education Policy and Leadership prepares educators to shape education policy and create more inclusive learning environments.

The degree program provides future teachers and education leaders with the tools they need to transform the education system to benefit all learners. With a focus on building equitable learning environments, the curriculum emphasizes systems change, personal leadership, social justices and anti-racism, and policy and research.

Learn more about American University's Online EdD in Education Policy and Leadership.

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Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

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Honoring the mandate to provide all students with an equal education requires adaptation. Shifting demographics in the United States have dramatically altered the ethnic and racial makeup of student populations, and a growing number of students do not speak English fluently. These changes present significant challenges for educators, requiring them to rethink their curricula and teaching strategies.

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This link lists many great ways to support ELLs in mainstream classes. I listed a few that should be prioritized during this process.

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Ways of Helping ELLs in Mainstream Classrooms

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Ways of Helping ELLs in Mainstream Classrooms

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1.  HONOR THE “SILENT PERIOD: This was 4th on the list but in my opinion, it is a priority to have patience and understanding about where your student is during this period of transition.
2. COMMUNICATE WITH THE ESL TEACHER: this is crucial for the students learning outcomes. Discuss what areas they need help in
3. LEARN ABOUT THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF YOUR STUDENTS…
4. …BUT DON’T MAKE A CHILD SPEAK FOR HIS ENTIRE CULTURE
5. LOOK OUT FOR CULTURALLY UNIQUE VOCABULARY: being aware of culturally unique vocabulary words will help the student grasp information more because of its relevance.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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Euphoria: ELLs may experience an initial period of excitement about their new surroundings.

Culture shock: ELLs may then experience anger, hostility, frustration, homesickness, or resentment towards the new culture.

Acceptance: ELLs may gradually accept their different surroundings.

Assimilation/adaptation: ELLs may embrace and adapt to their surroundings and their "new" culture.

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An important first step in helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed is making them feel welcome in the classroom.

The ELL student population includes students who were born in the U.S. and students who have immigrated from another country. For ELLs who have recently arrived in the U.S., they will face the challenge of learning a new language in addition to adjusting to an unfamiliar cultural setting and school system.

On a daily basis, ELLs are adjusting to new ways of saying and doing things. As their teacher, you are an important bridge to this unknown culture and school system.

In the same way that ELLs go through stages of English language learning, they may also pass through stages of cultural accommodation. These stages, however, may be less defined and more difficult to notice. Being aware of these stages may help you to better understand "unusual" actions and reactions that may just be part of adjusting to a new culture.

It is also common for students who are learning a new language to be 'silent' for a period of time, when they are listening to the language around them without speaking yet (much as a young child listens to language first before learning to talk). This is considered the first stage of language acquisition.

Patience and creating opportunities for small successes in speaking with you and peers can help build students' confidence. In addition, keep in mind that students' silence could also be a sign of respect for you as an authority – and not a sign of their inability or refusal to participate.

Students may also have experienced trauma or face different kinds of hardship in the U.S. You can better prepare yourself for this possibility by:

This award-winning documentary highlights how the Dearborn, MI public school district is helping its immigrant students succeed. Learn more about this project and see related videos.

Getting to Know Students

Learn how to pronounce students' names correctly

Take the time to learn how to pronounce your ELLs' names correctly.

Ask them to say their name.

Listen carefully and repeat it until you know it.

Model the correct pronunciation of ELLs' names to the class so that all students can say the correct pronunciation.

Consider an activity in which students can share the meaning of their name, such as this Name Story activity or these related name activities.

Build relationships with students

Veteran teachers of ELLs always point to building relationships as the most important step in their work with ELLs. Not only does it increase engagement and support students' later academic success, it also provides invaluable information that can inform your instruction and family engagement.

In addition, it can help build bridges with students who may have particularly unique experiences, such as children in migrant farmwork families or Indigenous students.

See more ideas on how to build these relationships from the following:

8 Strategies for Building Relationships with ELLs in Any Learning Environment

Getting to Know Your ELLs: Six Steps for Success

Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

10 Things You Need to Know About Your ELLs

Video: Showing students you care

Corpus Christi teacher Christine Price talks about the importance of showing students you care early on.

Identify students' strengths and interests

It's important to remember that ELLs bring lots of strengths, talents, and rich experiences to the classroom. Getting to know students' interests can help:

build rapport

engage students in learning

find connections with new friends.

Families are also an important source of information and are often happy to talk about the activities that their child enjoys.  They may also appreciate the fact that their child's teacher is taking an interest in the child's strengths and talents. (This is especially true in special education settings.)

Video: My students' many talents

Teacher Omar Salem describes a student who not only sings and dances but manages her own YouTube channel and edits all of the video she posts of her performances.

Video: Using parent letters to get to know my students

Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza asks her parents to write her a letter at the beginning of each school year telling her about the child's personality, interests, strengths, and anything else they think she should know. In this interview, Clara speaks more about this strategy and its impact on her relationships with parents and students.

Ensure that students have information about activities and clubs

Make sure that students have information about extra-curricular activities, sports, and clubs related to their interests. You can also encourage them to start their own club within the school.

ELL educator Christine Rowland notes, "Many students find involvement in school clubs and teams to be extremely helpful, as they are often experts in these areas, and they can provide a space where they more easily feel they belong."

Welcoming Students' Language and Culture

Invite students' cultures into the classroom

Encourage ELLs and their families to share their culture with you and your class. Show-and-tell is a good opportunity for ELLs to bring in something representative of their culture, if they wish.

Invite students and families to:

share photographs, visuals, or meaningful artifacts such as flags or mementos

tell a popular story or folktale using words, pictures, gestures, and movements

share information about important holidays or celebrations.

Looking beyond the classroom

Imagine that you are walking into your school for the first time as a parent.

What do you see on the walls?

If your first language weren't English, would you see signs in your language?

Would you see flags, maps, or books representing your home country?

Would you see your child’s work on display in the hallway?

If you think more could be done to make families feel welcome, consider:

sharing some ideas with colleagues or administrators and taking small steps that you can point to as successes

looking for opportunities to celebrate all families and their languages, customs, and cultures, whether in the classroom or at a school-wide event

keeping a lookout for a special part of their lives that other families might appreciate getting to know.

See more ideas in the following:

Welcoming students' languages and cultures

Welcoming students' celebrations and family traditions

Making immigrant students and families feel welcome in school settings

Engaging ELL Families: 20 Strategies for Success

Video: What happened when the students realized the Yemeni flag wasn't on stage

ELD Specialist Diana Alqadhi tells the story of some students who realized that the Yemeni flag was not featured prominently enough on stage before a school show.

Invite students' languages into the classroom

Label classroom objects to allow ELLs to better understand their immediate surroundings. These labels will also assist you when explaining or giving directions, and it gives peers an additional opportunity to learn some words in their classmates' language.

Start with everyday items, such as "door/puerta," "book/libro," and "chair/silla."

You may wish to ask students who can write in their first language or family members to help you with this project.

You can also invite students to teach the class some words from their home language.

Learn more about the resources available in students' home languages

Students benefit from support in their home language — what Dr. Fred Genesee calls their "most valuable resource." You have may have access to learning material in students' languages, or you may be able to find resources that support those languages.

Language access for multilingual families

In addition, it's critical to understand what language access resources you have available through your school and district, particularly for communication with families. Keep in mind that all families have a legal right to information in their home language. Family liaisons, interpreters, ESL teachers, or administrators may have more information about what language access resources are available in your district.

Video: What Do School Districts Need to Know About Language Access?

This helpful overview about what language access means for school districts is a great introduction to the requirements, best practices, and funding streams related to language access in public education. This interview features Dr. Jennifer Love, the Supervisor of Language Access and Engagement in Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland.

Video: Language Access for Multilingual Families

What does appropriate language access mean for multilingual families? This interview also features Dr. Jennifer Love.

Ensure your students see themselves reflected in the classroom

Ask yourself if students can see representations of their culture, race, gender, and other aspects of identity reflected in your:

classroom materials and library

lesson plans and activities

classroom visuals (both in-person and virtual).

In addition:

Look for ways incorporate books that represent your students' cultures across the curriculum and in your classroom library. Visit our recommended Books and Authors section for ideas.

Learn more about culturally responsive instruction and tapping into students' funds of knowledge.

Success in the Classroom

Encourage your students

Some ELLs may not answer voluntarily in class or ask for your help even if they need it. ELLs may smile and nod, but this does not necessarily mean that they understand. Offer one-on-one support and encouragement as much as possible. For convenience, it may be helpful to seat ELLs near your desk.

Assign a buddy

Identify a classmate who will make a good buddy for new students — someone who is friendly, patient, and a good communicator to be a buddy. This student can make sure that the new student understands what he or she is supposed to do during class activities. It is helpful if the peer partner knows the ELL's first language, but not necessary. However, remember to never use another student as an interpreter in any situation.

Learn more about ways to increase peer interaction and collaboration in these related strategies.

Ask the class how they can help welcome new students

Ask students to brainstorm ways to help ELLs in particular. You may wish to make a list of ideas on how to welcome new students at the beginning of the year so that students have these strategies in mind if a student comes with little advance notice.

Canadian students welcoming Syrian refugees (video)

Sensitize Your Mainstream Students (Judie Haynes: everythingESL)

Help your ELLs understand expectations for the classroom

ELLs may need some extra support in understanding expectations for classroom behavior. Helping them understand these expectations can avoid misunderstandings, discipline problems, and feelings of low self-esteem.

At the same time, it's important to remember that students bridging two cultures may need guidance which behaviors are appropriate in which setting (such as eye contact, physical proximity, etc.). If you have questions, talk with a cultural liaison in the school to learn more about appropriate responses and ideas for helping students navigate a new culture. You can also learn more about cultural norms of your students, particularly related to schooling, to help inform your approach.

Here are a few strategies that you can use in class:

Use visuals like pictures, symbols, and reward systems to communicate your expectations in a positive and direct manner.

Physically model language to ELLs in classroom routines and instructional activities. ELLs will need to see you or their peers model behavior when you want them to sit down, walk to the bulletin board, work with a partner, copy a word, etc.

Be consistent and fair with all students. Once ELLs clearly understand what is expected, hold them equally accountable for their behavior.

Post a daily schedule. Even if ELLs do not yet understand all of the words that you speak, it is possible for them to understand the structure of each day. Whether through chalkboard art or images on Velcro, you can post the daily schedule each morning. By writing down times and having pictures next to words like lunch, wash hands, math, and field trip, ELLs can have a general sense of the upcoming day.

Finally, remember ELLs can make unintentional "mistakes" as they are trying hard to adjust to a new cultural setting. They are constantly transferring what they know as acceptable behaviors from their own culture to the U.S. classroom and school. Be patient as ELLs learn English and adjust — and remember that you will learn a lot from this experience too!

Be vigilant about health issues, dietary concerns, and allergies

Students may have specific health issues or dietary restrictions due to health, cultural, or religious reasons.  Be sure that you learn all essential information you need to know about student health and diet from parents or guardians. For ELLs, be sure to confirm and clarify this information with the help of interpreters.

If you learn information about a student that would be helpful for other staff to know, particularly regarding health or food allergies, talk with administrators about how to keep the child safe.  In addition, be sensitive to cultural or religious norms, such as fasting for religious reasons.

Keep an eye out for signs of culture shock

Moving to a new country and leaving a familiar life, relatives, friends, and language behind can be traumatic for children in the best of circumstances. Those challenges are compounded if children have experienced trauma, violence, or upheaval. Learn more about how culture shock can impact students in the classroom and affect student behavior so that you recognize signs if newcomers act out.

How Culture Shock Affects ELLs (EverythingESL)

Coping with Culture Shock (The Immigrant Education Society

Considerations During COVID-19

Ensure that students have a copy of their schedule and know where they need to be

As we all know, the schedules that students have to follow during virtual, hybrid, and in-person learning can be very confusing — and they may continue to change through the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensure that students and their families have all of the information they need to attend their classes at the correct time. See the resources related to language access above as needed to facilitate communication with families.

Ensure that students have the technology access they need

When new students enroll, it's important to ensure they have access to learning devices and internet so that they can continue with any hybrid or virtual instruction. It's also important to help them get familiar with the technology early on in case they need to learn from home remotely. For ideas on expanding technology access for ELLs, see the following:

How to Expand ELLs' Access to Technology for Distance Learning

Video: Using technology with newcomer ELLs during COVID-19

Patrick Synan is a high school ELL teacher for newcomer students and students with interrupted formal education in Boston, MA. Many of his students are unaccompanied children from Central America. In this clip, he talks about the experience of teaching students how to use technology remotely and how far they have come since the beginning of the pandemic.

Videos: How can we make ELLs feel welcome in our schools?

These videos highlight helpful examples and ideas from educators across the country.

What to Do First: Creating a Welcoming Environment

Learn about these important first steps from teacher Amber Jimenez that will help ELLs feel welcome and get them on the path to academic success. Strategies include creating a print-rich environment and connecting content to students' cultures and experiences.

Top Tips for a Strong Start in a Newcomer Classroom with Carol Salva

ELL-Friendly Classrooms: What to Notice

Valentina Gonzalez shares things you should see and hear that help support English Language Learners as well as many other students as you walk through classrooms.

Back to Top

Creating a Welcoming Environment for PreK-5 ELs by Judie Haynes (TESOL Blog)

Welcoming Immigrant Students Into the Classroom (Edutopia)

7 Tips for Building Positive Relationships with English-Language Learners (Edutopia)

10 Tips for Teaching English-Language Learners (Edutopia)

18 Ways to Support Your English Learners by Valentina Gonzalez (MiddleWeb)

How We Can Support Our Newcomer Students by Tan Huynh (Empowering ELLs)

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How to Create a Welcoming Classroom Environment for ELLs

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An important first step in helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed is making them feel welcome in the classroom.This will:increase their confidencemake them feel more comfortable in the classbuild a foundation for positive relationships with you and their peers.Here’s how you can get starte…

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Supporting cultural and linguistic diversity in early childhood

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Art materials are multicultural
-Activities and materials from different countries/cultures, such as origami paper with traditional prints, or materials to make
- traditional masks from your children’s cultures
- People-shaped paper, crayons, markers, and colored pencils in a range of skin tones
- Labels for materials and colors in English and in your children’s home languages

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You'll find that on the last page schools are required to include art, music, meals, and activities that center around different cultures. Yet, not all schools stay on top of these key tasks that support emergent bilingual children in early leanring.

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Supporting Emergent Bilingual Student In Early Education

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Supporting Emergent Bilingual Student In Early Education

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Language & Culture
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https://www.edc.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Supporting-Emergent-Bilingual-Children-Checklist_English.pdf

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Emergent bilingual students need a positive environment to flourish. It is possible to make the classroom a place where students feel comfortable.