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A series of three lessons to welcome new pupils and develop communication in a primary school class, using mainly ball  games and movement activities

https://v.gd/eAK4z9

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MODULE "- Developing empathy and open-mindedness

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MODULE "- Developing empathy and open-mindedness

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It's maybe easier to develop empathy and open-mindedness with  younger pupils, who instinctively enact friendship relations. Pupils are often more open-minded than teachers, even if they sometimes absorb distrust and prejudices from the external world or from their family. In this case, the  teachers first must be themselves free from prejudices and preconceptions; they also must be able to create positive relationship with all the pupils.
Foreign pupils are often afraid of expressing their ideas or points of view because they are worried of their mates' opinion. Creating a good collaboration climate and a strong team environment in the class prevents pupils from being conformist to be accepted by the group, on a hand,  and rom bullying on the other hand, giving each pupil the opportunity to feel respected and understood.

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Reading emotions in social situations: http://enable.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=a5e205f5-a8b7-4188-8476-fe1bf61951e8&groupId=4467490

How well do you read other people?
http://enable.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=4b006943-1057-4825-aa8e-c7954aa00a85&groupId=4467490

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http://enable.eun.org/news

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https://www.salto-youth.net/downloads/4-17-3332/Final.pdf

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MODULE 2 - Recognising cultural diversity for learning in everyday practice

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MODULE 2 - Recognising cultural diversity for learning in everyday practice

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Creating and developing a sense of belonging and togetherness in the classrooms is the most important step to really build a school community.
There are many different ways to involve students in team and group activities, but I usually prefer using games and cooperative learning. They're the most affordable with young pupils, who still use sharing a game as a mean of communication and integration. Working in pairs or in small groups also fosters communication and direct knowledge among the pupils, who come into a spontaneous relationship despite any difference in language or habits.
Of course, throughout the school pupils must breath a general atmosphere of collaboration and cooperation among teachers, where conflict are resolved in a climate of dialogue and problems are  addressed clearly and responsbly.
In this sense, the communication between school and home becomes a pivotal point in the pupil's process of integration.

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MODULE 2 - Supporting students with different native languages

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MODULE 2 - Supporting students with different native languages

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Native languages are always to be preserved in the children's culture. So it's necessary that in their family they speak mainly their mothertongue. Multilingual schools, in Italy, are very rare.  In schools, we always use Italian and, of course, English during language classes. Pupils from abroad have some lessons with a linguistic and cultural mediator.
In my daily work., I always use games as a mean of communication. in both native and foreign language. I think that games are the main way to get in touch with children and to help them interact and express themselves. With younger pupils, I used ball games to help them interact, tell their names or the country they're from. With older pupils I use collaborative group games. Here you can find the link to an interesting article about collaborative games, and some examples. I'm sorry, it's only in iItalian....
http://www.liber-rebil.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/elenchi_giochi_cooperat.pdf

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MODULE 2 - STARTER ACTIVITY - Example activities to develop students' intercultural competences

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MODULE 2 - STARTER ACTIVITY - Example activities to develop students' intercultural competences

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I work as an English teacher in a  primary school in northern Italy.
In my school there are many foreign pupils, coming almost from all around the world. In my classes I have pupils from China, Northern Africa, South America, Russia, Romania, Middle East, Turkey, Caribbean... They are both first and second generation. Second generation normally speak quite good Italian, with the exception of Chinese pupils, who live in a closed community. Despite the difference in language and habits, children interact positively with each other and I find very interesting to share information about our different cultures. With so young pupils, class games are an excellent mean of interaction, communication and integration. In a game alla pupils are equals and can show and share their skills and let their culture emerge without feeling judged or criticized.
Parents can be involved in different ways, but they're often difficult to contact.
In the end, today one of my fifth grade told me some words in Czech, adding: "We could make an exchange: I teach you some Czech, that can be helpful if you like travelling in Eastern Europe, and you teach me some English..." Ok, that was the idea....

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INCLUSION AND LANGUAGES IN THE EARLY YEARS (an article from SchoolEducation Gateway)

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INCLUSION AND LANGUAGES IN THE EARLY YEARS (an article from SchoolEducation Gateway)

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It's a challenging time to be a teacher, but also potentially a really exciting time.

The challenges differ from one context to another but a common theme in some contexts is the imposition of universal curriculum standards and top-down micro-management of instruction that many teachers feel robs them of autonomy and spontaneity in how they interact with their students. For example, over the past six months, I've read many letters to the newspapers from UK teachers who are contemplating leaving the profession because of policies that they feel don't allow them to be educators. Not surprisingly, these policies tend to exacerbate looming teacher shortages in some contexts.

However, despite these challenges, there has probably never been a better time to understand the essence of what it means to be an educator-to create spaces in our classrooms where young minds expand and identities flourish. Ironically, it is the rapid increase in diversity, which undoubtedly creates challenges for entire education systems, that opens up these opportunities for us to re-connect with our own identities as educators.

Let me share an account told to me by my friend and colleague in Toronto, Dr. Roma Chumak-Horbatsch (see mylanguage.ca for some of her amazing work). Roma has been working with teachers in a highly diverse primary school close to Toronto, Canada, over the past two years exploring with them ways of creating inclusive spaces where students' linguistic talents and cultural knowledge will be affirmed and enabled to expand. Early in 2016, the school received a large number of Syrian refugee children who were faced not only with the challenge of learning a new language and adjusting to a new school culture but also with the dreaded Canadian winter (January and February are typically not fun months!).

The school principal gathered his staff together when the school was informed about the influx of refugee children and asked them to think about and discuss with each other what kinds of whole-school responses would make sense in order to welcome the newcomer children and their families. This kind of collaborative rather than top-down leadership style mobilizes all of the intellectual power of the teachers and other staff to solve problems and coordinate promising directions. Teachers, in turn, went back to their classrooms, and asked their own students " What should we do to make our newcomer students feel at home and help them learn? "

Students throughout the school came up with creative ideas. For example, those who spoke Arabic became 'language ambassadors' who helped explain school routines and classroom instruction to the newcomer students. Roma describes how she sat in one classroom after the refugee children had arrived and observed students taking newcomer children by the hand to show them what to do and multiple students wanting to interact with newcomers to explain things using English, Arabic, gestures, smiles. These newcomer children whose families had experienced the worst of human nature were now getting a small taste of the best of human nature.

Roma also recounted an incident in one classroom where the teacher engaged students with a variety of hands-on activities related to growing plants and then asked students to write what they had learned about 'soil'. One of the Syrian students was frustrated by his inability to write what he knew until one of the bilingual language ambassadors in the class suggested that he write it in Arabic. The newcomer student enthusiastically followed this suggestion and wrote several pages detailing what he knew about soil and growth processes. He then read what he had written to the class, with translation from the language ambassador. It turned out that during his time in a refugee camp in Jordan, he had worked with his grandfather to plant a vegetable garden to supplement the food supply for the family and he had acquired an in-depth knowledge about soil, plants, and growth processes.

This anecdote illustrates powerfully the importance of (a) students' home languages as intellectual resources, (b) connecting instruction to students' lives, and (c) creating instructional spaces where students' intellectual, personal, and cultural identities can be validated and expanded.
Dr. Jim Cummins is a Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Professor at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. His research focuses on literacy development in educational contexts characterized by linguistic diversity. In numerous articles and books, he has explored the nature of language proficiency and its relationship to literacy development with particular emphasis on the educational attainment of students from immigrant backgrounds. He has received honorary doctorates from the Bank Street College of Education in New York City and Hedmark University College in Norway.

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Inclusion and Languages in the Early Years

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It's a challenging time to be a teacher, but also potentially a really exciting time. The challenges differ from one context to another but a common theme in some contexts is the imposition of universal curriculum standards and top-down micro-management of instruction that many teachers feel robs them of autonomy and spontaneity in how they interact with their students.

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https://tackk.com/edit/11995278

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LANGUAGE LEARNING - A SKILL FOR LIFE (School Education Gateway)

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MODULE 1 SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST RESULT
PRO-ACTIVE AND ENGAED WITH EVERYTHING STUDENTS BRING TO THE CLASS

You are a reflective practitioner who pro-actively engages with your students and everything they bring to the class. Your engagement with parents and local community allow you to fully understand your students and make the learning experience relevant and effective for them. Your openness and curiosity allow you to integrate different cultural practices into your teaching and ensures that the diversity of every one of your classes is accounted for in the resources and teaching practices used in the classroom

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MODULE 1 - UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT MODELS OF LIVING  AND WORKING TOGETHER IN CULTURALLY DIVERSE COMMUNITIES
The three models shown in the videos correspond to the historic change in the idea of interculturality.

At first, closed communities lived completely separate with little contacts between them and almost no contact between individuals. Just think about the elder model of immigration: native and foreign communities co-existed, with problems that sometimes lead to contrast. The dominant feelings were distrust and xenophobia.

Latest, the concept  of integration was introduced in the model, with a strong emphasis on the idea of assimilation of foreigners into the culture of the host country.

Now, at least in schools, the humanistic participative model seems to be te more usual. The presence of different cultures in a classroom is considered a wealth, not a problem, and possible difficulties arising from  difference in language, religion or habits are appreciated as important and enriching for the whole community.

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MODULE 1- DEVELOPING CULTURAL COMPETENCE AS A TEACHER

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MODULE 1- DEVELOPING CULTURAL COMPETENCE AS A TEACHER

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All the aspects touched in the video are important , but to me the main condition is to be open-minded. Cultural diversity needs the ability to change point of view and to compare ideas with others.
As teachers,  the first thing that we can do is to create a welcoming environment, where new foreign pupils can feel safe, welcome and considered important for the life of the class.
t can be a good idea to try to keep the most of information about their story and their language before they come. If possible,  using English as a linguistic medium is also a good strategy, because sometimes foreign pupils know some word of English.
A second step can be to give new pupils the opportunity to express their cultural diversity through games and activities that help all the students to appreciate the richness of different cultures.

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MODULE 1 - WHY TALK ABOUT CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CLASSROOM

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MODULE 1 - WHY TALK ABOUT CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CLASSROOM

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I've always been interested in cultural diversity, since when I was a child and I used to travel through Europe with my family. It was extremely interesting to me meeting different culture, habits, lifestyles. Even different food! Being a language teacher in a primary school in the surrondings of a big city, I now face the challenge of multicultural classrooms, with many pupils coming from abroad. Many of them come from a tragic story of immigration, sometimes illegal, with a dramatic escape from war and poverty.

The number of foreign pupils in our schools is growing and growing due to the international problems that involve the near East countries.

In my experience, the first thing we can do as teachers is to help these pupils to feel welcome and safe in their new country. They often don't know a word of our language, so we need to find different ways to communicate with them.

It's important that children understand the value of  cultural diversity and that they must not be afraid of people with different habits.

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is brainstorming

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is sharing the same game

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is solidarity

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is singing songs from all over the world

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is having lunch together

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is finding new strategies

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is using new languages

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is trying different ways to achieve results together

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is playing the same music everyone on its own instrument

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is sharing knowledge

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY is not to be afraid of living together