Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.
Reflection
There are different activities that teachers can conduct in order to promote sociocultural language learning in classroom. Ignoring such activities might hinder language development in ESL classroom. In that regard, the activities, actions and behaviors, which might be considered not conducive to ESL, learning might include the following
-
Putting emigrant students at the margins of school community.
-
Following stereotypes of the community in which the students live.
-
Imposing the assimilation agenda.
-
Incorrect placement in ESL class.
-
Misinterpreting and condemning students actions and behaviors.
-
Perceiving native language usage as a hindering factor in ESL learning.
Reflecting on non-conducive activities, it can be stated that extreme polarization on the attitudes toward cultural groups can be seen as one of the main hindering directions in teaching ESL. On the one side of such theme is the assimilation agenda, with the imposition of the dominant culture and enforcing myths of language teaching. An example of the latter can be seen through communicating to those students strictly in English and prohibiting the use of students native language during classroom. The use of native language during classroom by foreign students is prohibited and perceived as a factor hindering English language learning. It was proven that the opposite of such teaching strategy, i.e., the promotion of using different languages during the class lead to that students perform better (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel, 2009).
On the other side of the spectrum can be seen attitudes and beliefs that reflect the exact opposite of the previous strategy. As opposed of assimilation, teachers might put too much emphasis on students culture and community, resulting in a negative reaction from students, e.g. tokenism. In addition, such emphasis is combined with a separation, because of which students are placed on the margin of the school community (Gitlin, Buendía, Crosland, & Doumbia, 2003). Too much emphasis, when students are placed to sing folk songs in their native language, dressed in traditional clothes, make such students being viewed like the other in the classroom.
Another direction hindering language development can be seen in teachers being placed in the middle of the aforementioned polar positions, with misinterpretation of any unique or specific attributes characteristic of the cultural group. Examples of such activities and behaviors can be seen through wrong placement of ESL students in traditional classes or advanced students in elementary le4vels. Misinterpreting behaviors and following stereotypes, whether of the group or the community in which the group resides, can be seen as other examples that hinder the development of English language.
Workshop
Workshop activities are suggested to improve the cultural awareness of teachers so as to avoid the behaviors and the activities indicated earlier. The goal of such workshop will be to promote cultural awareness in the classroom and educate teachers on strategies that will improve such awareness. One of the ways to conduct such workshops is to use evidence based researches and the experience of teachers with various cultural groups.
Presentations will outline that main point in sociocultural linguistics classes. Such presentation will merely summarize through bullet points the advantages of culturally aware classroom. Handouts will provide more detailed examples of the culture of a group can be acknowledge and how such culture can be implemented into the curriculum by teachers and into schools policies by the school board. The emphasis should be put not on the theoretical notions and titles, such as Cultural Awareness will facilitate language learning , but on the way the theoretical framework can be transformed into a real plan of actions that will consider different classroom and different cultural groups scenarios. Thus, the emphasis should be not only on the what , but also on the how . Accordingly, as it can be acknowledged that there are no ultimate guides for actions, discussion boards can be used for experience exchanges. In such discussions, teachers will create a knowledge base for different strategies and different cultural groups.
References
Gitlin, A., Buendía, E., Crosland, K., & Doumbia, F. (2003). The Production of Margin and Center: Welcoming-Unwelcoming of Immigrant Students. American Educational Research Journal, 40(1), 91-122.
Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., & McDaniel, E. R. (2009). Intercultural communication : a reader (12th ed.). Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.