Course reference- Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in K-2 Mainstream Classrooms
by Hanizah Zainuddin, Noorchaya Yahya, Carmen A. Morales-Jones and Eileen N. Whelan Ariza
Chapter 1
Multicultural Education: equal opportunity education for ALL students learning skills and having oportunities
to interact with peoples from diverse groups in order to live in a way that works for the common good.
Negative cultural diversity is when people have mixed or negative views about poeple of different culture
groups
"teachers and administrators must strive to go beyond exposing students to short-term multicultural celebrations
and instead strive to integrate multicultural themes into their everyday school curriculum." (text)
Forming a multiculutural curriculum sometimes requires reshaping the social climate of the school
Multicultural curriculum should have equal opportunities for all students, positive and nonthreatening atmosphere,
encourage students to become more culturally literate.
Involve parents...
Help parents realize that their students success is valued and possible
Use language the parents are familiar with
Encourage parents to continue education at home
Chapter 2
Each culture has different values
Teachers should get to know different cultures so they can accomodate children's learning styles
Ethnicity is a sense of belonging to a cultural group
Ethnocentrism- people accept their culture as the best and only way to do things.
Role of culture-ensures that members conform to socially acceptable actions, and cultural groups use laws
as external restrictions to enjorce appropriate behavior (text) this is normal! it's familiar and safe to people
Chapter 3
Language and cultural are inseparable
Second language learners cannot be successful without cultural learning as well.
Teachers need to make sure not to only highlight was is visable. Culture is much deeper than fiestas, or
cultural celebrations
Surface culture vs. Deep culture
Surface-food, holidays, arts, folklore, history, personality
Deep-ceremony,courtship/marriage, esthetics, ethics, family ties, health/medicine, myths, grooming, ownership,
precedence, privileges, rights, duties, sex roles,
Chapter 4
It is very important to not stereotype culture groups. Not everyone conforms that same way with in
the group
.
People need to understand their own cultural values so that they can understand why other cultures may be
so different.
Egalitarianism-the ideal of equality
Chapter 5
Culture Shock-when a person is removed from what they know and surrounded by a new and different environment.
The adjusting to the new, because "signs, symbols and cultural rules that people learned as children are the internal blueprints
used to decipher everyday cues that guide them to respond appropriately. If you take that way, it leaves the person
confused and not knowing how to respond to anything.
Reactions: feeling of helplessness, dependence, anger, frustration, depression, loss of appetite, poor sleep,
inpatience, delay or refusal to learn, longing to go home and physiological symptoms.
Language shock-determinant of culture shock-silent period....
Teachers can help students overcome culture shock by demonstrating positive attitude towards the students
cultural beliefs and customs. Also taking some attention away from the mainstream extroverted children who seem to monopolize
the class
Teachers should get students familiar with others cultures, with critical thinking, journals, buddies and
more
Chapter 6
Participation structures- interaction of students in the classroom. Some students like group work, whole
class activities, individual work.
Many cultures are based on cooperation.
High involvement- talk-a-tive, interrupts more, speak louder and quicker.
High onsiderateness- people speak one at a time, do not interrupt, listen politely, shows interest
Methods to make sure all students have a chance to participate:
Write all students names on a piece of paper, popcicle stick... and draw names.
Use a speaking stick, stuffed animal or other object. Only the person holding the object can speak
High-context- imformation is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, very little is
in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. People know what is expected
Low-context--mass of information is vested in the explicit code, lots of info, procedures are explained
clearly.
Chapter 7
proxemics- individuals use of space, comfort of physical space
Kinesics- the study of body language
"It can be dangerous to attempt to read someone's behavior based on our own frames of reference."
(Text)
Paralinguistics-set of vocal, nonverbal utterances that carry and augment meaning
Haptics-the art of how people use touch to communicate
Gestures are not universal
Oculesics-study of eye movement and position
Chronemics- the way a person views and uses time (Hickson et al..,2004) (text)
Polychronic- doing many things at a time
Monochronic- doing only one thing at a time
Chapter 8
field dependent
field independent
Chapter 14
Listening skills are crucial elements in the performance of a second lang learner.
Listening is not passive.
Top-down processing refers to listener's understanding the big picture of the message.
Listeners have to access their background knowledge they have of the subject in interpreting the message.
(pg 126)
Bottom-Up processing-the meaning of the message is interpreted based on the incoming data from sounds, to
words, to grammatical realationships, to meaning. (Ex. stress, rhythm and intonation)
Difficultly of listening for Second language learners- part of listening is to comprehend. Second language
learners have a lack of attention to the speaker because of thier limited understanding of the message.
Research shows that it benefits second language learners to go through a silent period.
Learners are given the opportunity this way to store information in their memories when they are not expected
to produce speech.
Strategies- prelistening, guided activities, use real data, use advanced organizers, use DVDs with captions,
use bottom-up skills, use metacongnitive strategies.
types of language-formal, casual, face to face, telephone, radio/tv, native speech
Developing a listening strategies should be encouraged
Chapter 15
Listening outside the classroom is used twice as often as speaking, which is used twice as much as reading/writing.
Inside speaking and listening are the most used
Social relationships are very important.
Short-turn consists of one or two utterances
Long-turn consists of a string of utterances that may be as long as an hour's lecture. (pg 143)
Pronunciation is another challenge to second language learners
Teachers need to incorporate new and innovative techniques that use English as a way to communicate.
Peer tutoring is very important
Poetry is is another helpful tool
Games, songs, show-in-tell, recording studio, riddles, jokes, choral reading, tv/dvd,cd,
Language has two major functions, transactional and interactional
Chapter 16
vocabulary seems to be the first challenge.
Vocab. for second language learners accoring to Keith Folse is single words, set phrases, variable phrases,
phrasal verbs, and idioms.
Vocab is difficult because ELL have to relabel familiar concepts with foreign terminologies.
Synonyms are also a difficulty
When teaching vocab. ---identify word, preteach only 3-5 words, connect new one to ones they already know.
Student need-to hear pronunciation, study 5-7 words at a time.
Receptive knowledge-being able to recognize one of the aspects of knowledge through reading and listening.
Productive knowledge meaning being able to use it in speaking and writing.(pg 168)
Students should be taught how to use dictionaries
Beginning level-no word recognition or limited
Vocab development- incidental-extensive reading/listening
explicit-diagnosing the words learners need to know,presenting words,elaborating word knowledge, developing
fluency.
independent- practicing guessing from context, dictionaries.
Chapter 17
readers interact with the text in different ways
Scaffolding is very important
Chapter 18
Research about reading is similar to research about writing in ELL
writing should be viewed as a social activity -previous experiences.
writing is a discovery process
Writing structure is hard for ELL learners
