Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers. Suggest ways you and your peers can increase cultural and global awareness. 

Melba Bledsoe

  I chose these…

·         Culturally responsive teachings, Give ELLs opportunities to create performance-based products (e.g., oral reports, games, storyboards, or artwork) based on their readings in order to deepen their understanding of the content and to promote their oral language development at the same time (Thompson, 2010). In this I think artwork would be the best.

• Break down instructional tasks for ELLs to make learning manageable. ELLs need step-by-step instruction that makes complex tasks accessible and builds on their prior knowledge, both culturally and linguistically.

·         Understanding a student’s culture is very important. It gives the student self-esteem, values, classroom behavior and learning. The more the teacher understands the more she can teach. I would draw a picm of the cycle of the butterfly so she could understand and have the words in English and her language. For linguistically responsive I would use.  Provide more wait time for content-based and literacy activities during class for processing new content and constructing meaning using their new language.

Wilishia Smith

Recognize that when students see their own cultures reflected in the instructional resources, students’ cultural identities are validated. They may become more interested in developing essential literacy skills and making meaningful and memorable connections to learning rigorous content and acquiring challenging, new skills.

Break down instructional tasks for ELLs to make learning manageable. ELLs need step-by-step instruction that makes complex tasks accessible and builds on their prior knowledge, both culturally and linguistically.

For learning the life cycle of butterflies, I would first break down the process step by step by using keywords and having them in English as well as Chinese. This will allow the other students to learn the names of the stages in a different language as well. I will then have my students to draw, label (in English and Chinese), and color the life cycle. Or do some sort of art incorporated activity that will allows a creative twist to the assignment. I believe this will help Jia feel more involved with the classroom, because her assistance and input will be important on pronouncing the names properly. This will also support her by showing her that we, as a class, are interested in her as a person and are curious and intrigued by her culture, and I think this will make her proud to know something not everyone else knows.

I feel it is important for teachers to know their students cultural identities because it will assist greatly in getting to know who they are. It helps understand their thought process and how they may come to conclusions or get results that may differ from other students.

An intercultural experience I had is when we moved to Germany when I seven years old. While we lived on an American army base that did not hide the culture we were surrounded by. The language, the food, the environment, and even learning styles were different to what I was accustomed to at home. What I learned from this experience is how to adapt, and how to adapt quickly, if you wanted to progress with everyone else. While English was spoken, German was incorporated heavily and by coming in the middle of the school year it was a lot I had to catch up with. When it came time to speak only using the German language I struggled and became more secluded. We only lived there about eight months and my mother, my brother and I moved back to the states and I wish is that we would have stayed so that I could have the chance to conquer the challenge of learning to live in different environment. This experience will benefit me because I know firsthand what it is like to be live in a new country. I understand all too well the feeling of loneliness in school this can cause and I feel I will be able to somehow relate to an ELL student.

Cushner, K., McClelland, A., & Safford, P. (2006). Human diversity in education: An integrative approach. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.