2. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSION
OBJECTIVES
You will be able to
understand:
The complex nature of
culture
Cultural competence
Differentiation
Issues for refugee and
newcomer students
You will be able to:
Recognize how culture
affects different
behaviors in your
students
Differentiate instruction
for your English
language learners
Interact with English
language learners and
their families with
cultural awareness and
sensitivity
4. THINK – PAIR - SHARE
Think about yourself.
Share an example of surface
culture and an example of deep
culture from your own life.
5. CULTURAL COMPETENCE
Cultural competence: the ability to understand
and respect values, attitudes, beliefs,
interpersonal styles and behaviors that differ
across cultures, and to consider and respond
appropriately to these differences in planning,
implementing and evaluating programs and
services.
6. STEPS TOWARD CULTURAL COMPETENCE
Model respect
Reflect on your own cultural biases
Select culturally relevant classroom resources
Give students the opportunity to share their culture
Understand the impor tance of equity rather than
equality
Inform yourself about the students’ culture
Be aware of deep culture when interacting with the
students
Adapted f rom Under standing ESL Learner s : Mov ing Toward Cul tural Responsiveness — A
Guide for Te a c h e r s ( A l b e r t a Te a c h e r s ’ A s s o c i a t i o n ) .
8. DIFFERENTIATION
Differentiation: instruction that is
designed to support individual
students' learning in a classroom of
students with varied backgrounds
and needs (Colorincolorado.org)
9. STEPS TOWARD DIFFERENTIATION
Get to know as much as possible about each student.
Have high expectations for al l students
Have a variety of research-based instructional strategies at
hand.
Use ongoing assessment to guide instruction
Provide multiple types of assessment
Di f ferentiate homework
Col laborate
Use flexible grouping
Make content comprehensible for al l students
Adapted f rom Di f ferent iated Ins t ruc t ion for Eng l i sh Language Learner s , Karen Ford (2011)
10. ACTION PLAN ACTIVITY
You wi l l be working in a smal l group.
Select one step toward cultural competence and one step
toward di f ferentiation that you can apply in your teaching
context tomorrow.
Share the steps you selected with your group, and explain:
How they will support cultural competence and differentiation
How you will implement them
How they will help your newcomer and refugee students
One question that you still have about cultural competence or
differentiation
11. RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
A l b e r ta Te ac h e r s’ A s s o c iat io n ( 2 010 ) . U n d e r st an din g E S L
learners: moving toward cultural responsiveness –
guide for teachers. Edmonton, Alta: Alber ta education.
http://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/A
A/Publications/Specialist -Councils/ESL-3
6%20Moving%20Toward%20Cultural%20Responsiveness
pdf
Ford, K. (2011). Di f ferentiated instruction for Engl ish
language learners. Colorincolorado.org.
http://www.colorincolorado.org/ar ticle/41025/
Good morning everyone, thank you for being here today. I’m going to speak to you for about twenty minutes about how to serve your newcomer and refugee students. Refugee students bring a wealth of knowledge to your school, and their needs differ from those of your other students. Refugee students may have gaps in their schooling. They may have moved over and over again, and they may have literally just arrived to this country. They may have left behind family members and caretakers, and they may have experienced very traumatic events. This can be an overwhelming and daunting task, but there are small steps you can take to make sure that these students are being served.
Here are the objectives for this presentation. We may not become experts at this in the next 20 minutes, but we will be set up with attainable first steps that we can take toward creating a successful environment for our refugee and newcomer students.
When many of us think about culture, we might think about our history, ethnicity, religion, or community. In fact, culture affects much more than just what we eat or the music that we listen to. It affects our entire reality. It determines what we are taught, how we are taught it, and how we apply that knowledge. It affects our social interactions and our world view. There is very little that it doesn’t affect. You might be familiar with this graphic. The portion of the iceberg that is above the surface of the water represents “surface culture.” Surface culture corresponds to the elements that we traditionally associate with culture, like clothing and music. What is below the surface of the water is referred to as “deep culture.” These elements include knowledge, skills, behaviors, and ways of thinking that go beyond just what you see. For example, seasonal changes – a student from a country with a tropical climate may not have knowledge of a four-season system. This could be interpreted in class as a deficiency of knowledge, when really, it is the presence of culture-specific knowledge. That student DOES know the seasons – in his or her home country. Your refugee students are bringing an incredible wealth of knowledge to the school, and they are resources! It is important that you try to access what they know as much as possible. Give them the opportunity to share their knowledge, and remember that the way in which they do so can also be culturally specific.
Spend a moment thinking about your own culture. With the person next to you, share an example of surface culture and an example of deep culture from your own life. For example, my mom is from Alabama, so important family recipes include barbeque sauce, banana pudding, and fried chicken. That would be surface culture. I also come from a culture in which directness and responsiveness is expected. This results in a comfort with eye contact and asking questions. Take two minutes to think about this and share with your partner.
Cultural competence means that we are able to take culture into account when teaching our students. Our goal is to ensure that our instruction is effective for our students, and to do so for our refugee students, we need to take culture into account. You may have a classroom full of varying cultures, but there are strategies and techniques we can use that can reach everyone, and will not take anything away from other students.
These are some tangible steps that you can take in your classroom every day in order to achieve cultural competence. Equality and equity are particularly important here. Equality means everyone receives the same thing. Equity means everyone gets to the same destination. There is a really great graphic that demonstrates this point. This publication is available online for free, and has really excellent resources on cultural competence.
How do these two pictures differ? Our students need equity, not equality. As teachers, it’s our responsibility to get them to the same place, and to get them there, they may need “different boxes.”
In order to meet our refugee and newcomer students’ needs and ensure equity, differentiation should be used in the classroom. This is a strategy that is effective for all of our learners, not just for English language learners. Differentiating allows us to meet students in their zone of proximal development, even though this might differ from student to student. However, it does not have to mean an unreasonable workload for teachers and staff. Scaffolded lessons provide differentiation, with different students extending to different parts of the lesson. For example, I had a 1st grade writing class with ELL students at varying levels. Some could write multiple paragraphs, and others still did not have their alphabet down. For one assignment, students had to write a story about their day at school. We used a word wall with pictures to review names of locations and items in the school for students to reference. We created sentence frames, and used them to create a model story together. Some students were expected to write independently, using the model only as a guide. Other students focused on using the word wall vocabulary and fitting them into the sentence frames. In this way, students were able to focus on the activity that best encouraged their learning, meeting them where their at (Krashen’s i+1 theory).
The following are easy, tangible steps that you can take to begin differentiating instruction for your newcomer students in your classroom. Content should not be watered down for ELLs. As teachers, we know that one size does not fit all. This is especially true for ELLs, but equally applicable and effective for all of your students. Collaborating with your fellow teachers and staff is essential. Making content comprehensible can be done through adding pictures, graphics, charts, and other images that display content alternatively.
Take five minutes for this activity, and then share out.
The first is a great resource for cultural competence. The second is great for differentiation.
