As asked in your reading packet: what are some ways that background information will serve as a practical purpose in your instruction? (p. 6)
Elem Ed majors, let us know from your perspective. Subject-secondary majors, let us know from your specific discipline. Be creative. And you know you have to keep the standards in mind...
Secondly: Time for some introspective analysis...(p.9) Where are you in the development of your cross-cultural skills? Review each item on the list and rank yourself.
Also read and share observations (if you like) on Leanna Traill's quote on p. 11.
What do you have to say about the "Hidden Curriculum?"
Please address the difference between BICS and CALP.
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By gathering background information, it will allow me as a teacher to better understand and interact with the student. For example, if the student is having trouble with a specific issue, by knowing where that child has come from and what he or she has been through, it can help me come up with a suitable and appropriate solution. Without background information it is easy to assume many things about a person that may, in fact, not be true. Ideally, as the packet says, it would be helpful to meet with the parents as soon as possible. Although they may not speak English either, they may bring an interpreter to help facilitate communication. This would be a valuable tool in assessing where the student is cognitively as well as emotionally
My subject is social studies, so knowing the student’s background information can play an integral part in my instruction. For example, if they are from China, and that is what we are studying, they will not only feel a sense of comfort with the material, but can also be a resource of information for the rest of the class. Since we cannot take a class trip to China the next best thing is a person who has lived there and knows the country in ways that we may not have imagined. It is also important to know a student’s background because if they left their native country under unfortunate circumstances than discussing this region in class may be a sensitive area for him or her. Being aware of a situation like this allows me as a teacher to be prepared and lend support if necessary.
Very well said Christine. However, I am having a very different experience. I am teaching Theatre at The School of Performing Arts in East Brunswick (9-12). Learning the English language is an absolute MUST if one plans to read and memorize scripts/monologues and perform in front of hundreds of people. I actually have a junior from Kenya. She still has an accent but she is totally fluent in English. However, because of the nature of the Theatre world, there are no ELL students in these classes. Maybe these students do have an interest in Theatre, but, they are too scared of showing it because of their language barriers.
I also have a religious Jew in my class. Usually performances are on Thursday and Friday nights. Since she cannot be out on Friday night after sundown, my co-op teacher has changed the days of the performances to Wednesday and Thursday.
It is in my best interest as a Theatre Educator to find out about my students, so I can possibly bring in Theatre from their worlds, whether it is Colombia, Kenya, or Israel. This makes the student feel special about who they are and where they come from.
Background information in a classroom environment is vital. A teacher needs to know what is on his or her plate and doing a bit of research can do no wrong. Talking to a student’s parents will be very beneficial for a teacher to find out if the student might need extra assistance or might not be fluent in English. Being in an 8th grade social studies classroom, an English as a Second Language student will absolutely need extra assistance. The teacher as well as the student and parents will need to put additional time in to assure a successful school year. The teacher must teach the standards from NJCCCS and the students need to grasp the material. In an 8th grade classroom, the students need to pass their GEPA test and being taught correctly and understanding all the materials is essential to a smooth running classroom. In regards to the list on page 9, I am not going to go through each category; however, overall I would say I am pretty good at all of them. Understanding cultural differences is needed to ensure an exceptional classroom. A teacher needs to me able to relate to students, parents, and other faculty members. Leanna’s quote says it perfectly! If the students are respected by the teacher and have a powerful, exciting classroom, the students will respect the teacher and other students in return. Since the classroom serves as a second home to students, the class should be as warm and friendly as possible and this will also allow for a safe fun learning experience.
Knowing the learner is definitely a key element in effective educational planning, especially when it comes to dealing with ELL students. It would be a difficult if not impossible task for a teacher to step in without any prior knowledge of a student and give them the education and attention he/she needs. Knowledge of a student’s educational background, personal interests, abilities, and aspects of their home life, just to name a few, gives a teacher a steppingstone; a place to begin. It is imperative that as teachers, we “meet students where they are…start with what they bring” and begin on a progressive learning journey. A good way to do this, as mentioned in the handout, is to give these ELL students a background information survey to supply some information on the facets of their lives that may influence their learning. Having this knowledge can be extremely useful to the teacher in a variety of different ways. He/She can use personal interests along with cultural background information and integrate them into the weekly lesson plans. This will help intrigue the ELL student as well as involve them where they may have felt isolated and sometimes abandoned by the curriculum; having familiar and friendly topics can be inviting and can help put an introverted and shy ELL student, or any student for that matter, at ease.
Gathering background knowledge of my students is very important because it allows me, as a teacher, to better understand and communicate with my students, even if they are not as familiar with the English language as the rest of the students. It is essential for me to get as much background information that I can before the student enters the class, so I have already prepared how I am going to go about communicating with the student. Also, as stated in the article, it is a great idea to schedule an appointment with the parents to see what the parents' opinions are of the student having a interpreter in the classroom. As you can see it is very vital to gather background knowledge on students before they enter your classroom because it will definitely pay off in the long run, especially since the students will feel more comfortable and learn at a faster rate.
The difference between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is that BICS are “language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners employ BIC skills when they are on the playground, in the lunch room, on the school bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone." These language skills usually develop within two years after arrival in the U.S. On the other hand, “CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school." This usually takes about five to seven years. "Recent research has shown that if a child has no prior schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers” (Haynes, 2007). As brought out in the reading packet on page twenty-two, even though a student speaks English very well he may still be functioning below grade-level in the academic language proficiency area. This is why it is so important for all teachers to understand the difference between social language and academic language acquisition.
Background information on all students is critical for any teacher to be able to connect with their students and teach them well. I believe that it is important to expose all elementary students to world cultures. There are many interdisciplinary activities that can be done to include different cultures into the curriculum. An example is one used for my first language arts lesson on formal and informal directions in a fifth grade. For a supplemental activity I had students interpret directions for an origami object that only came in drawn pictures but no words into written formal instructions. Students then tried to follow their own written instructions and make that object. While making the objects, students were given a lesson on Japanese papermaking and the legend of the peace crane and the memorial in Hiroshima. This opened a dialog about Japan and even World War II that went beyond the initial lesson. Knowledge of ELL students' background information could allow a teacher to research the countries of origin of their students and then include lessons and activities about the countries or culture that might make the student feel more accepted and understood.
I am doing Junior Fieldwork in a fifth grade in Plainfield and about a third of the students in the classes are in households with little or no English. Despite being able to converse in English and test out of the ESL program, several of those students are in a Read 180 classroom designed to bring student reading and comprehension up to grade level. This is an example of the difference between their BICS, or social language ability, as compared with their CALP, or academic or cognitive language functioning. I am in a language arts class which has three fifth grade classes during the course of each day. The first class participates in the Read 180 curriculum, which is a computer interactive program where students see videos, read paragraphs and get self-tests to improve reading and vocabulary comprehension. After the teacher gives whole class instruction for about twenty minutes, the students, who are divided into three groups, take turns during the rest of each period either working independently on the Read 180 computers wearing headphones, working with the teacher on class activities that reinforce the lesson, or sit on a rug and read independently or listen to their book on tape with headphones as they read along.
In Plainfield elementary schools, all notices home to parents are in English on one side and Spanish on the other with identical graphics on both. I think that this is just one important way to communicate with parents, keep them informed, and as mentioned on page 16, allow the parent to keep their "parental authority" by eliminating the need for the student to become the family interpreter. One girl actually became upset when there was an oversight and a notice only for fifth graders was distributed without the translation. The office had to get copies of the notice translated quickly so that it could be distributed to those children who needed it.
I also think that it is great that Plainfield fifth graders have Spanish class weekly. I think that all students should have exposure to other languages in school.
I believe that Leanna Traill's quote applies to all students, not only ELLs. Students absolutely need to feel respected to be able to reach their full potential in school. I feel really good about my acceptance by the fifth graders at my school. By joking with them and observing positive things about them and praising those things, I feel that I have really connected with them. The respect that I have shown them has been reciprocated, even from children who are often in trouble or ignored. It's an amazing feeling.
This actually ties into the Hidden Curriculum, which illustrates the various ways that respect and student value are projected by teachers and can be reinforced in the classroom. A positive and encouraging attitude and environment allows the teacher to include all students and meet their emotional and psychological needs while encouraging academic success. The Hidden Curriculum items expressed on pages eleven and twelve are important common sense approaches to meeting student needs that, although not tested, are just as important as academics to enable a student to become successful.
As far as my personal cross-cultural skills assessment, I feel that my experiences in life and my nature have led me to be in a good place regarding the skills noted on page nine.
Let me start by saying that I was an ELL. Although, I studied several languages as a child, I did so in the comfort of my country of origin; therefore, I missed on the feelings of being an outsider.
When I came to the U.S.A., I needed some time for adjustment and I was lucky to integrate easily mainly because I leave in an area of NJ where the population is diverse and the schools, the parents and the children are supportive of each other. We do have a large population of ELL students at all levels from PK to high school.
My subject is Spanish, which means that I will not be teaching ELL’s; however, I can approach foreing language education from the same perspective with the disadvantage that my students come from and go back to an English speaking world right after my class diminishing that way their ability to master Spanish as they will master English.
Regarding the importance of background information, I firmly believe that it should be viewed as practical and enriching for the teacher as well as for the ELL student and the rest of the student body of any given school. We live in an era of “globalization” which requires fast adaptation to new situations, acceptance and understanding of new cultures without fear of loosing our values and identity.
Also, I believe that as much effort as we put in teaching ELL, we should also put effort in promoting world languages education at the earliest levels of school so we can be ready to negotiate in the future in many languages.
I read sometime ago a comment about the state of education in Great Britain, someone said “the British have the bad luck of being born in a country where English is the official language as well as the language that the rest of the world uses for business, therefore, they will always be monolingual” in other words, their communication is and will be limited.
Bilingual or multilingual speakers tend to loose their abilities in the languages they do not practice and it is expected that by the third generation the family language will not be practice.
Going back to the relevance of background information, I just attended a workshop for teachers of modern languages and the number one recommendation was to personalize the class for the students, the theory is that if the discussion is personal the student will be interested in the subject and will participate actively.
Pilar
When it comes to cross cultural skills I consider myself blessed. I have friends from almost all over the world. At college I met people from countries I only heard about, now those countries have an identity for me, a face.
We have shared concerns about our children, and we have exactly the same concerns. Language, religion and food may be different, but the goals are the same: improve ourselves as individuals, give our children the best opportunities, accept and be accepted.
Pilar
Regarding “The Hidden Curriculum” I agree it is essential in the classroom, I somehow thought that by now all teachers will make a point of practicing it because of the ethnic diversity of the state, I guess we must constantly reinforce it, so, we not go back to some practices of the past.
I am not yet doing my Junior Field, but in my freshman observations and sophomore observations/student teaching, I was lucky the teachers shared and show me how to apply the rules to the subject of Foreign Languages.
The teachers of the Modern Languages Department in the school I practiced provide an environment in accordance to the language they are teaching, create a space where the students
Language acquisition is reinforced by the materials on the walls, the display of work and anything related to the culture of the language.
Pilar
BIC and CALP
As I said before, I will be teaching Spanish, and there is where I will apply my experience with BIC and CALP.
Number one is my experience as ELL; if I am not careful I will make mistakes that derive from “code switching” or structure of English – Spanish grammar. If I want to write a flawless paper I must take time and usually this is what I do: I leave my writing for a day, then I go back to it and see my errors clearly.
I also observed and studied my daughters while both learned two languages. The oldest had a seamless transition between Spanish and English and excelled in school. The youngest did not say a word until her second birthday and had some difficulties in school, she is better in math than in grammar.
Regarding the transfer of cognitive and academic tasks from one language to another, the three of us are leaving proof that what we learn in one language is transfered to the other.
Pilar
I am responding to the post that Ilana Yitzhaki wrote. I am also a Theatre teacher, and I fully agree with everything she wrote. I do not have any ELL students in class at Old Bridge High School, and I have never had any ELL students in class with me during the eight years that I have taken theatre classes. It is much harder for an ELL student to take Theatre as an elective because they usually need to take ESL and other English classes. Even if these students did want to take theatre, they would have a very hard time in the class because everything we do in theatre is based on scripts. If they cannot read or understand the scripts that they receive, how can they fully participate and enjoy the class? A main point of Ilana's that I agree with is if an ELL student is not fluent in English and not comfortable with the English language, how can he or she have the confidence to perform in a class made up of 30 of their peers? On a daily basis I see students with dialects from New York and Texas that are embarrassed by the way they speak, and they speak English. ELL students have a disadvantage when it comes to taking classes in Theatre.
The acronyms BICS and CALP refer to a distinction introduced by Cummins between basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency. The distinction was intended to draw attention to the very different time periods typically required by immigrant children to acquire conversational fluency in their second language as compared to grade-appropriate academic proficiency in that language. Conversational fluency is often acquired to a functional level within about two years of initial exposure to the second language; whereas at least five years is usually required to catch up to native speakers in academic aspects of the second language. Failure to take account of the BICS/CALP (conversational/academic) distinction has resulted in discriminatory psychological assessment of bilingual students and premature exit from language support programs into mainstream classes.
As a Spanish World Language teacher, I believe that by gathering background information, I make myself more open to new ideas and different cultures. In my content area I will have many different children from various countries and it is important to know a little about everyone. For example, if I am doing a unit on Latin American countries, it is important for me to know about the different foods or dances in these various countries, and also the countries of where my students come from so that we may compare and contrast different cultures and beliefs.
For a World Language Teacher, it is essential to know about culture and background information because our second standard consists of Culture. We must incorporate culture in many if not all of our lessons. I agree with Jeremy, a little research can do no wrong!
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