Students' Native Cultures

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andrewgessman
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 6:31 pm

Students' Native Cultures

Post by andrewgessman » Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:07 pm

I think many if not most ESL teachers would agree that students' native cultures/languages influence their learning a new language. I think teachers should do whatever they can to encourage students to bring their cultures into the classroom, and teachers should be sensitive to how students' cultures influence their perspectives as learners. Obviously it's easier to capitalize on student culture in the learning environment when most of your students come from the same cultural background. In more diverse classrooms, where student cultures are more evenly mixed, it must be more difficult for the teacher to employ student cultures as a learning tool. Can due respect and attention be paid to each cultural group represented in the class, evenly across the board? Yes, I'm sure, but how?

RozannaB
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 6:33 pm
Location: Sewell, NJ

Post by RozannaB » Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:05 pm

I agree with you a hundred percent! I feel that it is important to bring the cultures of your students into the classroom to aid learning. I think students respond well in general to making connections with their own lives to the classroom, so bringing in various cultures into your lessons would give students more motivation to learn the English language. A good way to bring in cultural in classrooms where there is more diversity is to allow students to share during group discussion, by using journal entries, or by using creative projects to share their culture and lives with the class. It is helpful to do this because you as the teacher are not focusing on specific cultures, but are allowing each student to share their cultures with the class or just you depending on what type of assessment or activity it is. It is much more interesting and teaches students life skills when there is more diversity in the classroom.

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