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Teaching multiple cultures at once

Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:23 pm
by Tammy30
I was wondering if anyone has ever had taught more than one culture in a classroom at one time? I can not see trying to teach students with different languages in one class. Is there any advice that you can give me that would help me as a future ESL teacher. :D

Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:32 pm
by Chronda
Tammy, I was wondering the same thing myself. I think that it would be difficult to teach children who are speaking more than one language. It is probably going to be hard enough to teach English and Spanish, so I cannot imagine teaching children who speak other languages. I hope this makes sense. Hopefully, someone can give us some advice soon.

Chronda

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 2:50 am
by Genie
Tammy and Chronda,
I was wondering this myself. I bet it will be hard to teach students who speak more than one language in the same classroom. I do not speak any foreign language but have taken foreign language classes in high school so I can relate to the students on how frustrating it is for them to learn to speak a new language. I am still wondering how I am going to be able to communicate with them if they don't know any English.
Genie

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 4:19 am
by Lorikeet
I have no experience teaching kids, but I have taught beginning level zero-English classes to adults with many different language backgrounds in the same class. If you are really interested in helping them learn, they will feel it, and I'm sure they will try their best. You can use pictures and objects a lot. You can have them do things. (Give Mary the apple. Stand up. Sit down. Put the book on the table.) I used to use a lot of plastic fruits and vegetables, along with colored plastic forks, combs, spoons, toys, and whatever I could find. You can teach objects and colors. You can have them put things in, on, or under other things. You can make flashcards for the kids to use with each other. You can be silly and laugh a lot and be surprised at how much they learn. :wink:

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 3:17 pm
by Tammy30
Thank you Lorikeet for your help. I will use your examples in my future class. Any help you give is greatly appreciated.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 2:18 pm
by Jen
Lorikeet,
Thank you for responding. I enjoyed your ideas about using pictures, objects, and flashcards to help students learn. We need more responses and suggestions from people like you you have experience. Please feel free to offer any other suggestions you might have or have heard about. Thank you again for your response, it really helps those of us who have no experience.
Jennifer

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2003 6:12 pm
by Tammy30
thank you all for responding to my question. I am really looking forward to teaching ESL and learning from them also. This has been a great experience and I hope that I get a chance one day to pass on what I have learned. :D

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 7:30 am
by Celeste
You should get in touch with some EFL teachers and some ESL teachers in places like Canada. I was an EFL teacher for adults in Vancouver, and it was a very creative job. I brought a lot of realia into the classroom. We practised a lot of survival English and then went on outings to try it out.

In a lot of public highschools in Vancouver, they have a large number of ESL students from various countries (mostly from Hong Kong, but there are many other countries represented as well). Recently, in the 2001 census they discovered that English is spoken as the mother tongue in less than 50% of households in Vancouver. Interesting, no?

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003 2:00 pm
by Tammy30
Thank you so much for yur reply Celeste. It was so exciting getting a message all the way from Japan. I really appreciate your help and advice.
Thank you and that was very interesting. :lol: