Cultural Sensitivity in Teaching English Language Learners

I’ve spent my career in classrooms where English wasn’t the only language spoken, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But many educators have told me they don’t feel fully equipped to support their language-diverse classrooms effectively. My dear friend and colleague Kristie Shelley, M. Ed. and I want to help by sharing what we’ve learned below. Here are 5 tips every educator needs to know when teaching Multilingual Learners: 1. Check your own biases Reflect on assumptions you may not even realize you have. Understanding and overcoming them will set both you and your students up for success. 2. Honor students’ cultural diversity Create a welcoming environment by learning how to pronounce students’ names correctly, building a library with books that reflect their identities, and recognizing their lived experiences. 3. Learn about their heritage languages You don’t need to speak every language, but understanding the basics - like how sounds and letters work in a student’s home language - can help them make connections to English. (You can even use AI for this!) 4. Leverage students’ skills in their heritage language Students bring literacy skills from their first language. Use those as a foundation for teaching English. 5. Use curriculum tools grounded in the Science of Reading Structured Literacy is an evidence-based approach that works for all students, including Multilingual Learners. Look for curriculum that includes phonological awareness, explicit phonics instruction, and systematic skill-building. I’m so thankful that Kristie and I got to share more on this in our recent article for The 74 Media. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gSjBAwX5

Question: Do you see an increase in diversity among your students at your school? How culturally responsive are the teaching practices at your school? In this PD session today I shared 6 Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices with the group of teachers pictured below. Here are 3 of them. 1. Get to know your students and about their cultures. Before you can use what you know about a student’s culture to teach them, you must first know them well. Learning about your students is the key to culturally responsive teaching. This includes talking with students, asking them questions, truly knowing about their family life, history, and experiences. Then you can look for ways to use the assets of various cultures to enhance what you are teaching. 2. Develop an asset-based mindset. Culturally responsive teachers understand that being bilingual is a true asset for the student both socially and globally. Growing the bilingual brain is of utmost importance. Teachers who embrace culturally responsive teaching build a classroom community that embraces languages and literacy of all types. Literacy in the native language is valued and encouraged. This leads to point number 3. 3. Learn a few words in your students’ native language and introduce them to students in class who do not speak that language. Why? Imagine moving to China and not knowing how to speak Chinese. Everything is written in Chinese and all you hear is a language you are unfamiliar with. Imagine now that your teacher learns a few words in English and says them to you. Maybe she says “Hello” or “Welcome.” Whatever it is, imagine the feeling it would evoke. Wouldn’t that make you feel a little more comfortable? When students are new to the country and speak little or no English, learning a few words in their native languages helps form a connection, shows that we care, and comforts them. For more tips feel free to reach out! Let’s work together to create learning environments where ALL students feel accepted, valued, and appreciated!

Dear educators Please stop using English learners when talking about students who speak more than one language. People who speak more than one language are bilinguals, trilinguals, and multilinguals. They carry with them access to multiple cultures and forms of knowledge. If you are unable to speak their language and the only form of language you provide is English, then as an educator, you are the one who needs to do the work to access your bilingual/trilingual/multilingual students. How Provide translations Use art/sound/music/play Make multilingual groups Allow multiple languages in the classroom Invite the community Learn from your students how they learn, not how you want them to learn Language is about connections and collaborations. And learning happens when students have access to knowledge. Access to knowledge happens in English, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Indigenous languages, Tagalog .......... De-center English They will learn English faster than you think because you would have allowed them to access the knowledge in their native languages. And for some of us, native means more than one language.