Language Barriers in Schools: Challenges Faced by Teachers and Students - Essay Sample

Introduction

Diversity in schools has led to a severe language barrier and differences in languages. The morphology of the word, which differs from one language group to another present a critical issue in the school system. This is because the various students present different dialects from diverse cultural and ethical backgrounds that have different dialects. The literacy level of students are thus affected as the teachers who are teaching in class finds it difficult for meeting the expectations of the students as required by the teaching ethics. A student from a particular background let us take the ones who are not speaking English as the first language may have difficulties in presenting the ideas that they have in English.

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They may, in turn, try to use the local dialect that they know which can be conflicting with what is being taught. Moreover, some students may be coming from a cultural background where storytelling is used as a means of teaching, and due to diversity and inclusion; they are brought together with other students. The big question to ask in this matter is that, in a class of fifty students with serious diversification in terms of culture, how will the teacher cater to every individual? This big question has been affecting many teachers in a diverse environment today.

Dialect diversity results to lack of motivations among the students and sometimes, it gets depicted that some students get lost on the learning activities since they do not know what to follow and what not to follow anymore. As a result, conducting a test to determine the literacy level of the students is a very effective way through which teachers can be sure of one dialect and as well learn the literacy level.

Summary and Description of the Student

Culture and Language and Their Impacts on the Intervention Process

It is essential to realize that there are various cultural factors and language-based factors that impact on the literacy of the students. In coming up with an intervention procedure on the ways that can be implemented to help in increasing the rate of understanding among students in a comprehensive system, there is need to look into the following cultural factors. For instance, how students conduct education process in their culture.

Without a doubt, it can be noted that the means of education vary from one culture to another. A child who grew in an ancient culture where training was through exploration. A situation where a grandfather would take male children and teach them what is needed of them and the grandmother as well do the same for the female children. If these children are brought in one classroom with the child, who started to learn using written form may find it challenging to learn in the same settings. Cultural beliefs are also a significant hindrance to the education system. As other cultures may believe that written education is the best options for students, different culture may be adamant to the written form education and encourage the traditional one, and this consequently impacts on the readability of the students.

Language differences form one of the most significant differences and a problem in the education system. In diverse classrooms, as it is in various schools today, you find that most students are not taking English as their first language. The ones with English as the primary language are the minority. This is a problem that has affected communication levels in schools, and even the ways of delivering the content to the students become very difficult. Moreover, different in languages may pose a big problem since what one thing means in one language is very different from the same thing mean in another language. As a result, there will be poor communication if a standard, leveled way of communicating is reached.

In the intervention process, the culture and language of a student can help in determining the culture from which the student is coming from. Can as well assist in determining the cultural beliefs, whether supports the education system or not, and whether the culture can be used to promote education in an inclusive environment. Likewise, the language that is spoken by a student can help one to understand the level of his or her understanding. Using these factors as determinants can help in gearing the intervention program.

Related Intervention Theory

Researchers have come out in large numbers to try to give an explanation of the issue those impacts on the performance of many students and the content delivery of many instructors. As a result, some theories had been put in place to help in explaining the issue and to give the reason why the situation is the way it is. Some of the approaches that had been generated based on looking into this factor constituted the cultural deprivation theory and the environment deficit theory.

According to this theory, those who are poor and the minority group does not get a proper opportunity to help them develop cognitive skills, language, social skills, and social skills. This way, they are deprived of getting what other children are getting in the environments where they grow. The bottom line is that in the environment where these students operate, there are so many things that they lack, such as the exposure that can help them to learn effectively.

Environment deficit theory can, therefore, be regarded as the theory that can help in this intervention as it tries to give flesh to the reason why the students have differences and thus, preflight of what should be done to improve the issue is indicated.

Cognitive Development Phase

The cognitive development phase is significant since it helps in determining the level of intelligence of the student. It can help in the intervention program in several ways. First, it helps in assessing the state of growth of the child. Secondly, it helps in determining the cognitive ability of the student. In so doing, it helps the team to find a solution to the problem that affects their studies. The phase is, therefore, very critical in the intervention procedure as it provides for the dull representation of the status of the mind.

Screening, Diagnosis, and Prescription

The test that was used was the one that was elaborating on the word knowledge reading. This part of knowledge is one of the categories that need to be tested. It can help with determining how good the student is when it comes to the reading of the letters. This test was done in various phases such as the word-reading phase and the late partial alphabetic phase. In this literacy activity, the child was able to score 2.8. From the results, it is depicted that the child has passed the emergent readers spellers, and the child is probably in the alphabetic reader and speller phase. Based on the score that the child made away within the process, it can be concluded that the child is in the mentioned phase. Moreover, the results of the tests and the interventions showed that there is a lot that is needed to be done to help the child in his or her reading habits.

Intervention

Four significant interventions have been deduced from the test, and these will help the student to improve on the reading projects. One, from the test, it has been recommended that Phonemic awareness is put in. Phonemic awareness will not only help in ensuring effective reading but, it will as well lead to the student gaining the knowledge of the sounds of the wordings, thus improving the reading understanding of a student.

Another intervention plan that has been put in place is the identification of the letters. There are no readings without the knowledge of letter identification, which help you to realize that this is the letter 'a,' and the other one is the letter 'c' for instance. Knowing these letters will help in proper pronunciation; practical writing skills and the ability to spell out words as well as write the correct sentences.

It has also been indicated that as an intervention measure, it is essential for the use of phonics-based phonics, which incorporates the use of games or music. This will help in the mastery of the concepts that are being taught. From the test result, it seems that the student lacked some sense of knowledge of that concept, but through this plan, there will be improved activities. Lastly is the phonics based on decodable; this is where the student is to choose a text based on the vowels that were reviewed and do some practice on it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is essential to note that there are problems that are facing the inclusion of education with the increased diversity in almost all aspects of learning. These differences have affected the learning activities of the students in various schools. Some of the significant factors that affect the performance in the schools include the cultural constraints and the language systems, which needs to be looked into.

Reference

Wiley, T. G. (1996). Literacy and Language Diversity in the United States. Language in Education: Theory and Practice 87. Delta Systems Co., Inc., 1400 Miller Pkwy., McHenry, IL 60050-7030. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED440557