Maximizing Learning Outcomes in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Settings - Essay Sample

Introduction

A culturally and linguistically diverse setting is a whereby people come from different backgrounds, and the home language is not the same as the primary language of instruction. Most educators have ignored diversity in their classrooms as much as it would have brought a great learning experience to other learners. Literacy skills are essential for a child's early development (Brooks & Karathanos, 2009). The skills are essential in reading and writing. For a child to be considered as having excellent literacy skills, they have to have some bit of understanding in awareness of print, understand the sounds of language. Other capabilities include knowing what vocabulary entails, how to spell words, and read comprehensions. Parents can help their children with print awareness by encouraging them to read books from a tender age.

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Early childhood educators and school staff are working more and more with children from diverse ethnic, cultural, and economic and linguistic backgrounds. Although the student population is rapidly diversifying, its leadership remains dominated by the origins of the middle class and white predominant (Espinosa, 2005). Increasing cultural and linguistic differences between registered children and teachers ensure that all educators acquire skills, knowledge, and, most significantly, practical education to teach multilingual and multicultural environments.

Children from different cultures and low-income families participating in school programs are vulnerable to chronic school failure and final school failure with little or no English. Recent studies have shown that the ethnic, racial, and socio-economic status of children on admission was very different in literacy and mathematics (Brooks & Karathanos, 2009). This paper examines relevant studies on effective teaching and assessment methods for children from different backgrounds and guides school staff.

The current goal of educational institutions is to transform people's skills, values, and knowledge into universal and predictable standards, particularly for minority students who have English as a second language. Schools are now trying to make all learning equally familiar and incorporate it into learning that is often seen as an "improvement." Educators tend to exaggerate some characteristics of group differences and encourage people to change course or plan their orientation. Such a search for consistency passively accepts orders, waits for instructions from others, accepts them, and often rewards those who do not interfere with the way traditional organizations work (Brooks & Karathanos, 2009).

Literature Review

Many scholars have conducted research concerning the ideal conditions that promote research. Some of the scholars, Donovan and Bransford (2005), observed how some of the learning principles are applied in a classroom setting. The principles were applied when learning arts and science subjects. Due to the results, they emphasized that there were only three important conditions for active learning to take place. An educator should use a learner's prior knowledge and background to teach. The second condition was incorporating facts with theories to deepen a learner's understanding. The last one was educators should support learners to take an active role in learning. Any effective learning that claims that it is scientifically proven should show these principles, and they are most effective in an English learning classroom (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). The preexisting knowledge should include the experiences that give the learner a sense of identity outside the classroom. Prior learning should not involve skills and information only that was previously acquired in a formal classroom. Teaching in a school with a linguistically and culturally diverse background should trigger this knowledge.

Knowledge is everything, the skill to remember things notwithstanding .when students develop a deeper understanding of a topic or something; they can transfer that knowledge from one language to another. Every student and educator prefer active learning instead of passive learning when it comes to learning a language. The practice makes one perfect after a while, and it is a way for educators to know that they are instilling knowledge to their students. It is essential for students to own their learning, that is, to identify with their identities for active learning objectives. Scripted instructions fail to achieve the desired learning outcomes according to research (Warschauer, Knobel, & Stone, 2004).

Teachers should teach early childhood children such that they can transfer their skills and concepts from their mother tongue to the language of instruction. The reason being, the home language usually encodes knowledge that preexists for the learner's language of instruction. According to the research done by Cummins (2001), this type of learning helps a learner in a biliteracy setting in the school context. The problem with this approach is that most school policies state that once a learner enters a place of learning, they should leave their home language at the door.

Interpersonal relationships are essential for children to adapt to schooling, and for learners of English in particular, participation in learning promotes learning by emotion and cognition. Teachers have the opportunities and responsibilities to create an environment in which English learners are identified, thereby increasing their confidence in literacy and language activities.

Methodology

To cover the more abstract aspects of the study, a structured interview consisting of several questions divided among the representatives of each group of participants was selected. Interviews are often used as a complementary social science research method to provide more in-depth and open opportunities for debate and a more informal free exchange between interviews and respondents (Sarantakos, 2013). ). Although this is considered disadvantageous because individual results can be obtained, it is not possible to conceive of subtle differences in research, such as "question for emotion" or "creation of an unforgettable experience" could not be relayed in a questionnaire. This aspect made the interview a better research method in this paper. Of course, the data obtained are subjective, and the results of the meeting are not generalized. On the other hand, its flexible form helps to explain better and understand the link between classroom learning and diverse culture and linguistics.

It is best to create a questionnaire that will help the interviewer to steer the conversation towards the research objectives. One might choose to modify or even add more questions during the interview, depending on the learning outcome of the research. The focus should be on mutual professionalism, and the items should not be too intrusive. The tools used in this research were questionnaires done in the form of an interview. The participants who participated in the study were two groups: educators and former students from a multicultural classroom. There was a small number of participants, which enabled the researcher to analyze the results manually.

Conclusion

Generally, educators have choices in a classroom setting. They are the ones who know best how to obtain the full potential from their students. They can decide to go far beyond to what the curricular demands them to do. The teachers can supersede the expectations the curriculum holds over them and explore prior student knowledge of a student. English learners can be engaged in literacy learning, such as coming up with identity texts. The power is in the hands of educators, to take multicultural and multilingual classroom as a negative or positive aspect of teaching.

References

Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Brooks, K. Karathanos, K. (2009). Building on the cultural and linguistic capital of English learner (EL) students. Multicultural Education, 16(4), 47-51.

Coleman, R., and Goldenberg, C. (2012). The common core challenge for English language learners. Principal Leadership, 12, 46-51

Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Donovan, M. S., & Bransford, J. D. (Eds.). (2005). How students learn: History, mathematics, and science in the classroom. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Espinosa, M (2005). Curriculum and Assessment Considerations for Young Children from Culturally, Linguistically, and Economically Diverse Backgrounds,

doi.org/10.1002/pits.20115

Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the digital divide. Educational Policy, 18(4), 562-588.

Sarantakos, S. (2013) Social Research, Basingstoke: Macmillan