Teacher Interview: Support and Celebrate Cultural Diversity
In the ESL classroom it’s noted that the teacher a lot with students to celebrate their differences. Having different activities around student birthdays was on idea on how we can make sure to include all students. Each student inevitably has a birthday, and we choose that day to celebrate their culture and traditions around that day. This goes for holidays as well. Birthdays tend to be about one student, and of course holidays include an all-inclusive celebration where we learn about all traditions. The culture specific birthday celebrations include the teacher’s birthday and raises questions about a student culture and encourages participation and raises questions for student discussion. Teacher Interview: Leverage Home Language and Cultural Assets
We talked about the importance of being respectful of student’s native language in the beginning, but she explained that the end goal is to speak and understand English. My mentor teacher talked about having the students repeat a word in their home language and do the same again with the English word. Teacher Interview: Responsiveness to the Different Strengths, Needs, and Identities
We did talk about the importance of responsiveness to strengths, but that it’s also important to be responsive to weakness. This may not be the mainstream idea, but it’s important to provide positive feedback that results in better development. While students thrive on positive feedback, and work harder base on motivation, noting weaknesses and placing the same positivity on them in the right way can make sure student's feel safe in their learning environments which will promote motivation in both ways. Teacher Interview: Classroom Routines and Procedures
