EDUU 528 Week 7 Journal

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Brandman University *

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Course

528

Subject

Linguistics

Date

Dec 6, 2023

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pdf

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2

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EDUU 528 Week 7 Journal One of the biggest challenges that teachers face is how to make the curriculum accessible to all students. It’s one thing to be able to differentiate instruction with a certain textbook or lesson...but to make the curriculum as a whole accessible to all, it can be difficult. Chapter 7 focused on some specific ways to combat this struggle by highlighting both cultural and linguistic differentiation. To begin, cultural differentiation can best be described as modifying and adapting lessons to be more culturally diverse. Some examples of this would be to include mini lessons embedded in the curriculum that pertain to cultural diversity. For example, in my classroom I teach English. Students are constantly reading novels from our literary canon. However it would be a good idea to begin introducing the novels by perhaps talking about the cultural diversity that was present during the time period. Additionally, something I am going to begin implementing this school year is “student’s choice”. We teach 4 units a year and two of the units we are turning into choice units. Where students actually get to choose the novel they want to read, while still being able to meet the content standards. In doing this, we will be able to integrate cultural diversity into the curriculum. Linguistic differentiation is best explained as the implementation of accommodations with language proficiency being the guide. Some examples of linguistic diversity would be to have portions of a lesson be explained or translated into the student’s native language, and to even encourage them to retrieve certain vocabulary words from their native language and help them translate it into English. Another example could be modifying the length or type of product they must turn in. maybe shorten the length of an assignment for students based upon their language proficiency level. The strategies used here will vary greatly depending on the language proficiency level of the student. As students navigate their way through the 6 stages of language proficiency, their needs and accommodations do shift. “For example, students in Levels 1 and 2 are likely to need significant vocabulary support including native-language clarifications and connections. Students in Levels 3, 4, and 5 are likely to need strategic and advanced learning approaches such as finding important information, studying text, and improving written expression. Students in Levels 4, 5, and 6 are likely to need study, advanced reading comprehension, self-monitoring, note-taking, and other advanced strategies” (Echevarria & Graves p 125). Chapter 7 also touched upon the importance of background knowledge and how we should utilize it to best support our students. In order to increase the likelihood of retention and learning, it’s important to allow students an opportunity to retrieve information that they already know from their background knowledge. This helps both EL students and General Education students alike. The reason this is important is because it can be difficult for students to sometimes connect lessons to each other, and to see the correlation. Because of this they often feel as though everything is separate
and everything is a completely new concept. By encouraging them to draw on background knowledge, they begin to make connections between what they already know and what they are trying to learn, and the tasks may no longer seem as daunting. The final important thing Chapter 7 discussed was the idea of academic proficiency. Academic proficiency is essentially the mastering of content knowledge in a given subject area, and the acquiring of the background academic skills necessary in order to effectively and efficiently learn and study the content. In order to aid in this, it is important that teachers review the curriculum regularly to determine what the essential content for the grade level is, or in other words what pieces the students MUST learn and master in order to be successful moving forward. All other pieces of the curriculum can be eliminated, that way there is a focus on the main important skills.The second piece to this academic proficiency puzzle, comes from the students actually having the skills necessary to be academically proficient. Skills such as reading, writing, listening, speaking and studying are all skills that help a student to be academically proficient.
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