Equal Opportunity Learning the Teaching

Equal Opportunity Learning The teaching profession today is faced with many challenges. The rapid development of technology and information has occurred at such break-neck speed that schools can hardly keep up with implementation, much less with sufficient training for their teachers to use these for quality education. In addition, human factors such as increasingly intercultural classroom demographics create further challenges for teachers.

The fact that American classrooms today are increasingly multi-cultural creates not only challenges in terms of the language barrier, but also in terms of culturally driven assumptions and the general experience in the classroom. Perhaps the most obvious challenge teachers in ELL (English Language Learner) classrooms are faced with is the language barrier. An increase of immigration to the United States has brought an increase of children seeking an education, and expecting this to be provided on an equal basis as American children.

In the past, the language barrier has caused difficulties for these children, often causing them to be grouped with "Special Education" children. Today, it has been acknowledged that segregating children into higher and lower capacity groups like this is psychologically damaging and socially isolating. For a foreign-born child, the experience of this segregation is even worse. To accommodate ELL children in a multi-cultural classroom, it is an increasingly accepted fact that teachers need to be culturally aware and sensitive. This awareness extends to both language specifically and culture in general.

In order to provide a sense of integrated instruction, for example, a teacher who is culturally aware and sensitive would draw attention to the fact that language and culture are both human phenomena. Rather than promoting assimilation or acculturation, however, it is much better for the self-esteem of children to feel that their language and culture are honored for their unique beauty rather than the barriers they create to teaching and learning.

On practical way to accomplish this is by means of interacting not only with students, but also to involve their families in the learning process. For a child who is a slow learner of English, for example, a home visit to a family could create a sense of confidence and connection that would ultimately create a better learning environment in the classroom. I found the story about the teacher who became "that teacher" in the minds of the student's family particularly heart-warming.

Working with individuals within the home environment is not always practical or possible. Similar strategies could, however, be implemented in the multi-lingual classroom. When teaching a new word or idea in the target language, for example, the teacher could elicit translations of the same concept in the students' native languages. This would create the impression of equality among not only one native language and English, but among all the languages and cultures represented in the classroom.

Involving the family life of an ELL student does not necessarily mean making home visits to each student. It could also involve homework assignments, in which requirements such as family.