Teach Academic Content While Gathering English Learners Cultural and Linguistic Strengths
Description
Every English learner enters the classroom with rich cultural and linguistic practices that can be used to facilitate their learning. This module will show how teachers can gather their students cultural and linguistic assets while teaching academic content through sample literacy, science, and math “getting to know you” activities as a first unit in the school year.
Topics
Competencies
Knowledge
Skills
Mindset
- Beginning of the school year activities you can use to access your ELs linguistic and cultural strengths.
- Analyze student work to categorize the different types of cultural and language strengths, ie. funds of knowledge that can be used to plan a purposeful unit topic.
Competencies
Knowledge
- Define “funds of knowledge” through multicultural and multilingual education perspectives.
- Recognize students identities are significant to develop funds of knowledge activities.
- Recognize student identities can be learned through getting to know you activities for math, science, and literacy content.
Skills
- Design a funds of knowledge activity grounded in academic content.
- Access ELs’ linguistic and cultural strengths through pre-selected sample funds of knowledge math, science, and literacy activities.
- Categorize and analyze students funds of knowledge for purposefully selecting and mapping curriculum unit topics with state standards.
Mindset
- Mainstream teachers may feel that learning about their students identities is necessary but is something that “takes away” from teaching content. Therefore, mainstream teachers become aware of the possibility to take advantage of the first weeks of school to access linguistic and cultural strengths while teaching any academic content.
- Mainstream teachers are shifting the traditional curriculum paradigm of teacher led unit topics to recognizing that unit topics should be purposefully selected and co-collaborated and grounded in their students’ funds of knowledge.