Understanding Educational Strategies that Involve Diverse Cultural Backgrounds

Activity #1

1. The court case that brought about the Consent Decree was the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) et al. v. Florida State Board of Education on August 14, 1990. The basis of the lawsuit was that the LULAC believed that the state was not providing enough resources to english learning students. The Consent Decree is known as such because it requires that every teacher in Early Education, Elementary Education, and English Education be ESOL endorsed. The decree also requires that all ELL students be placed in an appropriate where they will receive help for their limited english. The impact this has had on teacher competencies is that teachers are taught the importance of cultural differences. This helps teachers in the classroom deal english language learners and help better assist their students. This creates the best learning environment possible for their students.
2. The action by LULAC is an example of what advocacy can achieve because LULAC saw a lack of support for ELL students. Withe this lack of support being seen, the LULAC took charge and helped to create a positive change for these students. ELL students are now offered with a classroom and teacher ready to support their needs to help them be proficient in english and have an overall better performance in the classroom. Now instead of being held back from biased exams, ELL students have have the ability to excel in the classroom. This relates to multicultural education objectives because this is what multicultural education is all about. In multicultural education we want students from all over to be included and to excel in our classrooms.
3. For math education majors, we are required to Theory and Practice of Teaching ESOL Students in School, TSL 4080, and 60 hours of ESOL training.
4. The ESOL endorsement has five required basic courses. These courses are ESOL-Applied Linguistics, ESOL-Cross-Cultural Communication, ESOL-Curriculum and Materials, ESOL-Methods of Teaching, and ESOL-Testing and Evaluation. At UCF it is required to take the ESOL Infusion Model and to finish a TSOL Notebook containing work from their 25 ESOL performance curriculums and ESOL field work.
5. The ESOL Infusion Model used in the UCF College of Education is a model that contains two courses. These two courses are the Theory and Practice of Teaching ESOL (TSL 4080) and Issues in Second Language Acquisition (TSL 4240). The end product that is required to demonstrate the competencies is a TESOL Notebook.

Activity #2

1. The “dominant culture” in the U.S.A. is white American culture. This type of culture usually means that they are from a European descent, Christian, and part of the middle or upper class. The term dominant means that white culture is the majority of the population. This also means that white people are typically favored and therefore have more access to resources to aid learning and teaching. This is known as white privilege. The most prominent language spoken in the United States is English, which is what is spoken by white Americans.
2. A micro-culture is a social group that share distinctive traits, values, and behaviors that distinguish them from the dominant culture. Since people of these cultures share different characteristics from the dominant culture they are seen as minorities and often discriminated against. Since these cultures are discriminated against, they usually have less access to resources compared to the dominant culture. This affects students intelligence and their future to advance in further education.
3. Language is a core diversity issue because language is a huge part of culture. Communication is key when it comes to growing and developing, so when someone is unable to communicate with others they often get left behind. Cultural and linguistic groups have greatly been impacted by racism and prejudice. At my high school I went to we used to have what were called the “walls”. Black people would stand at one wall, hispanics at another, the entire courtyard segregated itself based on color and beliefs. Although the “walls” still exist today the school is doing everything it can to help integrate students together. These “walls” are being overcome by different clubs and students coming together and learning more about each others cultures.
4. Bilingual education is controversial because teaching another language in the classroom is thought to take away from the American identity. It is also controversial because bilingual education can be very expensive and take money away from other needed resources in the classroom. A common stereotype for ELL students is that they fall into the “self-fulfilling prophesy”. This means that teachers come in having low expectations for ELL students and therefore the student underperforms because they were taught what was expected from them.
5. Cultural competence is being able to respond effectively to students’ different cultures and social classes, and having a productive relationship with students by understanding the different economic and cultural structure (Cushner, McClelland and Safford, 2009). My definition of cultural competence is being able to recognize and understand various types of cultures and being able to effectively teach to any type of student, no matter what their culture is. Five ways to develop cultural competence is to avoid stereotyping, participate in diversity trainings and cultural workshops, help students understand cultural identities and that everyone is different, check books and movies for negative cultural, ethnic, or racial stereotype before exposing it to students, and send papers home written in the parents native tongue.

Activity #3

My cultural heritage is a mix of a bunch of different ethnicities. I am mainly Italian, Polish, and German. My grandparents, parents, and myself all spoke English first. My grandma knows a little bit of Italian and my grandpa knows a little bit of polish, but neither of them speak their other language fluently. Other than those languages, my entire family speaks and only knows English. As a result of this I don’t have many cultural experiences. I have only every been taught English and can only understand English so my use of language has not been very enriched. I took a latin class in high school that has helped me identify the root of many words and understand language better as a whole. This also lets me understand a little bit of Spanish, as many of the words have latin roots. This is what has mainly enriched my use of language.

1. I am monolingual. I can only speak and understand English. I think that this is a huge disadvantage. Spanish is a widely spoken language and is becoming much more prominent in the United States. Especially being a teacher, not being able to speak and understand Spanish is a disadvantage and can lower my teaching opportunities.
2. Yes I believe that English should be formally declared the official language of the United States. English has been our official language since our nation was established in 1776. To change English from our official language would result in chaos and overall hurt our country. The time it would take in having everyone fluent in a new official language would just set our country back. English is what has always been dominantly spoken in the United States and as long as it stays that way it should stay our official language.
3. My accent has changed from time to time. Right now I would say that I have a typical American accent, but before I lived in Florida I lived in Kentucky for seven years. These years were mainly ones of my childhood when I was still picking up new words and information, so while I was living there I picked up a slight southern accent. I have mostly grown out of this accent, only keeping a few slang words like y’all instead of you all, but even while I had this slight accent no one really treated me differently for it. Some of my friends might point out that I say some words funny from time to time but over all that southern accent has never really affected me.
4. Most of friends speak English at their house, except for one. My best friend is Vietnamese and speaks it fluently. When I go to a lot of her parties her house is filled with lots of other Vietnamese people and they all speak Vietnamese to each other. When they speak in Vietnamese to each other I can never understand anything that they are saying. Some type of basic knowledge of Vietnamese would help me in this situation, but I am too unfamiliar with the language to understand anything that they say. Luckily my friend, and most of her family, and very fluent in English, so this is how we communicate.