Raising (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL classroom
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The document discusses raising cultural awareness in the EFL classroom. It defines cultural awareness and intercultural awareness. The presentation objectives are to provide theoretical knowledge about multicultural education, develop ideas for integrating migrant students, and highlight teaching practices that encompass innovation. Some challenges for teachers in culturally diverse classrooms include language barriers, different backgrounds, and lack of resources. The role of teachers is to demonstrate respect, collaboration, tolerance and understanding of different cultures. Suggested methods include engaging students, helping set classroom rules, using simplified language, authentic materials, and addressing conflicts wisely.
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Raising (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL classroom
- 1. «Raising (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL classroom» Χαλκίδα, 8 Νοεμβρίου 2017 Δρ. Βασιλική Παπαϊωάννου, Αγγλικής Φιλολογίας Σχολική Σύμβουλος ΠΕ 06 ΔΕ Μαγνησίας, Αγγλικής φιλολογίας [email protected]
- 2. OBJECTIVES for this presentation ❖ Define/Offer theoretical knowledge about multicultural education , cultural & (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL classroom ❖ Develop ideas/give tips on how to become interculturally aware EFL teachers and successfully integrate migrant students ❖ Highlight the importance of certain values (e.g volunteering) and teaching practices in ELT (e.g. Energizers, team building activities etc. ) ❖ Encompass innovation in the description or conceptualization of key issues faced by teachers.
- 3. • «English Language Teaching, A Project for Greece», IVLP program, March 27 - April 4, 2017» Resources on multicultural education and teaching culturally diverse classrooms My experience from teaching multicultural EFL classes My doctoral thesis and classroom observations in an international school
- 4. IVLP Program Sponsor: United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Office of International Visitors
- 5. Obstacles for the teacher in the culturally diverse EFL classroom • Limited use of L1 • Fatigue • Different cultural backgrounds • Non-exam oriented curricula (or very exam oriented curricula) • Very different experience in education (no formal schooling) • Economic insecurity – living conditions • Lack of bilingual staff/translators • Lack of appropriate training/knowledge • Fear • Lack of resources (e.g. dual language books) or equipment, or libraries • Lack of volunteering
- 6. Objectives of ELTeachers in multicultural education ● To aid SS in accessing the mainstream schools curriculum ● To help SS gain skills for life ● To free migrants and refugees of the recent prescription and centralization inherent in national educational policy ● To encompass innovation in practice (teaching methodologies, course design, materials) ● To centre the learning on the experience, knowledge and needs of the individual ● To draw on learners’ own experiences and lives outside the classroom to develop teaching and learning resources and strategies («bringing the outside in» Cooke & Roberts 2007) ● To enhance SS skills to produce texts and oral speech ● To value SS home languages and literacies ● To use multiple models of support to meet the needs and learning styles of ALL
- 7. Poor access to education can undermine people’s potential to improve their lives. https://www.rescue.org/outcome/education The International Rescue Committee provides children, youth and adults with educational opportunities that help keep them safe and learning the skills they need to survive and thrive.
- 8. Ιδιαίτερη πτυχή των δικαιωμάτων του παιδιού αποτελεί το δικαίωμα στην εκπαίδευση, όπως κατοχυρώνεται από δύο βασικά νομικά κείμενα: Το άρθρο 16 του Συντάγματος και το άρθρο 28 της Διεθνούς Σύμβασης για τα Δικαιώματα του Παιδιού.
- 9. What is multicultural education?
- 10. It refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. At the classroom level, for example, teachers may modify or incorporate lessons to reflect the cultural diversity of the students in a particular class. It is a field of study based on the idea that students from diverse backgrounds should have equal opportunities to education.
- 11. What is CULTURE?
- 12. Culture is the set of values and assumptions that people learn as they grow up. These come from parents, relatives, their teachers, their books, newspapers and television programs. Values include ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, normal and abnormal, proper and improper. Assumptions include unquestioned givens about people, life and the “way things are.” By Gary Althen
- 13. What is Cultural Awareness?
- 14. Cultural Awareness is consciousness of one's personal cultural background. Cultural Awareness involves the ability of standing back from ourselves and becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions. People see, interpret and evaluate things in different ways. Why do we do things in that way? How do we see the world? Why do we react in that particular way? Cultural awareness becomes central when we have to interact with people from other cultures.
- 15. What is Intercultural Awareness?
- 16. Intercultural Awareness is the consciousness of relating one’s culture with another culture or other cultures.
- 18. Cultural diversity may include one’s: ● cultural identity ● life style ● background ● communication styles ● morals ● values, ● ethics ● race ● gender ● status ● individuality
- 19. Professor Alvino Fantini proposes four principles to develop Intercultural Awareness: ● (Critical, cultural) Awareness (reflection and introspection) ● Attitude (developing attitudes of curiosity and openness about other cultures or people) ● Skills (ability to interpret from another culture, explain and relate it to one’s own culture – ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and apply this knowledge) ● Knowledge (Whereas knowledge can be forgotten, awareness is irreversible.)
- 20. What should the teachers' role be? Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher
- 21. Today’s educators should demonstrate: ● Respect ● Collaboration ● Tolerance ● Understanding ● Equity ● Awareness
- 22. HOW?
- 24. - USE a variety of instructional strategies and activities - Use coursebooks which are not culture - specific - Consider SS cultures and language skills when developing learning objectives, instructional activities and projects - Incorporate objectives for affective and personal development - Build relationships - Build rapport with students (Ss don't care how much you know until they know how much you care) - Foster a community spirit – know the SS you teach - Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among students’ cultures - Use your communication style, humour, charisma, be courteous, be approachable... - Design a safe, friendly & well managed classroom environment
- 25. Ask yourself reflective questions: ● What does valuing diversity look like in the classroom? ● Do I provide opportunities for a variety of achievements? ● Do I possess any cultural biases that influence my teaching practices? ● How can I build rapport with my students?
- 26. Is the cultural competence of the adult (teacher) intimately connected to student achievement? How can I use this diversity to my advantage?
- 27. 1. Engage your students! Stimulate their fantasy! ● Think about what you can learn from students and what you can teach them ● Invite students to share their culture with you ● Try to understand students’ attitudes and expectations ● Try to understand how language barriers may lead to future miscommunication
- 28. Objective Listening, expression of fantasy Directions: Group stands in a circle. First person starts a story and acts outs story in place. Everyone copies the movements of the speaker. For example: I woke up this morning (stretch arms), put on my jeans (step into imaginary clothes) and went for a run (run in place), then I ….. Speaker passes the story to the next person who makes up a continuation.
- 29. 2. Help SS develop their own rules of engagement ● what works best in group work? ● How do I want to decorate the walls? ● What do I need/want from the teacher? Include Ss in creating rules, nouns, routines and consequences
- 30. 3. Use: ● Simplified language ● Slow and clear speaking ● Stressing on important words ● Repetition
- 31. 4. Use authentic material Authentic material brings immediacy and relevance to the proposed tasks. At the same time, meaningful learning tasks engage students in developing their own learning styles. Projects are ideal scenarios for the class to promote the Intercultural competence.
- 32. Why projects? ● Ss can combine skills in their home lngs + English which gives value and status to L1 that traditional classroom pedagogies do not ● They boost ss self confidence ● They provide ss with opportunities to become independent learners ● They build on ss prior knowledge ● They set high expectations ● They uncover personal strengths ● They value children as individuals
- 33. Any task should: • focus on interactional spoken communication • involve practical language knowledge, including commonly used phrases and expressions • allow for personal expression on the part of the learners be easily assessed • be completed over one or two class sessions (not including preparatory work) • expand learners’ intercultural knowledge
- 34. 4. Be aware of non verbal communication 5. Use a great range of topics, material, ideas, realia and also excessive use of the technology 6. Offer learners plenty of opportunities to hear and engage in spoken language is a must while at the same time provide them with plentiful interactive oral language experience. 7. Engage Ss in written /listening language in a variety of contexts - Involve ss in interesting group activities for public speaking 8. Use energizers/icebreakers 9. Reinforce appropriate behaviour (Think 4 positives to any corrective feedback) 10. Address conflict quickly and wisely 11. Use communicative activities in the classroom
- 35. To ensure that students understand the activities, it is important to: ● Give one instruction at a time. ● Make sure that the instructions are very clear. Note that the sample communicative activities listed below have been broken down into simple steps that students can follow. ● Teach students how to work in pairs before having them work in small groups. ● Make sure that there are predetermined signals for quieting students in case they get too noisy. ● For example, you may want to hold up your right hand as a signal for everyone else to hold up their right hands as well and to stop talking. This way you will be able to tell students to be quiet or to give the next instruction without trying to yell over the noise.
- 36. 12. Partner with parents and guardians 13. Help Ss participate in weekly character education concepts (i.e. Self- esteem, self – worth, acceptance of others, empathy) This helps : ● Gives Ss the vocabulary to express themselves ● Gives Ss a safe place to be themselves ● Boosts self-esteem & helps them feel connected to peers
- 37. 14. Involve SS in literacy games (e.g. Relay races, musical chairs, memory games, jump rope spelling challenge, role play etc. ) 15. Integrate language and culture teaching
- 38. Lack of ICC (Inter-cultural competence) ● Misunderstandings ● Conflict ● Culture shock due to cultural differences ● ........................... ● ......................................................................
- 39. Foster High School Foster High School, the only high school in the Tukwila School District, is home to the poetry workshop known as the “Stories of Arrival: Youth Voices Poetry Project”. Done in partnership with the Jack Straw Cultural Center, this workshops allows refugee and immigrant students to create poetry under individual supervision as a means to support their English language writing skills.
- 41. Innovative lessons/ideas for teaching creative writing, as well as samples of student writing resulting from the lesson. https://teachersandwritersmagazine.org/category/le sson-plans Example: RAIN CAN BE ANYTHING: KINDERGARTEN POETRY LESSON (BY Linda Morel)
- 42. Do you want to start writing poetry in your classrooms? Haiku poems: A traditional form of Japanese poetry - It consists of 3 lines: •Line 1 has 5 syllables •Line 2 has 7 syllables •Line 3 has 5 syllables •The subject is usually about nature or the seasons •This poetry does not need to rhyme •Takes place in the present (use phrases like 'this tree', 'these blossoms') •Are intensely personal (seldom use names, but instead use I / you / he / she / our) •Take on a remarkable literary device despite their brevity - juxtaposition!
- 44. Haiku poems Further reading Creative Poetry Writing by Jane Spiro E.g. White, sandy beaches Ocean waves from far away Warm sun shining down Fallen, bloody gifts Plunged in me, this dagger sticks Tears on red blossoms (Intended meaning: Someone cries over flowers rejected by their lover.)
- 46. Decorations on school wall IVLP 2017
- 81. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!! Βασιλική Παπαϊωάννου, EFL school advisor (Magnesia 2014-17) [email protected] http://vpapaioannou.bl ogspot.gr/