The Value of Training Teachers in Cultural Awareness

Student populations are becoming more diverse and schools need to begin to foster an educational environment that is culturally aware enough to include all ethnic backgrounds in the classroom. Becoming more cognizant of the many cultures and ethnic groups that make up the student body will not only encourage children to seek out and learn about people and places that … Read More

The Oral Traditions of Hispanics

Hispanic culture is known to have strong oral traditions, expressed through storytelling, lyric poetry, riddles, jokes, folk prayers and incantations, songs, and many other formats. Samuel G. Armistead, author of Pan-Hispanic Oral Tradition, defines oral tradition as “any manifestation of folk culture that includes the use of language. Creativity, ongoing evolution, and chronological depth are also essential factors.” The University … Read More

Home-School Connections with Parents of ELL Students

Home-School Connections with Parents of ELL Students Successful parental engagement for ELL students starts with getting the parents actively involved. Unfortunately, this can be a much tougher obstacle to navigate than one might expect. There are a variety of hindrances in the path to engagement with parents of ELL’s, most of them rooted in a reluctance on the part of … Read More

How an Anti-bias Curriculum Benefits the School Community

An anti-bias preschool curriculum is one that seeks to acknowledge and challenge prejudices in education and works to remove them from the teaching and learning environment. Schools using an anti-bias curriculum are acknowledging that many Western societies, though growingly diverse, continue to function with inherent inequity and racial cultural bias, and that this naturally carries over into education, which is … Read More

Instructions for Teachers Working with ELLs

Classrooms throughout the United States are reflecting an increasing collection of students from diversified backgrounds, as an estimated 11.2 million limited English proficient children are now enrolled in classes from grades K-12. With such a large segment of the school population at often widely disparate levels of English language comprehension, it has become crucial that teachers are cognizant of the … Read More

5 Best Ways to Help ELLs with Academic Success

5 Best Ways to Help ELLs with Academic Success If you’ve ever spent an extended period of time in a foreign country whose language you do not know, you know how hard it is to navigate. Can you imagine trying to learn math or science or literature in that foreign language, especially if the alphabet is different than your childhood … Read More