Language and Culture: Shaping Student Identity and Self-Worth

How does Language and Culture interact to form a student's identity? • Kim Walsh • kwals76@wgu.edu • October • CUA1-Task 1

Language and Culture (A1) Language and culture are intertwined to make who we are as people and our society. A person’s language connects them to their relatives, their neighbors, and their ancestors. In fact, a person’s language and culture have such a cohesive bond. It is unimaginable one could sustain without the presence of the other. (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow, 2002). Culture can continue the cycle of beliefs, traditions, and values without verbally speaking about them. This can be instilled from previous generations.

Cultural Expectations (A1) Cultural expectations make the societal and academic expectations for each student. All children from different cultures bring a wealth of experiences to our classrooms. Their cultural experiences guides the students through a plan book that allows differences and similarities to be taught and learned. It sets the pace for conversations, ideas, and arguments which can be a challenge for some students, and how they are supposed to behave in school. (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow,2002).

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Cultural Expectations (A1) Cultural expectations set a plan for how students of a particular background consider education to be valuable or invaluable The culture the child shares should be accepted and the cultures in our classrooms should be exposed to the student also.

Identity and Self Worth (A2) A Student’s identity is connected to their positive and negative thoughts. Their ideas are instilled in them by their culture and society. When a student has absorbed negative experiences in school, that student will not have good self-worth. (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow, 2002).

Negative Impacts on Students Identity (A2) Children are adversely impacted by issues at school. Some suppress the cultural words and manners that make them different from the rest of the students. This has a negative impact on the child’s identity and occurs when they are not the main culture in the classroom. A child could be antagonized by shame with regards to their culture (intentionally or unintentionally) or when a student from a collectivist culture battles the challenges of meeting the expectations of an individualistic society (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow,2002).

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Classroom Experiences and Student Identity (A2) Children begin to develop a sense of identity as individuals and as members of groups from their earliest interactions with others (McAdoo, 1993; Sheets, 1999a). The classroom teacher creates a home for learning and diversity. The teacher welcomes all children at the beginning of the year. Inclusively, they share the room and all that is inside the four walls. Reading and having access to multicultural literature, and to incorporate “Funds of knowledge” expresses the belief that students bring valuable home knowledge to the learning environment.

Cultural Deficit Theory (A2) While specific communication breakdowns may heighten teachers’ stereotyped beliefs regarding students’ home cultures, the views found in the classroom generally mirror the pervasive prejudice toward minority groups that is often found in the dominant culture. (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow, 2002) Sorry to say, in education there are prejudices and stereotypes, it is up to the educator to overcome society's’ views incorporate the qualities these students share in our rooms.

Self-Worth and Academic Achievement (A3) In his volume Mind and Society, Vygotsky (1978) defines ZPD as The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adulty guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. (p.86) In other words, as student develop cognitively, they take more and more responsibility for increasingly difficult tasks. (Crochunis, Erdey, & Swedlow, 2002) Students that perform low can be stranded developmentally, and teacherscan experience frustration it is up to the teachers to find a way to bridge the cultural gap.(Cronchunis, Erdey, & Swedlow, (2002) I know some many students have choices now in so many different fields to study and different choices of occupations that do not require a formal education. This will allow the student to further their interests.

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Special Issues in the Classroom (A4) My Title I school district has varying degrees of issues with language and culture. First, we have students from 23 countries and 15 languages represented in our schools. The most common languages are Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, and K'iche', a common dialect spoken in Guatemala. We have families coming from Syria and Afghanistan. Our tools to communicate effectively with all our families is challenging. The School department is using a company, Effectiff, that will provide translation for communication with families for classroom materials to support learning at home. I currently do not have access to one family from Afghanistan. Their native language is Pashto. This past week the Reading coach sent me the link for their language for emergency form and a Parent teacher conference letter. I have not received the papers back from them. The nurse called the home yesterday for an incident of the child falling, and no current phone numbers are not accepting voice messages. When the Mother or Father picks up the child they wave from a distance. Another major concern is attendance. We have families working third shift, some working two jobs alternately to manage children and school. There is not a protocol by the district for attendance support or follow up. Finally, affordable housing in Providence is skyrocketing and many of our families are homeless or living with extended families with limited space and opportunities. This hinders the stability of a home with basic needs and a routine for the children. All the above, have compounded the academic, social emotional, and behavioral issues in my classroom.

Special Issues in the Classroom (A4) The diversity of multilingual learners first languages in my classroom is vast. I have one student who has learned Pashto since birth and when he is home that is what he speaks. His whole family reads right to left in Pashto. In our class he is learning to read left to right. The alphabet at home is significantly different. I have one student from Mongolia and speaks Mongolian at home with his parents and grandparents. When I spoke to his mother at Parent teacher conference’s she explained he taught himself English from You tube. The mother had moved to the United States one year prior to him coming over. He had no formal English learning in Mongolia. As with young children acquiring their native language, second language learners may listen to and process language before actually producing it. The difference is that second language learners, by definition, already have access to a first language. Therefore, they are more sophisticated learners; they understand how language works and can use that first language knowledge as a bridge to acquisition of the second language. Crochunis, T., Erdey, S., & Swedlow, J. (2002).The Diversity Kit I have researched Mongolian has 6 to 10 phonemically distinct short vowel qualities (V) and some 19 to 35 consonant phonemes. Consonant clusters (CC) are not allowed in word-initial position, and clusters originally present in borrowed items are resolved by inserting an extra vowel, often anticipating the following vowel quality Janhunen, J. A. (2012). Mongolian. P.25-26 John Benjamins Publishing Company. This will allow me to better understand when teaching phonemic awareness. This combined factor, vocabulary and prior knowledge, is also a major predictor of success in reading and a primary determinant of reading comprehension for students learning to read English as a second language (August & Hakuta, 1997).I want to meet this challenge, public education needs to integrate science and social science research on human development and diversity with current education reform initiatives and practice (Berman et al., 1997; Williams, 1996).

References • Brown, Z.A. Hammond, O.W., & Onikama, D.L. (1997), Language use at home and school: A synthesis of research for Pacific educators. Honolulu, HI; Pacific Resources for Education and Learning • Crochunis, T., Erdey, S., & Swedlow, J. (2002).The Diversity Kit. Retrieved for Brown University, Education Alliance https://repository.library.brown.edu/ studio /item/bdr:q3cdkvnz/PDF/?embed=true • Helmer, S. Eddy, C. (2003). Look at me when I talk to you: ESL learners in non- ESL classrooms. Don Mills, Ontario: Pippen • Janhunen, J. A. (2012). Mongolian. John Benjamins Publishing Company. • Villegas-Torres, P & Mora-Pablo, I. (2018) The role of language in the identity formation of transnational EFL teachers. How,25(2), 11-27.Https://doi.org/10.19183/how.25.2.418 • Vygotsky,L. (1978). Mind and society. Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press

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