What do you know about your students' countries of birth?

Today’s post is more about background knowledge for you to research rather than a task you’ll have your Multilingual Learners (MLs) do.

Learning about your MLs’ backgrounds is essential to being able to serve them as a teacher. A foundational aspect of being an effective teacher is taking steps to learn about the country, languages(s), and cultural norms of each child in your classroom. After you’ve done some background research, you’ll be able to ask informed questions about their personal experience. This is the balance of doing your homework by researching for information about a without assuming it’s your student’s authentic experience. For example: “I read that many Nepalese speak more than two languages, such as Nepalese and a mother tongue. Is that your experience?”

Ideas to research:

• Languages spoken in the country where they were born. How is the structure of that language similar or different from English?

• Political and historical events that have impacted that country.

• Common foods and agricultural practices.

• How the United States (or country the student is living in now) has impacted their country? How might the US have contributed through war or economic decisions to their migration?

• Religious background and worship practices

• Family practices

• Common sports or recreational activities

• Collectivist or individualist aspects of the cultures in that country

Next step: How can you incorporate some of what you’ve learned into your teaching?