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Food for Thought Chapter 1 From your experience, how would you define culture?

Culture is a combination of all of the influences that a group of people have in common: tradition, food, religion, social norms, and point of view. I have taught in an international school abroad where a plethora of students from different cultures were placed in the same class.

Give examples of how each of the above variables has influenced your students. What I noticed there was that the older students who identified with a specific culture tended to form relationships and cliques with others from their home culture. The little kids, however, seemed to not even notice cultural differences at all. They conversed easily in different languages and interacted with children from all cultures.

What does acculturation mean to you? Acculturation is a process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs and behaviors of another group. To me, acculturation is different than assimilation. People can adopt the beliefs and behaviors of a new culture, especially when they are immersed in it, but that does not necessarily mean that they forego the beliefs and behaviors of their native culture.

What is the ESL teachers role in the ESL students acculturation? The ESL teacher should help the ELL to understand the social norms and beliefs of the culture that they are new to so that they can understand how to better function in the new culture. The teacher should not, however, encourage students to deny their native culture in order to do so.

All of these questions have implications for ESL teachers. We must also be aware of what happens to students when they come here. Look at these consideration and cite your own experience in these areas. Whether teaching in the US or abroad, I have noticed that students from different cultures seem to be ostracized by those of the majority culture- whatever that culture in in each environment. I think that it is important for teachers and school communities to be accepting of diversity and imperative that they educate all students about different cultures so that we can form a more tolerant society.

Food for Thought Chapter 3 What kind of activities do you use to have your ELLs learn about the environment, social issues, and science or history themes? To date, I have only taught in the mainstream tract, and so I have not had the opportunity to teach and English language learner. However, I have taught many social issues that are studied through the themes presented in much of the literature I teach. One theme which is prevalent

throughout the year in American Lit is prejudice and discrimination. When introducing this theme prior to reading a text like Huck Finn, the students explore these issues in many ways. They might watch a documentary about Twain that discuss his political and social ideals, they have a class-wide discussion based on open ended questions about these topics. They will listen to music and read poetry by diverse authors and artists of the time period. They will learn the etymology and definitions of language used in the text and discuss its appropriateness for the classroom and community. And, they create their own public service announcement in a medium of their choosing to teach about the damage prejudice and discrimination does to a society. How do you present the information? Information about this topic is presented in many ways. Students view videos, read text, listen to music, create artwork, videos, podcasts, brochures, etc. and have discussions in small and large groups.

When you plan lessons, do you think of specific strategies you want to use to teach a particular theme or concept? When I plan lessons, I always think of specific strategies that will enhance the learning of all students. We are encouraged to incorporate as many of the Classroom Instructional strategies That Work into each lesson to improve the learning of all students. In a literature course, reading and writing is done on a daily basis, but it is also possible to incorporate presentations, discussion, role play, and the use of various graphic organizers frequently as well.

Do you vary the approach? I like to vary my approach to teaching constantly. I think that it keeps things more interesting and engaging for the students so that theyre not subjected to the same old routine. I also believe that it improves the level of understanding when they are able to look at a concept in a variety of ways.

Food for Thought Chapter How do you learn best? I learn best visually- through watching a presentation, video or demonstration.

Which multiple intelligence is your strength? This means that I am a spatial/visual learner, which I believe is the most common learning style

How do you teach? From your strength? Or do you vary the ways in which your lesson are presented so that the ELLs may learn in different ways, doing different activities as they learn? My weakness is the mathematical/logical learning style. For some reason my brain has a hard time processing numbers. Probably due to lack of practice.

Look at your lesson plans for your students and list the ways you use the Multiple Intelligences. Which ones do you use the most? I try to teach to a variety of learning styles. I find that by incorporating a variety of learning styles into each lesson, it not only benefits student learning, but it keeps each lesson more interesting and varied as well.

Re-write one of your lessons to incorporate more of Howard Gardners Multiple Intelligences. Upon looking at some of my lessons, I think I do a fair job of incorporating each learning style, but with a heavier emphasis on visual, auditory and linguistic learning styles. It is more of a challenge to incorporate kinesthetic activities into each lesson, especially when under time constraints. I do, however, usually incorporate some aspect individual and group learning into each class. We teach 90 minute classes, so that helps.

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