Classroom Practices for Minority Language Students
Minority language students face a great challenge upon entering the public schools system, here in California. As an educator of minority language students it is important to understand these challenges and learn how to best serve the students. This paper will discuss the needs of minority language students, specifically Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and give strategies and examples for the classroom teacher to use, including a look at bilingual education its usefulness and legal issues. ... The goal of education is to literate students. ... 322) Having this type of goal as an educator, to not only teach the decoding and comprehension skills but to empower students to action, ads a greater challenge to education. ... Och and Scheiffeling, to observe the way infants become socialized to their culture’s language, did a study of three different culture groups. The outcome showed that each of the cultures uses language differently and children are taught to speak using different methods. However children still acquire the necessary language skills for their culture at the appropriate time for their culture. ... Sociocultural knowledge and language skills develop in tandem. ... (Ochs & Scheiffeling ) This information is important because Mexican American, minority language students are socialized to a language and culture that has literacy practices that differ from what they encounter at school. ... The difference between home and school literacy practices can be a great challenge for minority language students. For example, Mexican American parenting situations contrast language behavior expectations in most traditional classrooms where adults control conversations. And where students are asked factual questions and given verbal corrections. ... Children reared in this cultural do experience a rich language environment though there is little direct conversation there is a lot of language between adults and children going on around them. ... 333) An important part of this challenge is the difference in language between home and school. The Mexican American students in Los Angels usually speak and hear Spanish in their home and social communities outside of school, and English is the language of their schooling and Education. Another challenge caused by this is the parent’s literacy skills in the school language. When parents are not literate in the school language they are not able to assist children with homework or studying. This difference only creates a greater gap between the literacy practices of the home and the school. One method on how to overcome these differences in literacy practices between home and school and have success for these minority language students, is based on a bilingual theory developed by Cummins.