Linguistically Diverse Education
2 11 2008ESL, the acronym referring to English as a Second Language, no longer seems appropriate or applicable for our communities in international education (Perhaps it never was). International schools host a diverse population of students that come from all over the world, representing a variety of cultures, values, identities, and languages. In a global society, do we not admire those who are able to converse in a number of languages across different cultures?
It seems to me, an important step in supporting linguistically diverse students is shifting from dated terminology to more inclusive and accurate titles that represent our population of diverse learners. Our international children are multilingual English language learners (ELLs), or simply, linguistically diverse.
Perhaps changing the definitions will also shift the roles of Linguistically Diverse Educators (ESL teachers), and the responsibilities of the larger school community. Collaboratively, we share the responsibility for educating our English language learners, and need to deepen our understanding of our students beyond the academic English language.
The instructional environment for 21st century, international ELLs entails collaboratively planning, instructing, and assessing by meeting each individual student where he/she is at linguistically, and enriching and fostering further language development through relevant and authentic experiences. This process is not just about promoting reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking in the academic language. It entails understanding each individual child’s language use; how they communicate with their friends and families, in addition to how and what languages they use to navigate both their academic and daily lives.
Understanding that culture and linguistic identities provide a strong and important sense of self, family, and belonging is crucial in international schools. It is these components that ultimately support a wide range of learning capabilities, including learning an additional language. Recognizing, celebrating, and tapping into our children’s cultural and linguistic diversities is truly an asset in promoting the transformation to lifelong skills, in addition to global awareness and appreciation.
Consider me converted. You are LDE’s to me from now on.
What struck me was your point on the necessity of LDE’s to understand how students use language at home and outside of schooling. This is a powerful piece that I am guessing not all ESL teachers are on board with (or is it not all other teachers are on board with?).
As an outsider, I think of your jobs as teaching English, but instead you are teaching “de-coding” of an English environment. To do this well, you have to understand a child’s ability to de-code in their own language. At what depth do they think and communicate in their native languages? How is this reflected/demonstrated in their ability to do so in English?
On a side note, I found your description particularly cool because all I have to do is substitute technology for language and it’s suddenly my job description!
“It entails understanding each individual child’s
languagetechnology use; how they communicate with their friends and families, in addition to how and whatlanguagestechnologies they use to navigate both their academic and daily lives.”How we define our jobs is fundamentally important. It speaks to how we wish to be valued and what we think is important. I wrote on this idea in the context of teaching here in the context of the use of a term “anti-teaching.”
I agree with Dennis, that technology can be inserted for “language” in many places. I speak 3 languages to communicate with friends, family and at work. I consider technology to be my 4th language to be able to communicate.
I blogged about this a while back on Technology as another language
Having lived in three different continents/countries/culture/languages, I do appreciate your sensitivity when teaching your students NOT only the grammatical structures of the language but recognize that language is CONNECTED to experiences and expression of all senses.
Heather, this is a very interesting subject that I am very interested in learning more about from you as an international educator.
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