The Power of Culture: Teaching Across Language Difference, Zeynep F. Beykont, Ed.

The Connection Between Language, Culture, Social Justice, and Education

In classrooms across the country, but particularly in states that have the linguistic diversity of Texas, Massachusetts and California, teachers face the challenge of teaching students whose cultural and linguistic backgrounds are different from theirs. The effectiveness of the instruction received by these groups is impacted by a number of factors.

The diversity among the groups that teachers encounter in their classrooms is obscured by demographic terms that lump students into broad groups. Because of the diversity among these student populations themselves, second language learners vary in the academic support that they need to acquire the academic language that will facilitate their success in school. Some of the ways that these diverse groups vary include age at time of entry into the educational system, level of English fluency, and academic background.

Another problem for diverse students is the educational system itself which is designed for a homogeneous, middle class, white, native speaking population. School policies and school cultures do not support diversity and therefore there is an absence of the pedagogical supports that second language learners need which results in their inability to master the language or the academic content of the instruction that they receive.

There is also a very strong conservative and anti-immigrant political climate whose goal is to institutionalize the cultural, linguistic, and economic power and privileges that are currently enjoyed by middle class English speakers. The English Only movement is a prime example of this political movement. One effect of the English Only Movement has been to eliminate programs that seek to provide the linguistic and educational support needed by diverse student populations.

Laws such as Proposition 203 in Arizona and Proposition 227 in California limit the services that second language learners receive to one year of sheltered immersion with varying requirements for ELD, SDAIE, and ESL reading, writing, listening, speaking, and grammar along with content based instruction in English. This makes the mainstream teachers responsible for using educational approaches and methods that were formerly the responsibility of language specialists. The effect of these programs on second language learners is that they find themselves pushed into mainstream classes for which neither they nor the teachers are ready at a time when there is a strong standards and accountability movement.

It is unreasonable to expect that second language learners will succeed without the support they need from an educational system and culture that is designed for a homogeneous English speaking student population and a teacher training model that does not prepare teachers to teach them.

Also unreasonable is the expectation that language minority students will do well on high stakes, standardized tests. It is nothing less than penalizing the students for the system’s failure to educate them. Results that show progress in this area, particularly in California and Texas, are no more than smoke and mirrors. The scores referred to are a result of excluding various categories of low achieving students from taking the tests. In Texas, if all statistics are considered, thirty percent of all students and forty percent of minority students do not graduate from high school. So reports on the percentage of high school students passing the high school exit exams or the scores of elementary grade students on the SAT 9 or the TAAS in California and Texas conceal an attempt to influence average test scores by changing student grade promotion and placement procedures to exclude low achieving students from taking the tests.

The two primary problems related to the achievement of second language learners are the lack of qualified teachers and policy changes that have exacerbated the problems. This is where it is particularly important to understand the politics of education. There is an increasing achievement gap between native English speakers and second language learners after second grade. Policies need to be put in place to select and train teachers who have a desire and interest in working with language minority students. It does not serve American society as a whole to continue demanding more of second language learners without changing the conditions that have caused language minority student failure.

Mainstream teachers have to make an informed, genuine effort to teach second language learners the academic language, academic skills, and academic culture that they need to succeed in school. These abilities are not developed by merely exposing students to them; they must be taught. The teaching of language must become a part of instruction in content areas along with instruction in strategies and skills. Second language learners will feel more confident if they are taught the information that they will be tested on, and teachers will feel more confident and be more competent if they are given the training they need to meet the needs of the diverse students whose number in their classrooms will only increase.

Teachers will not only need to learn strategies to teach the linguistically different but also learn how to socialize these students to the academic culture of the school in a way that shows that they and their culture are valued. This is another point about the politics of teacher training and academic policies. A teaching force that is mostly white, middle class, and monolingual English needs to be prepared to teach students who are not only linguistically and culturally different but whose culture has a low status in the power structure of the society at large. Teachers, through introspection and training, must face the possibility that they have their own biases and prejudices about linguistically and culturally different groups. These biases and prejudices may be related to stereotypes of certain ethnic, racial or low income groups that categorize them as culturally or intellectually inferior. Another form of bias is the unquestioning acceptance of the dominant culture as superior.

If we can overcome the stumbling blocks in our culture, our educational system, and in ourselves, we will have that just society which is the ideal that our country is founded on.