A reminder that our next Teaching Breakfast is this Thursday, May 1st at 8
am.  The topic is Faculty Peer Review. Please join us if you can. See you in
Morris Hall.

As our classrooms grow more diverse, I have found some of the tips in this
recent posting useful so I pass them along to you.

The posting below looks at ways of encouraging and supporting class
discussions with linguistically and culturally diverse students.  It
is from the section, Resource A, Facilitating Equitable Class
Discussions Within the Multicultural Classroom, in Diversity and
Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching by Raymond J. Wlodkowski
and Margery B. Ginsberg.  A joint publication in The Jossey-Bass
Higher and Adult Education Series, The Jossey-Bass Education Series,
and The Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Sciences. Published by
Jossey-Bass. A Wiley Imprint. 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA
94103-1741. <www.josseybass.com>. Copyright 1995 by John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., and Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Margery B. Ginsberg. All
rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.


      FACILITATING EQUITABLE CLASS DISCUSSIONS WITHIN THE MULTICULTURAL
                     CLASSROOM

Topically focused class discussions potentially offer English
learners rich exposure to new vocabulary and usage in their second
language, along with opportunities to interact in a variety of
academic situations - reporting information, summarizing,
synthesizing, and debating.  Frequently, however, linguistically and
culturally diverse students remain passive participants in
whole-class discussions for varied reasons, including insecurity
about their listening comprehension, pronunciation, word choice, and
culturally appropriate interactional strategies.  Instructors may
employ the following strategies to lead carefully orchestrated class
discussions that provide language-promoting assistance and facilitate
more active participation for English learners:

1. Create a supportive classroom environment for less confident
English users by encouraging all students to talk in turn, to listen
actively while others talk, and to offer assistance rather than
impatience and intolerance for classmates who need help in
understanding or responding.

2. Show your students that you expect them all to participate in oral
activities by consistently inviting every member of the class to
participate.

3. Allow students to first share and rehearse their responses to a
key question or comments on a topic with a partner to increase
learning and ESL student confidence and motivation to contribute to a
unified class discussion.

4. Be sensitive to the linguistic and conceptual demands of
discussion questions and activities.  Don't inhibit participation by
pushing students to communicate too far beyond their current level of
English proficiency.

5. The easiest content for less proficient English users to handle is
often related to their everyday lives and activities.  Make a
concerted effort to build in opportunities for language minority
students to share information about their cultures, communities,
families, and special interests.

6. Pair less proficient English users with a sensitive classmate who
can ideally clarify concepts, vocabulary, and instructions in the
primary language and also coach the classmate in responding.

7. Attempt to activate students' relevant background knowledge on
topics, and provide through "schema"-building activities (e.g.,
brainstorming, mapping, advance organizers) requisite linguistic,
conceptual, and cultural information that would otherwise prevent
them from active learning and participation.

8. Move purposefully around the room to enable as many students as
possible to enjoy having close proximity to the teacher, which should
also encourage students to remain more alert and willing to ask and
answer questions.

9. Do not constantly pose questions to the group at large, allowing a
minority of more confident or impulsive students to dominate the
discussion.

10. Ask a question before naming the respondent to encourage active
learning by allowing all students to "attend" and decide how they
would answer.

11. Draw in less confident students by asking them to respond to an
open-ended question after they have heard a variety of responses from
their classmates.

12. Call on English learners to answer not only safe yes/no questions
but also more challenging, open-ended questions that provide
opportunities for thoughtful and extended usage of their second
language.

13. Increase wait time (3-9 seconds) after asking a question to allow
adequate time for the student to successfully process the question
and formulate a thoughtful response.

14. When calling on a specific ESL student, it often helps to first
pose the question and make eye contact with the student while stating
his/her name; then pause a few seconds and restate the question
verbatim.

15. Discourage classmates from blurting out responses and
intimidating less confident English users from taking risks with
their second language.

16. Do not interrupt a students' thought processes after asking an
initial question by immediately posing one or more follow-up
questions; these tandem questions confuse rather than assist English
learners who may not realize that the teacher is actually rephrasing
the same question.

17. Encourage students to talk through nonverbal means, such as
waiting patiently, smiling, and nodding in approval.

18. Make any corrections indirectly by mirroring in correct form what
the student has said.  For example, suppose a student says, "Majority
immigrants San Francisco from Pacific Rim."  You can repeat, "That is
correct.  A majority of the immigrants in San Francisco come from the
Pacific Rim."

19. Use these conversational features regularly and in so doing model
for your students how to use them in class discussions, lectures, and
small-group work:

confirmation checks            Is this what you are saying?
                               So you believe that . . .
clarification requests

Will you explain your point so that I  can be sure I understand?
Could you give me an example of that?

comprehension checks        Is my use of language understandable to you?

interrupting                Excuse me, but . . .
                            Sorry for interrupting, but  . . .

Source: Kinsella, 1993, p. 16. Used by permission.

Mr. James B. Greenberg
Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
Milne Library
SUNY College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820

email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 607-436-2701

"Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"