Collaborations for Teaching about Language Diversity and Global Culture: Partnerships Between Native English Speaking Teachers and Bilingual Adults
By Heather Leaman

In recent years, educators and schools across the United States have begun embracing language diversity by encouraging students who are bilingual or multilingual to maintain their native language while learning English. Still, teachers in American schools cannot be expected to have extensive knowledge of or experience with all of the languages children bring to their classrooms. For classroom teachers whose students may speak numerous languages, this can be quite a challenge. Families and community members can help!

Bilingual guests (community members and family members) who have lived in or traveled to other countries, have the opportunity to share with students and teachers their authentic, first hand experiences with language and cultural diversity. Most teachers and schools welcome such collaboration in teaching about world cultures and world languages.

Below are some suggestions of ways to offer support to classroom teachers and schools:

1. Make a presentation to students about life in your native country. Before you prepare your presentation, ask the teacher for a suggested time limit (15 to 35 minutes is appropriate for elementary-aged children). Consider the age of the students and try to focus on topics that will interest them. Also, bring artifacts of daily life from other countries that are similar to and different from what children may see in the United States.

2. Talk with teachers about life in your native country. Set up a time to discuss your culture and native country with teachers either as a presentation to a group or informally one-on-one. Such conversations can encourage communication between school and home, establish positive relationships, clarify expectations on the part of parents and teachers and help classroom teachers understand cultural differences.

3. Collaborate with teachers to plan lessons about other countries. Offer to meet with teachers in order to provide them with information about your native country that could be integrated into their curriculum and instruction. This can give teachers a way to welcome newcomers while teaching American-born and English-speaking children about world cultures.

4. Serve as a language expert to the school. Volunteer to read and make audio recordings of curriculum materials or children’s books in your native language. Help construct dual language books for a classroom library (translating student-made stories into your native language). These can be wonderful resources for the classroom. Or, simply read to classroom children in your native language.

Collaboration works! This fall, students in the teacher education program at West Chester University of Pennsylvania collaborated with international university students from Korea, Japan, Romania and Palestine to design lessons about their native countries. Teachers and guest collaborators used dual-language books to teach about their native countries and languages to children in a local after-school program. The collaboration, lessons and teaching were a great success. Each pair taught two lessons to children ranging from first through fourth grade. Each partnership included the collaborative models described here.

Lessons created by each partnership will be posted on the Language Lizard website.

Heather Leaman is an assistant professor in the Elementary Education Department at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She spent eleven years teaching sixth grade social studies where she taught many bilingual children.

© Language Lizard, LLC. 2008.

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