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The Use of the Integrated Arts to Support English Language Leaners
Introduction
When asked about the role of the arts in the daily classroom, the average person may not think “educational,” but in today’s society the arts can be just that. Integrating the arts into everyday lessons has proven not only to aid those who speak English, but those who are English Language Leaners (ELLs) as well. In today’s society, ELLs make up 10% of the student population (Brouillette, 2012, p. 68). Therefore, educators must take it upon themselves to not only teach these students the core subjects that they are required to learn, but to speak English as well. Many educators have found that creating a culturally responsive classroom, as well as integrating the arts into their classrooms has greatly supported their English Language Leaners in more ways than one.
Culturally Responsive Classrooms
The first way that educators have supported their English Language Leaners, is by creating a culturally responsive classroom. Creating culturally responsive classrooms allows educators to establish meaningful bonds with each and every one of their students. One way that this can be done is through celebrating the many different cultural heritages that are present in the classroom, and incorporating them into the daily instruction (Grant & Reif, 2010, p. 100). This type of inclusion results in the students being confident in who they are, and feeling as though they belong in the classroom. Grant and Reif (2010) add that as a result of a culturally responsive classroom, “…students develop into individuals who are proud of their backgrounds, languages, families, traditions, and experiences” (p. 102). Creating a culturally responsive classroom can also be...
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...it is necessary for English Language Leaners to learn successfully.
References
Brouillette, L. (2011). Building the oral language skills of K-2 English language learners through theater arts. California Reader, 44, 19-29. Retrieved from http://www.californiareads.org/
Brouillette, L. (2012). Supporting the language development of limited English proficient students through arts integration in the primary grades. Arts Education Policy Review, 113, 68-74. doi: 10.1080/10632913.2012.656494
Grant, L., & Reif, N. (2010). Culturally responsive classroom through arts integration. Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education, 5, 100-115. Retrieved from http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/jpme/
Greenfader, C.K., & Brouillette, L. (2013). Boosting language skills of English learners through dramatization and movement. Reading Teacher, 67, 171-180. doi: 10.1002/TRTR.1192
All students begin school with different levels of literacy development; English-speaking natives have obtained oral language proficiency in English which helps t...
A recent development in public education has been the decline in arts programs nationwide. Budget cuts to arts programs are responsive to decreases in state funding, especially in states with conservative economic policies. Many states have also enacted legislation disabling local school districts’ abilities to justify employing art and music teachers. Consequently, several problems have manifested themselves, including the loss of arts programs proving detrimental to the overall quality of education for today’s children. First and foremost, arts programs improve overall performance in core school subjects; this is demonstrated clearly through higher test scores amongst students with exposure to arts and positive correlations between arts and core class engagement. Other reasons supporting retaining arts programs include to help foster community development, produce creative minds, develop problem-solving skills, aid in child development and visual-spatial skills, and encourage underprivileged students to remain in school (Metla, 2015). By removing arts programs from some public schools, an alarming issue of public concern arises. Public education, given that it is considered to be a non-rivalrous and non-excludable, is deemed a public good (Clark, 2016). Cutting arts programs in public schools, especially when cuts transpire in schools saturated with heavy minority populations, creates inequitable education and creates a serious issue of public concern.
As an educator one must understand that the children you will be teaching will all come from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different homes with different values. No one student will be the same, and no one student will learn the same. The role of a modern educator is to harness this idea of diversity and channel it into a positive learning atmosphere for children of all backgrounds. “I define culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2013, p.50.). The hope for all teachers is to capture the minds of their children, as educators we must learn how our students learn, adapt to their skill set and channel our curriculum to their strength.
All around the United States, art programs are being cut out of the budget in public schools. The arts include dance, band, chorus, theatre, film, drawing, painting, photography and literary arts. Some school board members feel these art programs are not necessary and do not benefit the students in any way. Elementary, middle, and high school students are forced to quit their passion and feel that their talents are not supported by their schools. Although many are not aware, there is a strong connection between arts education and academic achievement. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts in many public schools, the art classes are first on the list to be cut. It is important that the students, parents and teachers fight for their desire to keep the arts in public schools. Art programs in public schools are essential to the development of young minds; therefore the school boards should enhance and improve the programs and should not cut funding or force a class to be discontinued.
Tchudi, Susan J, and Stephen Tchudi. The English Language Arts Handbook: Classroom Strategies for Teachers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999. Print.
These lessons are important in the classroom for several reasons. First off, we as teachers need to find ways to make sure that students from all ethnic backgrounds are included in classroom discussions and that they have the ability to apply themselves to the material taught in the classroom. However, teachers also need to realize that these practices need to be implemented so that stereotypes among the different cultures do not
I reported that my school was guilty of “‘fairyland’ multicultural education” (Nieto & Bode, 2008, p. 2). We hold dinners, culture days, and special programs to bring awareness to different cultures, but we don’t go any further than that. This course has given me countless tools that can be used to make my school and classroom better for students. The school that I teach at has a high percentage of students who live below the poverty line and who speak English as a second language. Countless research has been done about students in both categories. Students who live below the poverty line tend to do worse than students at a wealthy school (Bainbridge & Lasley, 2002). This understanding about students living in poverty should drive instruction in the classroom. As a teacher, it is my job to inform and discuss with my colleagues strategies for better educating these students. Most importantly, there must be a belief that these and all students can learn if teacher use various teaching strategies (Bainbridge & Lasley, 2002). This understanding about students living in poverty should drive the efforts at my
Furthermore, I feel that being a culturally responsive teacher is a great asset to students, because most of the time students build relationships and communication skills with teachers. The teachers feel they are culturally responsive to students. The culturally responsive teacher will help students gain these skills through the "banking" concept of education, in which, students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.
To start with, culturally responsive teaching practices recognize the validity of the cultural custom contained by several ethnic groups. In other words, it considers whether different approaches of learning are necessary and worthy in the formal learning. Furthermore, culturally responsive teaching practices are fundamental because they create links between school experience and home and between lived social cultural realities and academic abstraction (Gay, 2000).
The purpose of this assignment is to explain the impact of English language learners in the classroom. As a foreign student, English language learner in the United States faces multiple challenges for achieving academic success. To successfully complete a task, they need to master both English as a language and how it is used in core content classes especially when they are an adult. When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation,
I’m a firm believer in maximizing the educational experience through effective classroom design to maintain conflict prevention, increasing time on task and being an added tool for content material; but now I also believe effective classroom design can be used effectively to build a inclusive arena for students to learn in. By consciously focusing on improving the inclusiveness of culture into my design of the classroom, student’s can develop a stronger link to the classroom and school community. This can allow students who may have felt culturally excluded from their environment to develop a stronger connection to their learning and improve their performance not only as academic learners but as members of their school
“Every student in the nation should have an education in the arts.” This is the opening statement of “The Value and Quality of Arts Education: A Statement of Principles,” a document from the nation’s ten most important educational organizations. The basic message is that music and art programs in the schools help our kids and communities in real and substantial ways. There is an abundant amount of facts and information that supports this statement. The benefits of arts education can be narrowed down into 4 basic categories: success in developing intelligence, success in ...
When you think of language the first thing that comes to mind is speech. Without speech, which is made up of letters, vocal sounds and words, we would not be able to communicate and understand each other’s needs. So in order for educators to help enhance literacy development they must take into consideration the whole classroom and how it should be designed. In this paper, I am going to create a floor plan of my current pre-school classroom and discuss how it fosters language development in the library center, dramatic play center, and the block center including an explanation of how these three areas support language acquisition.
Ford, k (2010). 8 Strategies for Preschool English Language Learner’s Language and Literacy Development. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/36679/. Last accessed 5/4/2014.
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