«MCMC Conference» Meeting the Challenge of the Multicultural Classroom

An EU collaborative project between Southwark (UK) and the Algarve (PT)

Goldsmiths, University of London, New Academic Building, Room LG02

26 April 2013

www.mcmc-regio.com

Context and Decisions Objectives and Outcomes of activities

I currently teach in a secondary school in Southwark where the proportion of students who have a first language that is not English is well above the national average.

Around one in three students is of Black and Black British heritage and around one in three is of White British heritage. Other students are from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.

The subject I teach, Drama is a very practial and emotioanlly engaging – it is interesting to observe students in this environment which is different to a classroom with set chairs and tables. Drama allows

students to express themselves in different ways and I wanted to learn how to engage all student inclusivley. I hoped this course would allows me to learn about new ideas and strategies I could

implement within my lessons. I am also interesed to learn from others in different subjects and from other schools teaching both in primary and secondary.

I am in particular looking for strategies to help learners with low English levels access the curriculum.

República Checa

Turquia

Resources and Materials producedImpact on Learning

School: Kingsdale Foundation School

Teacher/s: Miss S Cawrey (SCY)

Year group taught: Key Stage 3-5 (Year 7- 13)

Throughout the course we have had the opportunity to meet some excellent teachers with a wealth of experience and knowledge, being an NQT this has not only developed my awareness of the multicultural classroom but also helped to develop my own confidence as a classroom teacher. We have explored and discussed a variety of areas such as identity, culture and language – thinking about what these all mean personally to me has then started a ‘journey’ in my thinking about what they mean to others, more specifically to the students I teach.

During the sessions we have had together we have been able to explore different strategies, games and exercises that can be used for all key stages – sharing our ideas and experiences have been invaluable. I am also a year 7 form tutor and I was looking for a tasks for my class to have ownership of and present to the others. An idea that was discussed was to research their name, where it had come from, is there a link to a family member or someone else, what their name means – culturally, spiritually. Each student took pride in this task because it was about them and they all presented their finding with amazing results. The class were extremely interested in their peers history and their presentations are now proudly up on the wall. The idea went down so well the students mentioned it to the other teachers and all year 7’s are looking to do the same thing. We followed on with looking into their identity and this has been very productive especially where there have been incidents with name calling and bullying.

I have a number of EAL students who arrived to the school this year with a minimal level of spoken English, from countries such as Brazil, Poland and Spain. It has been remarkable to watch them develop over the course of the year with both their written, speaking and practical work. I have a particular student in my Drama GCSE class who joined us around Christmas time – He has been making steady progress and is developing his understanding of the key words we use due to a booklet I created displaying them in both Portuguese and English. I asked him to define them in Portuguese and he is now working through them in English. He is now occasionally suggesting skills he could use to develop his Drama work with his peers.

I particularly encourage my EAL students to write creatively in their own language – and I was overjoyed when the above student wrote a monologue for a character in Portuguese and then proudly stood up to perform it in front of his peers. To my amazement the rest of the class were completely silent and supportive and since then his confidence has grown and the rest of group want to include all different languages.

Language and the delivery of language is important to a subject like Drama, words, accents, vocal tones, intonation and pronunciations are key to developing a variety of characters. Something that I found really interesting and acknowledged is that to an EAL learner certain words, phrases, the tone in which we say something could mean something completely different to them – and it reminded me of being younger hearing phrases adults used and not knowing a clue about what they were saying – one sticks in my mind – “He will turn up to the opening of an envelope.” Thinking about this made me think about the way in which I explain tasks and communicated to students – being from the Midlands myself I have picked up some sayings and words that to some make little sense.

I always reflect on my teaching practice as this will ensure my professional develop and also that of the students. This course has equipped me with not only the confidence to support and encourage all learners including EAL but to create a bank of strategies that I can implement within my practice and that I hope to share with others. My appreciation for language, identity and culture has developed an impacted on my understanding. The fear I had when I found out I needed a hospital in the middle of the Indian countryside comes flooding back when I work with an EAL learner for the first time – and I hope to make their ‘journey’ of discovering a new language as pleasurable as possible.