How Using Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Aides the Learning and Instruction of Emergent Language Learners
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How Using Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Aides the Learning and Instruction of Emergent Language Learners
Pedagogy is an approach to teaching that generally defines the teaching process and the interaction between the teacher and the learner. It can be influenced by several factors, most notably cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. Culture can be defined in different ways, but in this context, it is an aggregation of beliefs, norms, and behavior of a specific group of people over a long period. For example, in a work environment, a business may have certain beliefs or practice that has been done over time like dressing code, organizational policies which can be classified as the culture of the company. Responsiveness is the ability to react to a given event in the fastest time possible.
Due to the incredible advancement in technology and the global use of the internet, the world has become one small village. Many learning institutions have diverse groups of people within their borders, whether it is teaching staff, non-teaching staff, and the students. As a result of the diversity in most learning institutions, a culturally responsive pedagogy arose (Ragoonaden & Mueller, 2017). Every instructor has predetermined judgment towards different cultures because of how they have been brought up. Such judgments may cause bias when such an instructor interacts with a diverse set of learners, ultimately affecting or influencing the learning process. A culturally responsive pedagogy is a teaching ideology where every student’s culture is acknowledged, and such cultures are nurtured in a conducive learning environment. A culturally responsive pedagogy allows everyone to be appreciated and respected within a learning environment and not alienated from their cultural beliefs.
The pedagogy is categorized into three distinct groups: the personal aspect, institutional aspect, and the teaching aspect. An institutional aspect is an approach where the learning institution makes any necessary changes to accommodate the institution’s diverse cultures, like changing some school policies. The personal aspect is focused on the teachers on how they will change some of their perspectives to accommodate a diverse classroom. It is a process that they have to learn to reduce any biases caused by personal beliefs. The teaching aspect refers to how the teachers try to implement different strategies and policies to accommodate different cultures within the same learning environment without marginalizing any one culture or favoring another (López-Estrada, Rodríguez & Bonet, 2019). Some of the benefits that an institution would have from culturally responsive pedagogy include reduced cultural and racial discrimination due to awareness and importance of appreciating diverse cultures, interactions between students of different cultural backgrounds where they can share their beliefs about their cultures and appreciate diversity, bring about respect for the different cultures in a diverse learning institution and allows students to appreciate and learn about their cultural background and their heritage which has been neglected as a result of discrimination or stigmatization by people who deem their cultures to be superior.
Emergent language manifests itself, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, in the normal interactions between students or between a teacher and his students. Putting the aspect of a diverse culture into context different students due to their exposure to different cultures may end up saying certain words differently, for example in a different tense, in a certain tone, in a certain pace or have a unique pronunciation (Mul, Bouchacourt & Bruni, 2019). Such aspects may affect the student in different ways; for example, the student may be afraid of answering questions in a class setup for fear of being ridiculed, they may face alienation from other students who may consider themselves to be normal among other things.
How does a culturally responsive pedagogy help the learning of an emergent language learner? It does aid the learner in various ways, which will be explained below. First, this teaching approach will give the individual learner confidence by acknowledging the fact that he or she comes from a different cultural background, which does not mean that it is a bad thing. As a result, the learner will feel encouraged and will become positive about his cultural background and will not shy away from class participation, including answering and asking questions and class presentations.
Another way that culturally responsive pedagogy aids emergent language learners are where the instructor can understand their cultures first and then be able to understand the different diverse cultures of different students in the classroom (Yerrick & Ridgeway, 2017). It will help the teacher better understand each student and their background, which puts them in a better position to offer any needed guidance in their studies. As a result, such learners get the much needed academic and non-academic attention they need to feel comfortable and adjust to the learning environment.
Learning occurs anywhere, whether it is inside the walls of a classroom or outside a classroom setup. A culturally responsive pedagogy offers both aspects a classroom experience and an outside classroom experience. For instance, through its teachers, a learning institution can organize cultural events to celebrate the diverse cultures present at the school. It could be a cultural exhibition where students are tasked with learning about their heritage and cultural background and translating all this knowledge into an exhibition collection (Schwarzenthal, Schachner, Juan & Vijver, 2019). Such an exercise aims to get the students to appreciate the many diverse cultures globally and give them a chance to learn about other different cultures apart from their own. It should change their perspectives on different cultures and create a diverse learning institution where all ethnicities and cultures are respected, acknowledged, and respected. Students who felt that they were marginalized because of their unique cultural backgrounds would, therefore, be comfortable within the learning institutions, and this would help them massively improve in their learning process both in class and outside class.
A culturally responsive pedagogy also gives the students equal opportunities to succeed. That statement may seem obvious, but in the face of diversity, many different factors have contributed to such opportunities being unfairly balanced. Students regarded as different due to their cultural backgrounds and ethnic ties had difficult times within learning institutions in terms of discrimination, lack of attention from teachers, lack of confidence in themselves, lack of awareness of good opportunities like scholarships, and selective treatment. Such a teaching approach gives awareness to such students of good opportunities, makes them feel comfortable and gives them a sense of belonging. All this goes a long way in ensuring that the learners have an equal chance to succeed, and they can get all the opportunities available to all students. Some negative habits, such as discrimination of culture, ethnicity, and race, are eliminated from the students who are perceived to be tomorrow’s leaders. All this ensures that the student is nurtured to their strengths and their unique cultures embraced, and they never have to feel like they are not equal to other students in the learning institution.
A culturally responsive pedagogy aids the learning and instructing of emergent language learners in different aspects the most significant ones being increased confidence boost due to acknowledgment of one’s culture, better class participation and easier understanding between the instructor and the learner since the learner goes a further step to understand the diverse culture to have a better understanding of how to help and assist the learner efficiently and effectively.
References
Ragoonaden, K., & Mueller, L. (2017). Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Indigenizing Curriculum. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 47(2), 22-46.
Mul, M., Bouchacourt, D., & Bruni, E. (2019). Mastering emergent language: learning to guide in simulated navigation. arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.05135.
Yerrick, R., & Ridgeway, M. (2017). Culturally responsive pedagogy, science literacy, and urban underrepresented science students. Inclusive principles and practices in literacy education. Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620170000011007
López-Estrada, P., Rodríguez, P., & Bonet, M. (2019). Exploring Perspectives, Negotiating Computer-mediated Landscapes, and Integrating Technology in Linguistically and Culturally-diverse Learning Spaces. Revista Electrónica Educare, 23(2), 376-393. http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/ree.23-2.20
Schwarzenthal, M., Schachner, M. K., Juang, L. P., & Van De Vijver, F. J. (2019). Reaping the benefits of cultural diversity. https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-43750