Teaching to a diverse range of students with different needs at times can feel overwhelming for any classroom teacher. Students in the United States vary from cultural backgrounds, religion, social statuses and even political views. Globalization involves the transformation of our nation. Such as, the acceptance of other citizens coming to our land, whether it being legally or illegally, and attend our schools. Although some may argue that this is a disgrace to our nation’s reputation, student diversity in the classroom can help our students accept one another, create unity in our environment, and help understand other racial point of views. Diversity in the classroom is a need and is here to stay, teachers must accept this issue we face today, and realize that we all can benefit from this change.
Teaching students from different backgrounds and cultures can alter the way teachers teach and how students learn. When students are faced with these differences in the classroom, students may believe that there are no similarities in their lifestyles. In fact, having students interact with each other can allow learners the opportunity to create meaning through conversation. According to Jerome Bruner in his book Acts of Meaning, learning is stimulated by interactions with others. “Students learn by a restatement in words …or a language systems that is transformed into words.” He believes that learning is a process and that knowledge is learned through a variety of approaches to teaching.
As a teacher, I observed that everyone in the classroom will eventually benefited from the English language learners. I noticed my students expanded on their vocabulary and went in to deeper meanings when talking about writing topics and brainstorming for ideas. They brought different point of views during classroom discussion and helped one another understand their individual values, morals, and tradition. … Read More