Who are culturally responsive teachers?

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We often discuss the achievement gap between the Native speakers and Non-native speakers and feel sorry for the low proficiency scores many English learners receive in high-stakes testing. Research, resources, and time spent in identifying effective classroom teaching strategies, language teaching including types, and classroom activities helped enthusiasts understand the limit and effectiveness of various factors associated with ELs and their academic learning gains. They also helped devise, reform, and/or confirm many language-related theories and their importance/appropriateness in L2 contexts. However, for a long time, socio-cultural factor and its impact in language learning classrooms did not get much attention. In other words, SLA and teacher preparation programs fail to acknowledge complex classroom ecosystems (in terms of individual student, his/her culture, etc.) and prepare teacher candidates to handle them appropriately. The diverse nature of everyday classroom requires informed, qualified, and culturally responsive teachers because it possesses huge potential towards better learning gains. Socio-cultural awareness and responsiveness is must for both in-service and pre-service teachers alike for three overarching reasons, a) boost students’ faculty to internalize and automatize language and content area knowledge, b) create safe classroom environment to foster students’ risk-taking behavior, and c) better understand students’ various needs and provide appropriate solutions.

I want to start with my own experience of learning English. I started learning English as a foreign language since fourth grade, throughout my high school, undergrad, and graduate career I learned English. I even taught English of different age/grade levels for more than half a decade, and I am living in English speaking country for more than 5 years now, but honestly, my level of oral English competency much lower than native-English speakers. As a teacher of English I learned grammar extensively, I know the rules but I make mistakes. I learned the language in the form of rules and thus, as Vygotsky maintains, I did not internalize many components of English language, and they never became the part of my automatic repertoire (Johnson, & Golombek, 2011, p. 3). Many researchers (e.g., Lantolf & Thorne, Pohner etc.) argue that classroom activities associated with cultural artifacts mediate the learned ideas to appropriate and internalization (as cited by Johnson, & Golombek, 2011, p. 6). In addition, culturally responsive teachers facilitate students’ cognitive schemata, modify them in order to consider new representation which helps students extend their understanding or challenge their established knowledge for efficient and effective learning (Johnson, & Golombek, 2011, p. 18).

Culturally responsive teachers are aware of students’ various identities, their search of one in his/her classroom, the volatile nature of minority or language learner’s identity, and knows how to help them firmly establish who they are, and what they care about by being socially/culturally conscious. Such teachers are capable of drawing distinctions between intimidating and collaborative relationship among students and take actions in advance to avoid instances that leave learners with bad classroom experiences (Norton, 1997). These teachers keep a positive attitude towards students of other culture and show higher commitment and skills to act as agents of change. They strive to create a safe classroom environment where a mistake (linguistic and content area) is viewed as an attempt to learn rather than an indicator of laziness or dumbness; mutual understanding among student and teacher, student and student foster higher level of meaningful communication, which makes classroom language rich (Villegas, & Lucas, 2002).   

The cultural and linguistic discrepancy among students and teachers can affect students’ opportunity for academic success negatively. A socio-culturally conscious teacher possesses higher chances of providing positive dispositions toward diversity and can provide potent and meaningful milieus for all the students including ELs in their classroom (Brock, & Raphael, 2005). A knowledgeable teacher is capable of understanding classroom environment from the perspective minority students, modify activities to meet these needs, provide appropriate tools and support, and yet keeps them accountable for high standards (Rychly, & Graves, 2012). Teachers who understand their cultural expectations and limitation can easily relate to the students of diverse culture. They possess higher chances of doing background research of students’ culture and tradition to comprehend students’ behavior in better lights, rather than being judgmental about them (e.g., in some culture eye contact with the listener is rude; in some culture to argue against peers and teachers are unacceptable) (Norton, 1997).  

In conclusion, teacher candidates should be given enough materials, and properly taught to be socio-culturally responsive in their future classroom to handle a diverse set of students who come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The first step is to let him/her realize and reflect on his/her own culture and its importance in their lives. Doing so, they become empathetic towards the students of other cultural backgrounds that increases the chances of fostering mutual understanding with their pupils. They modify regular classroom activities enhancing students learning and making them permanent. They are able to acknowledge students’ identity and struggle and can take steps in advance to facilitate such journey without compromising their learning goals.

References:

Brock, C., & Raphael, T. (2005). Windows to language, literacy and culture: Insights from and English Language Learner. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. ISBN-13: 978-0872075801

Johnson, K. E., & Golombek, P. R. (Eds.). (2011). Research on second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective on professional development. Routledge.

Merryfield, M. M. (2000). Why aren't teachers being prepared to teach for diversity, equity, and global interconnectedness? A study of lived experiences in the making of multicultural and global educators. Teaching and teacher education, 16(4), 429-443.

Norton, Bonny. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 409-429.

Rychly, L., & Graves, E. (2012). Teacher characteristics for culturally responsive pedagogy. Multicultural Perspectives, 14(1), 44-49.dOI:10.1080/15210960.2012.646853