Indian Culture

Below you will find a video regarding Indian culture. You will also find tips for teachers on how to create a culturally responsive school and how to help parents become more involved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBUJtT1y-NA

Chinese Wedding Traditions

One thing I find very interesting is the concept of wedding traditions around the world. Today, I researched wedding traditions in China. This site contains both past and present wedding traditions in the Chinese culture. One thing I thought was interesting was when planning the wedding date. "Auspicious days are subject to interpretation by fortune tellers that perform the analysis based on one’s birth date (day and hour) after consultation with the Chinese almanac." I know when my husband and I got married, we looked for open dates for the venue and the pastor. I also thought it was neat how history and ancient traditions are important. I especially like when the importance of letters are discussed.

"Request Letter: This letter confirms the formal arrangement of a marriage.  It is sent by the groom's family to the bride's family.  This letter is normally presented with the initial gifts for the bride's family.

Gift Letter This letter accompanies the formal gifts for the Bride's family.  It is actually a gift list that records the description and quantity of the gifts.
Wedding Letter This letter is presented to the bride's family on th day of the wedding.  It confirms the act of bringing the bride into the groom's family."
http://www.chinese-poems.com/wedcus.html

Teaching Tip: Teaching Comprehension Strategies for ELLs

Comprehension can be somewhat difficult for ELL's. Consider these tips when teaching comprehension

• Introduce the comprehension strategy (this can include sequencing, making inferences, comparing/contrasting, relating background knowledge, distinguishing between fact and opinion, finding the main idea and details, problem solving, self- questioning, summarizing, drawing conclusions)
• Discuss how, when, where and why the strategy is used. Give specific examples
• Label, define, model and explain the strategies
• Discuss how the strategy was applied

Even more practice for ELLs can include:

• Identifying vocabulary words
• Model think alouds
• Demonstrate strategies to help clarify the text
• Plan for self- assessment

Mixing Languages

In Bilingual Life and Reality, the myth presented is that language mixing in children is a due to laziness. However, this is not the case.  "It is important to view within- and between-language mechanisms (overgeneralizations, simplifications, interferences, and so on) as strategies employed by children in their effort to use their weaker language" (193). Some other possible reasons include such as interference, filling in language gaps in the weaker language, and language mode (monolingual mode vs. bilingual mode). This helps to have an understanding as to why children may mix languages. 

Gestures, Meanings, and Culture

Gestures often cause miscommunication due to cultural differences among countries. This short video provides some insight into how these gestures that we are accustomed to can be taken the wrong way.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRQSRed58XM

Cultural Misunderstandings

Here is a video that Dr. B shared with us this week. It shows some wonderful examples of cultural misunderstandings that occurred during a business meeting.

Benefits of Bilingualism

I recently came across an article on BroadyESL on the benefits of bilingualism. I often wondered this before, however when I came across this it seemed to answer all of my questions. Some benefits include linguistic, cognitive, and linguistic benefits, individual benefits, as well as social benefits.

http://www.sc-languages-plus.info/2013/language-learning/the-benefits-of-bilingualism-06041163