BENEFITS OF CULTURALLY AND
LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE
CLASSROOMS
C
Kaitlyn Macaulay
Background Information
• Student one is a five year old boy in Kindergarten. He was born Deaf but
recently received a cochlear implant for the right ear. At home he uses
American Sign Language and occasionally Cued Speech. At school he uses
English and Cued Speech. Student one lives with his mother who is also Deaf
and his little sister who is hearing. Student one’s family would be classified as
low socioeconomic status since se receives free/reduced lunch at school and
brings food home daily.
Academic Challenges
• Everything is based on hearing and speech and less on visual communication
• Reading and sight words
• He cant hear himself so he has a hard time reading because he can not hear the
sounds being pronounced.
Using Sign Language Prior to Cochlear Implant
Prevent Academic Challenges
• Students who used American Sign Langauge prior to receiving the cochlear implant
are encouraged to learn Cued Speech. The purpose of this is because when using
American Sign Language the words are in a different order then English. When using
Cued Speech you are signing the sounds that you hear in a word,
• Teachers should encourage:
• Students to use grammatically complete spoken English
• Transition to more use of spoken language and less American Sign Language and Cued
Speech
• Listen and talk only
• Improve spoken language in and outside of the classroom
Services needed at school
• Speech language pathology
• FM Technology
• Deaf education services
• Individual or small group instructional support
• Interpreting (American Sign Language, Cued Speech, Oral)
FUNDS OF
KNOWLEDGE
C
Funds of Knowledge is defined as "the essential cultural practices and bodies of
knowledge and information that households use to survive, to get ahead, or to thrive"
(Marshall, 2010).
Funds of Knowledge Continued…
• American Sign Language
Linguistic
• Cued Speech – visual communication
system where each mouth movement
indicates a different sounds
• Hand signals
• Code-switching between the language
of the home and the language of the
school much be done before student
can use standard English (Wheeler, n.d.).
• Learn best by “observing and listening in
on others as they collaborate in shared
tasks, in flexible and complementary
roles” (Hedge, 2011).
Funds of Knowledge Continued…
• American Sign Language
Cultural
• Communicating using your hands and
body
• No voice
• Partnerships need to be formed
between school and home
Funds of Knowledge Continued…
Family
• Parents and families hold special
knowledge that educators can learn
from and then incorporate into the
daily curriculum and instruction
(Murrillo, 2012).
• Language, values, traditions, ways of
discipline, value of education (Hedge,
2011)
• Parent-teacher conferences
• Teachers need to remember that
parents are learning everything the
student are learning too
Funds of Knowledge Continued…
• Lacks hearing certain sounds, letters,
words due to years of deafness
• Prior interaction with hearing people
• Prior exposure to vibrations
Experiences
• Teachers are able to engage learners
by strengthening their motivation,
effort, memory and attention (Hedges,
2011).
Funds of Knowledge Continued…
• Students learn the most from the
people that they are surrounded by.
• They learn trades that they are
associated with.
Practical
• Student one grew up in a Deaf
community where they are known for
communicating with their hands and
bodies
• Student one is not very verbal although
with the cochlear implant he does
know English
COMMON CORE
STATE STANDARDS
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“Common Core creates opportunities to build bridges between where our students are and
where they need to be” (Dong, 2013).
Common Core Standards
Strengths related to literacy expectations
of the CCSS
• Able to convey meaning effectively
through code switching. Slowing
encouraging student one to rely on
English only to convey message.
Challenges related to literacy
expectation of the CCSS
• Hard time segmenting sounds in words.
• Struggles with English grammar, usage
and mechanics.
“Although students may not always have the knowledge the teacher expects, it doesn’t
mean they won’t have any knowledge” (Dong, 2013
References
• Dong, Y. R. (2013). The Bridge of Knowledge. Educational Leadership, 71(4), 30–36.
• Hedges, H., Cullen, J., & Jordan, B. (2011). Early Years Curriculum: Funds of Knowledge
as a Conceptual Framework for Children's Interests. Journal Of Curriculum
Studies, 43(2), 185-205.
• Marshall, E., & Toohey, K. (2010). Representing family: Community funds of knowledge,
bilingualism, and multimodality. Harvard Educational Review, 80(2), 221–241.
• Murillo, L. (2012). Learning from bilingual family literacies. Language Arts, 90(1), 18–29.
• Wheeler, R. S. (n.d.). Code-switching: Insights and strategies for teaching Standard
English in dialectally diverse classrooms.