An Effective Way of Dealing Literacy: the Goal of Language Learning - Assignment Example

Education-the literacies to encourage independent learning for diverse learners of Affiliation: EDUCATION-THE LITERACIES TO ENCOURAGE INDEPENDENT LEARNING FOR DIVERSE LEARNERS Quality of teaching is an important aspect when it comes to literacy. This should begin by appreciating the rich diversity of cultural backgrounds that students of a school hail (Theresa, 2009). This also involves recognizing having an agenda that reflects the political, social and economic changes that have influenced literacy practices. The responsibility is to ensure that as many as possible students are able to achieve acceptable levels of literacy. It becomes important that students are supported via explicit teaching of multiple skills of literacy, with precise intervention programs where required. Quality literacy learning happens when students are offered the opportunities to appreciate recreational and creative aspect of the entire literature and other kinds of texts (Nixon, Comber, with Grant, & Wells, 2010). The curriculum should therefore allow students to fully participate in the society. The program should involve among other forms of support an emphasis on independent reading and independent writing alongside critical literacy to achieve independent learning for diverse learners. This should be crowned by a proper ongoing assessment that involves the following: running records, observation surveys, observation checklists, rubrics, anecdotal records, and marking scales. Using an ‘inquiry stance’ permits teachers to analyze the dynamics and complexities of their classroom communities as well as to design curriculum basing on their knowledge/understanding of students in their circumstances (Nixon, Comber, with Grant, & Wells, 2010). This means, teacher-researchers in schools teaching diverse students bring social circumstance into the foreground; they take into social circumstance to be more than the ‘background’ to the lives of their students’. This approach makes the cultural and linguistic diversity of families a property rather than a deficit. The discussion here follows the work of a teacher who combines critical approach literacy with a property model of cultural diversity (Laura & Carol, 2008). This involves, foregrounding students’ cultural and linguistic resources in the curriculum to generate high quality literature results for diverse learners. The school I teach, it serves a diverse community of students. This includes significant numbers of languages speakers other than English in each classroom. This means that in there are collaborations between teachers to help linguistically and culturally diverse students to develop their literacy in English and other learning areas (OBrien, 2001).The principle behind these teachers is that literacy works closely with social power and identity. This implies that linguistic as well as cultural diversity is openly made a significant resource for literacy learning as well as an object of study. The routine allows teachers to expose students to experiences from several languages as well as productions Arts in the several cultural traditions. In most schools, teachers deal with diverse community. Students also get a number of opportunities to act as presenters, producers and performers for their learning as well as broader community audiences (Daniel, 2004). In so doing students get connected to the real environment they live in. It is also notable that proficiency in a language presented in print medium can successfully be developed alongside multimodal and visual literacy in other media (Nixon, Comber, with Grant, & Wells, 2010). This is actually very useful when students have in their classes multiple first languages as well as emergent literacy in English. Using a range of resource that the school is endowed with it becomes easier to do this. There is frequent classroom use of non-fiction and fiction books, video and digital still cameras, laptops, scanners, and interactive whiteboards. The appropriate teaching strategies in this case include: explicit teaching, using multimedia, students ‘attempting it’, small groups and partners, a flexible learning environment, cross-class tutoring, and a flexible learning environment (Dina, Betsy, & Chistina, 2011). It is encouraged for a teacher to have an inquiry stance into their students. In this line, inquiry approaches, independent learning as well as the development of researcher characteristics are encouraged and greatly valued. Thus, the important thing is experimentation and creativity. Use of visual text for learning and literacy This could involve working on an inquiry unit the three components of wellbeing. The teaching strategy here is based on a property model; the teacher builds on what the learners already understand and can do. The placemats method is one of the successful ways of assisting students display their current knowledge. Students gather in groups around an A3 size paper sheet. This is divided in such a way that each group member can writer in a separate part to write in, while the middle part has a circle for the group’s response (OBrien, 2001). This technique encourages collaboration and team work; all the group members express as well as share their opinions. Alternatively, a teacher can use photos to record what students do in class and use this as an inquiry into their learning and converse with parents on how they are doing. This helps in delivering quality teaching and learning for diverse learners. Critical literacy and teacher inquiry approach Teachers who adopt this approach introduce students to several means of analyzing text, consisting of ways of understand the way language works to place both the subject and the reader of the text (Fairclough, 1992; Janks, 1993). For instance, teachers might assist students to take into account the frequently patterned grammar, imagery and vocabularies of food packaging, toy catalogues or other everyday texts. At one fell swoop, they might as well ask students to notice as well as to question the gender related social roles played by fathers and mothers, or girls and boys, in those texts (OBrien, 2001). This means that when teachers employ a critical literacy approach, students learn both to read, employ and appreciate texts, and to question , ‘problematise’ as well as deconstruct them from diverse point of view. However, so as to be completely literate, students as well need to become more questioners and proficient text users of text produced by others. They as well need to be capable of producing texts of their own which work for them. This makes production of multimedia film texts a priority for the teacher concerned. Here children are explicitly positioned as researchers of culture and language, and as active agents in producing quality films for public consumption (Nixon, Comber, with Grant, & Wells, 2010). The assumption here is that all children should and have the capacity to express serious ideas, involve in cultural analysis, as well as produce considerable high quality multimedia artifacts that have aesthetic and social value. Nonetheless, this work goes on in carefully gibbeted stages because students learn to employ language as well as image to express the various facets of their social identities. The major strategies in the teaching repertoire, are employing a number of academic as well as daily texts, and promoting a significant portion of student talk (Janks, 1993). The idea is challenging student with complex and sophisticated texts in all media. Critical literacy, literary literacy and knowledge concerning language Teachers have to inquire into enhancing their own practice. Their goal is to help students to create high degree literacy skills in the language, and be molded into critical thinkers and independent learners. As portion of this inquiry, and in combination with their students, the teachers develop a working description of literacy in classroom (Fairclough, 1992). Here, literacy includes more than, just ‘teaching children the way to write in particular genres on set topics.’ The purpose of this combination is to encourage and teach informed learners the way to choose from different, hybrid genres of text as well as, employing precise media and linguistic conventions, to express, in a precise and knowledgeable way, their opinions, ideas and thoughts, for a particular audience, concerning the world they are living in. Generally, when teachers employ a broad range of daily texts for classroom discussion students are more probably to become interested in learning concerning the way language works (Janks, 1993). Teachers can employ literary and familiar cultural texts to comprehend that language use is linked to social contexts. Coupled with language puzzles and games, the study of sophisticated and interesting language can assist students appreciate that language study can be challenging and fun at the same time. Another effective way of dealing literacy, is the objective of What Are We Learning this day: setting objectives to enhance student learning is to employ a method brought to the fore by Shirley Clarke to encourage, offering of appropriate feedback, independent learning and give students the capacity of being accountable for their learning through identifying learning objectives and criteria of success for a particular task. In other words, teachers encourage students to set the goal of language learning, helps them to streamline the goal according to the curriculum and real world applicability, and let them set the criteria for success (Bakula, 2010). A combination of the models observed in this discussion leads to a hybrid model. This is a model where the teacher seeks to bring students on board from the start to the end. This can be achieved by the teachers using their students to come up with a curriculum that suits them and the world they are living in and in accordance with the national educational goals (Bakula, 2010). This interactive model helps teachers to sharpen their teaching skills and in turn impact positively on the language skills of their learners by fostering independent learning for learners from diverse backgrounds. References Bakula, N. (2010). The benefits of formative assessments for teaching and learning. Science Scope , 37- 43. Daniel, R. M. (2004). The Young Childs Memory for Words: Developing First and Second Language and literacy. New York: Teachers College Press. Dina, C. C., Betsy, A., & Chistina, K. (2011). New Voices Nuevas Voces Guide to Cultural & Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Fairclough, N. (1992). Critical language awareness. New York: Longman. Janks, H. (1993). Critical language awareness series. Johannesburg: Witswatersrand University Press and Hodder & Stoughton Educational. Laura, M. J., & Carol, V. (2008). Achieving Excellence in Preschool Literacy Instruction. New York: Guilford Press. Nixon, H., Comber, B., with Grant, H., & Wells, M. (2010). Collaborative inquiries intolitracy, place and identity in the changing policy contexts of Australian schooling: implications for teacher development. In C. Day (Ed.) International handbook on teacher and school development. London: Routledge. OBrien, J. (2001). children reading critically: A local history. In B. Comber & A. Simpson (Eds) Negotiating critical literacies in classrooms (pp. 37-54). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Theresa, A. R. (2009). No Limitis to Literacy for Preschool English Learners. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin. Read More