On April 27, 2011, we were fortunate to have Karen Nemeth present Building a Multicultural Multilingual Community in Your Early Childhood Program. She shared strategies for supporting teachers, resources to equip diverse classrooms, and ideas for engaging families. The session participants were very enthusiastic and shared amazing ideas on how to build a classroom community based on diversity.
Take a look at some of the questions our participants suggest you ask families in order to get to know more about the family’s culture and home life:
- What would you like for us to know so we can care for your child?
- How do you identify yourself culturally?
- How comfortable are you speaking English?
- What language is spoken at home?
- Who speaks those languages?
- What language would you prefer for receiving notices and information from the school?
- What celebrations are important to you?
- What are your child’s favorite foods?
- Do you have some favorite stories that you share with your child?
- Would you be willing to share your traditions/customs/etc with your child’s class?”
- What activities does your family like to do together?
- What are some favorite songs/music you share with your child?
The session also generated many questions and Karen Nemeth kindly answered the questions in writing, and we have posted them here on our blog.
Q. What would be a good way to learn Spanish if you have never taken it, when you want to communicate verbally with parents?
Answer from Karen Nemeth: Here is a list of ideas from my website: Top 10 Ways Teachers Can Learn Children’s Home Languages
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Q. How best can we help children whose primary language is different from the classroom, but parents are very assertive that we not do anything but “Americanize” or submerge the child in “our” culture? I find that some parents are unwilling to provide the words or strategies to assist in comforting the child as they want to quickly learn the new culture and language.
Answer from Karen Nemeth: I am asked this question in just about every workshop I present! I believe we must take a strong stand and help parents understand this is not an option. I believe the best approach is to let them know from the beginning that your school does not provide English-only because research clearly shows that may interfere with the child’s progress both in home language AND in English. Here is a sample letter to parents to help you with this: Message for Parents of ELLs: Success in English Starts with Supporting the Home Language!
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Q. As a parent, what would be best way possible to advise the teacher to incorporate these ideas in the classroom, if one knows that these are not being used?
Answer from Karen Nemeth: That’s a good question – and it depends on the parent and teacher developing as good a relationship as possible. You might provide the teacher or director with a copy of my book, Many Languages, One Classroom, or the link to my website at languagecastle.com or you could provide this article: Meeting the Home Language Mandate Practical Strategies for All Classrooms
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Q. What type of policies would be recommended to inform parents about how our program supports culture. Or is there a good resource to help centers develop culturally appropriate policies?
Answer from Karen Nemeth: The Office of Head Start has some wonderful resources to answer this question, and they are helpful to any kind of program, not just Head Starts.
Try these:
