Social and Cultural Context for L anguage U se

1. Social and Cultural Context for Language Use 2013

3. Sociocultural contexts for language use involve the interaction between the student and language environment: • Register (Sr. or Dude) • Genre/Text type (construction) • Topic • Task/Situation • Participants’ identities and social roles

5. To work effectively in culturally diverse environments, consider the following: •Be aware of your own cultural background/experiences, attitudes, values, and biases that might influence your ability to help your students. •Recognize that ethnicity and culture may have an impact on your student’s behavior. •Work to eliminate biases, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviors in your classroom.

6. Culture + Language = Behavior • Two teenage students begin scuffling in the hallway, and a teacher is trying to sort out the situation. One of the students, Joseph, from Samoa, is accused of hitting the other boy, Carson. When asked why he had hit Carson, Joseph said, ‘He insulted me. He insulted my family. He said my father was stupid. I had to hit him’. • The teacher told him that this was not an acceptable reason for hitting anyone. • ‘It is for me’, said Joseph with great anger. ‘I have to hit him when he says something like that. I would feel really bad if I didn’t punish him for it.’

7. Discuss this conflict situation considering the following points: 1. It is true what Joseph says: in Samoan culture it is not acceptable for people to insult members of your family, and you must punish anyone who does. But that is in Samoa. It is not acceptable in US, but it is a very hard behavioral change to make. 2. Some non-Samoan American teenagers learn quickly that the best way to press buttons with Samoan young people is to say derogatory things about their family. 3. Samoan youth need to realize that they are being manipulated, and resist the usual reactions. 4. We can assist Samoan students to become conscious of when they are being manipulated by other young people.

8. District Diversity MSBSD’s Top 5 Limited English Proficient Cultures • Alaska Native • Russian/Ukrainian • Spanish • Hmong • Samoan

9. Alaska Native • Reluctant to exalt themselves above others • Taught to show respect for authority and the elderly • Not taught to be assertive • Family events may overtake things like homework • Nonverbal cues may be key to understanding how they are feeling

10. Language Considerations • One way to show respect is to avoid eye contact by looking down • Taught that more is learned by listening and observing than speaking • Etiquette requires a lapse of time between asking and answering a question

11. Russian/Ukrainian Families • Most have immigrated for religious freedom, economic hardship, and limited educational/vocational opportunities for themselves and their children • Early marriage is common. • When dealing with professionals, the professional comes first, the parents’ ideas are secondary. • Relationships are very important—take priority over business concerns. • Touching others and sharing space are considered positive values. • Often straightforward • “Cutting corners”

12. Not all “Russians” created equal • Russian Old Believers (Fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, 30th of November and then every day in December till Christmas on January 7, Easter celebration lasts for 7 days) NO computer, music, sharing food with nonbelievers • Russian/Ukrainian Protestants • R/U “City dwellers”

13. Language Considerations • Ukrainians are typically bilingual. They will be able to speak Russian and Ukrainian. • A double negative in Russian increases the overall negativity of the utterance. Ex. “I don’t know nothing.” • No articles “a” and “the” in R/U language. • No set rules for stress in words—any syllable can be accented. • No significant differentiation between long and short vowels.

14. Hispanic Families • Family life is extremely important. • Father is usually the authority figure. • Children are often taught to listen, obey and not challenge authority. • Typically parents don’t comment about ongoing events—like grocery shopping • Teachers are viewed with great respect. • Value a collective perspective—needs of the group versus the individual or competition

15. Language Considerations • Verbal elaboration is rude—”Tell me all you can about a horse.” • Encourage parents to speak their native language in the home—fluent native language is better than “broken” English • Need to encourage parents to read to their children prior to kindergarten—not seen as appropriate

17. Hmong • Parents have little or no formal education and are often unable to participate in their child’s education nor provide educational guidance • The interests of the group comes before the interest of the individual • Majority of Hmong people do not read their language—dictionaries are not helpful

18. Language Considerations • Most words in Hmong are one syllable • There are no suffixes--plurals (-s), past tense (-ed) or participles (-ing) • Has the subject-verb-object agreement like in English • Possessives and pronouns do not exist

19. Samoan • Modesty is an important value. • It is considered very impolite to walk in front of people. • Elders are traditionally have a high status among the Samoan community. • Samoans consider placing an elderly relative in a nursing home as locking away their wisdom, history and language. • Some Samoans believe that illness is caused by bad luck or retribution for not looking after their family adequately.

20. Samoan • The morning is spent getting children ready for school, with children completing chores before they leave for school. • It would be uncommon for Samoa-born people to have lunch; instead there is a big feast for the evening meal. • Religion is important to most Samoa-born people with elders playing an important role in encouraging attendance at church each Sunday.

21. Language Considerations • Samoan is the official language of Samoa and older Samoa-born people are unlikely to communicate in English with English only recently being taught in Samoan schools. • Many Pacific Island languages’ pronunciations lean towards a, e, and oas long sounding vowels. Short vowels are difficult to pronounce.

23. Second language (L2) learning strategies: L2 learner: • seeks out conversation partners • groups words to be learned and then labels each group • uses gestures to communicate in the classroom when the words do not come to mind • learns words by breaking them down into their components • consciously uses guessing when he/she reads

24. How to improve L2 students' learning strategies • Strategy training should provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their own progress and to evaluate the success of the training and the value of the strategies in multiple tasks. • Learning style is an important factor, along with gender, age, nationality or ethnicity, beliefs, previous educational and cultural experiences, and learning goals • Different kinds of learners (e.g., analytic vs. global or visual vs. auditory) might benefit from different modes of strategy training

26. References • http://legacy.communitydoor.org.au/resources/etraining/units/chccs401a/section2/section2topic03.html • Lai, Y (2009). Language Learning Strategy Use and English Proficiency of University Freshman in Taiwan.TESOL Quarterly,43, 255-280.