Language Diversity and Learning

According to Lisa Delpit, developing language diversity in the classroom allows all students to be connected to the classroom and the learning environment, rather then be disconnected and marginalized from the curriculum. There are a number of items teachers must consider. They need to understand how students acquire English and they need to avoid effective filtering.

Students are able to acquire English through a number of instructional strategies such as role playing, acting, corrective writing and narration. In order for these instructional strategies to work, conditions must be optimal, students need to be motivated, the teacher needs to be able to identify with the student, students need to praised instead of embarrassed. Teachers need to give students time when they try to explain themselves because they often struggle with direct question techniques. Oral expression needs to embrace the students of color by strengthening their proficiencies by sharing their experiences with their classmates. Some of their experiences are connected to the their families, community and personal identities. So having the students build on their experiences is important for English acquistion and growth.

The teacher demands of how the student acquires English can impact the student's ability to learn English in a negative way. Teachers need to be be leary of having low expectations of their English leaners. They also need to avoid overcorrecting their students, focus on code and pronunciation blocks and avoid correcting reading miscues that are dialectic in nature. If students are constantly corrected, they may become resentful towards reading and learning English. Teachers should also be aware of different styles of literacy with students learning literacy. There are cultural differences in the way they organize their ideas, while other languages are very brief, instead of wordy like English.

The question to ask at this point, is how does this fit into being an issue of edcuational justice? It fits because assumptions are made about students learning English. Some see such students as being poor students, not wealthy. This is not always the case. Even then, students are group or stereotyped by race or by the inability to speak or read English. Both examples are cases of "isms." One being classism, the other being racism. When an ism is taking place in the classroom or school setting, injustices are taking place, students are being treated differently and equal access is being denied to all students. When this happens, inequitites are present and so is educational injustices.