Diversity
I have a few Spanish speaking students and when I give the students time to work together, not in groups but as a whole, a few of them collaborate in Spanish resulting in leaving some of the students uninvolved. How can I eliminate this without any disrespect to the Spanish culture?
Thank you for your much needed advice,
Sincerely,
Tammy Gorman
Tammy,
this is a tricky situation. One question I would start with is: do the Spanish students speak English well? & along with this: Do the English as first language students reach out & include them? Not trying to shift blame, but this could be part of the problem. One possible solution is to only use designated groups that you preselect. This is a little more work for you, but you can break up this particular group that way.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Simply put, you politely disrespect the Spanish speakers because they are disrespecting assimilation -- this in no way disrespects the Spanish culture. Your sudo problem is blurring the issue: the speakers are subconsciously or deliberately being disingenuous. The melting pot only succeeds if there is a melding. Isolating oneself does not create a greater whole. The Romans, as they conquered each country/culture, made the conquered Roman citizens to bring about cohesion. Without cohesion, you have confusion. If the environment is propagates confusion, then you have an non-productive learning environment. A solution would be to separate the Spanish speakers forcing them to assimilate. However, some classroom mixes do not allow such a formulation. You will have a predominate culture mix in which the participants may desire to ostracize the other participants. Students gravitate towards creating "in-groups" by any means.
