SUPPORTING EAL IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND IMMIGRANT TEACHERS IN MANITOBA

Prairie Metropolis Centre Brown Bag SeminarOctober 8, 2009

Clea Schmidt, Faculty of EducationUniversity of Manitoba schmidtc@cc.umanitoba.ca

IntroductionPreparing future teachers for culturally and

linguistically diverse classrooms is seen as a priority in the teacher education literature (e.g., Nieto & Bode, 2008).

However, the need to diversify the teaching force to better reflect and respond to the diversity of student populations has been largely disconnected from this conversation. This session shares insights from research, policies, and programming relevant to preparing teachers for diverse classrooms and supporting diverse teachers in integrating into the profession.

Why do we need diverse teachers for our diverse learners?The integration of teachers from diverse backgrounds with a range of life experiences in schools allows for:• teacher knowledge exchange in schools between

teachers from the dominant national group and immigrant teachers as well as teachers from other backgrounds

• greater involvement of minority group and immigrant parents in schools with minority group and immigrant teachers acting as a bridge for families

• teachers with expertise in teaching a range of languages

• diverse role models for all children

Manitoba ContextProvincial population of 1.2

millionProvincial Nominee Program

(PNP) has as its annual target 20,000 immigrants

Top source countries: the Philippines, Germany, India, China, and Korea

Majority of newcomers between the age of 0-24

Settlement outside of urban areas

Action Plan for Ethnocultural Equity (MECY, 2006)The need to build a more inclusive and

representative teacher force was a common theme at virtually every consultation session. While some acknowledged that there were increased numbers of educators of diverse backgrounds working as teachers and in other related roles, most participants expressed the view that teachers and administrators do not reflect the rich diversity of peoples and cultures that are present in our communities.

Action Plan for Ethnocultural Equity, cont’dWhile perspectives differed on what

was needed to address the situation, generally, participants supported enhanced efforts in this area. Some participants called for the extension of government employment equity policies to school boards and funded independent schools, and an affirmative action plan and policy that prepares cultural minorities for success in the workplace when hired. (p. 23)

Research Study #1Goal: To document the successes

and challenges of EAL youth in rural MB

Mixed methods approach combining analysis of student records and interviews with English as an additional language (EAL) students, parents, and teachers (total of 40 participants)

Funded by the Prairie Metropolis Centre

Research Study #2Goal: To document education

stakeholders’ perceptions of the issues and challenges facing immigrant teachers as they attempt to resume their careers in Manitoba

Critical ethnographic approach involving observations, interviews, and focus groups with immigrant teachers, their mentors, school division personnel, immigration authorities (total of 45 participants)

Funded by Manitoba Labour and Immigration

Theoretical Framework (Kincheloe, 2008)Critical pedagogy-a perspective toward education that is concerned with questions of justice, democracy, and ethical claims

Power functions in a way that solidifies dominant discourses, in the process erasing the presence of marginal voices (Bakhtin)

To contribute to the effort to improve education, students, teachers, parents, politicians, and community members must gain a more textured understanding of the issues

Research seeks to question the problematic ways that students are categorized, differences between students are represented, educational purposes are defined, schools are organized, and relationships between communities and schools are developed

Critical Race TheoryAssumes there are oppressive social

structures to maintain hegemonic or dominant groups’ privilege. CRT contends that progressive social change occurs when those dominant groups experience themselves as the beneficiaries of the change.

“Racial equality and equity for people of color will be pursued and advanced when they converge with the interests, needs, expectations, and ideologies of Whites” (Milner, 2008, p. 332).

Marginalization of EAL Youth and Families

When I visit school, I see the homeroom teacher and other subject teachers as well. I usually ask them if my children have been doing well, then they mostly answer me in such ways that it’s getting better… and he/she needs this or that area a little bit more. Once, something happened. It was a computer teacher…my child used a lot of computer at home, so she knows a lot about computer. But she didn’t express herself in the classroom...thus, the [computer] teacher assumed that she didn’t know much about computer, and told me that he had no idea if my daughter knows computer or not.

-EAL Parent

[We’ve had] next to no contact other than a school event and an attempt to converse with the teacher who did not understand or try to understand us. A challenge we face as immigrants is wanting to express ourselves clearly but not being able to. This makes us more fearful to attempt communication because we do not want to be misunderstood. We fear we would only be further misunderstood by this teacher and so, though we would like to have more contact with her, we feel she is rather unapproachable.

-EAL Parent

It was almost palpable the shift that was occurring, because they were listening, it was in their language and we were explaining things. And after we did all of that, we rang the bell and we brought the kids in and we all ate together in the gym. And I told all of my staff members and I found out who speaks High German and Low German and I said, ‘one of you per table. I don’t want you wasting this resource, you know?’ ”

- School Administrator

The Place of Immigrant Teachers in a Diverse Education System

We certainly have an increase of students coming into the system, EAL students. Which means that there are EAL families….This year we have a school that maybe three, four years ago would have had two or three identified EAL kids; this year there’s maybe fifty-three EAL kids in the building. It means we have to look at how we are going to support these kids and their families.

-School Division Superintendent

The other challenge is the need to find a way to get the message through to the powerbrokers in the province, the people who control work in the system, superintendents, human resource personnel, boards of trustees. I think some of them do not recognize the magnitude of what’s happening in our province in terms of immigration and the fact that the immigration numbers will go from ten thousand to twenty thousand in the next ten years, and many of these people are professionals, many of them are teachers, and we have to find ways to support them and get them into classrooms.

-Mentor of Immigrant Teachers

 

What’s being done to prepare the system, in terms of you know, getting them to be supportive and inclusive? Educate the teachers around the importance of having people with international education experience teaching kids.

-Immigration Project Officer

We are making every effort we can to have teachers in our community that begin to reflect the makeup of our student population… Where we see the big advantages is that it provides a bridge to the community, especially communities where we have large numbers of students who are of that background.

-School Division Superintendent

Some of the children found it very funny the way I’m saying words in English. And they start to giggle…. I thought this could be the first time, but maybe not the last time. So I have to speak for myself. You know, I have to do something if I want to be respected, or to build my own confidence. [So] the next time I [taught about] cultural differences and what it means to be different….

-Immigrant Teacher

I think [the] children understood what it means to be different…they had grandparents, parents who immigrated to Canada, who spoke English with a certain accent. So it was a great success for me, that lesson, because they start to understand me and show their respect and understanding….They wrote letters expressing their feelings about being accepted and certain stories from their families, what sort of people from their family have different accents or culture shock. And I still have them in my portfolio. It was very moving for me.

-Immigrant teacher