A 5 Step Plan for Social Inclusion, Mutual Respect and Understanding

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The international school where I hope to teach is 80 percent Colombian, 12 percent Latin American or bi-cultural, 6 percent U.S. American, 1 percent Korean and 1 percent Oceania.  All classes are taught in English except for Spanish language instruction. For the purposes of this assignment, I will focus on the students who are Colombian and Korean.

My class will primarily consist of Colombian kids who have been studying English since preschool.  They will speak Spanish everywhere except school.  Socially, they are the dominant group, so social inclusion and understanding is not a problem for them, but for the minority groups of the classroom, mainly the native English speakers, who may or may not be fluent in Spanish, and the native Korean speakers who will most likely be trilingual. The Spanish alphabet is very similar to the English one except it has 2 extra letters—LL and ñ.  The English vowels are much more complicated, because the Spanish vowels only make one sound, while English vowels make several.  Parents have very high educational expectations for their children at this school.  The parents are paying private school tuition, potentially at a high sacrifice to the family, and have selected a school taught in English to advance the potential of their kids. Parents may not take an active role in their child’s education, however, because Colombian culture places great respect in the teacher and school, and they believe that their place is at home and the teacher’s job is at school.  El Camino, in particular, has a relatively high percentage of missionary children. These families rely primarily on donations for financial support, and their children are accepted at the school on scholarships. The greatest disparity at this school will be financial, more so than language.  Colombians adhere to a strict social stratification, so the greatest challenge as a teacher at this school will be to foster an environment of inclusion between the haves and have-nots.

The one Korean student that may be in my class will be at the greatest disadvantage. Not only is he learning in a second language, but the social language of the great majority of students will be different than the language that he is learning in and the language he speaks at home. The Korean culture grants teachers the same authority as parents, so the student will be very respectful but may have trouble asking questions as this may be seen as a sign of disrespect in questioning authority. The Korean alphabet is character based and is completely different than the English alphabet. In addition, communication is based on different social levels and relies mainly on nonverbal cues. In Korean, the burden of understanding is placed on the listener to interpret all the nonverbal and subtle nuances of communication. In English, however, the burden of understanding is placed on the speaker. The greatest challenge for me as a teacher, will be to teach the Korean student to be assertive in English with both his peers and with me to ensure that he is understanding the lesson.