THE PROJECT AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
Brief Description of the Project
This handbook is for teachers and pre-service teachers who work with adult ESLstudents.
Adult ESL students typically represent a range of educational backgrounds. They have different
levels of proficiency in writing and reading in both their native language and English. Some of
them may have minimal formal schooling, while others may have received advanced college
degrees in their native countries. They all bring a variety of skills, backgrounds, and life
experiences into the classroom, which a culturally responsive teacher can utilize when creating a
curriculum. Typical adult students have many responsibilities and are very busy. They come to
class motivated to satisfy their own learning goals. In order to motivate adult students, the
curriculum should be practical and relatable to their lives. Some adult students suffer from poor
self-concept and do not trust that they can learn.
This project is a guidebook for adult English as a Second Language teachers or preservice
teachers who are interested in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. This guidebook intends to aid
teachers in becoming culturally responsive educators. It consists of four parts:
Background, Adopting the Mindset of Culturally Responsive Teaching, Culturally Responsive
Teaching in Practice and Checklist.
Part 1: Background
Part 1 introduces the concept of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. It explains why understanding
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy is crucial to the process of learning a foreign language. Our
culture affects our worldview and learning style. The first part also introduces two of the most
important contributors to Culturally Responsive Teaching, whom both defined the framework of
the pedagogy. Gloria Ladson-Billings launched the concept of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in
her book “The Dreamkeepers,” and Geneva Gay named the pedagogy Culturally Responsive
Teaching in her seminal book “Culturally Responsive Teaching; Theory, Research, and
Practice”. Part 1 of the guidebook also includes the key features of Culturally Responsive
Teaching. These key features are high expectations for all students, caring attitude, and climate of
inclusion, culturally responsive classroom environment, and culturally responsive curriculum. The
first part of the guidebook defines each feature and lists practical applications for building an
inclusive classroom, making the classroom more culturally responsive and making the curriculum
culturally responsive.
Part 2: Adopting the Mindset of Culturally Responsive Teaching
The second part of the guidebook lays the groundwork for becoming a culturally
responsive teacher. It explains how becoming a culturally responsive educator is a journey that
leads to a culturally responsive mindset. The first step is to understand culture. The meaning of
culture is explained by using Hall’s (1973) analogy of culture as an iceberg. In order to understand
cultural differences and their own culture, the teachers are encouraged to think about culture
having three layers. These layers are surface culture, shallow culture, and deep culture. Each
cultural layer consists of specific aspects of culture that either has a low or strong emotional charge.
With the information provided in this section of the guidebook, the teachers can begin to
understand the crucial impact culture has on students’ classroom behavior and learning styles. The
key to understanding educational implications of culture is to understand specific universal
patterns of culture, which Hofstede (2010) defined as dimensions of culture.
This section of the guidebook also introduces each of Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. These are
power distance, collectivism versus individualism, femininity versus masculinity, uncertainty
avoidance, long-term versus short-term orientation, and indulgence versus restraint. The
guidebook explains the educational implications of each dimension of culture and gives examples
of how they affect student behavior in the classroom. A comparison chart is included with the
culture dimension scores of a collection of countries. The chart further demonstrates how cultural
dimensions vary between cultures and strongly affect student attitudes and behavior.
After learning about cultural dimensions, the reader is guided to reflect upon their own
culture. The knowing your culture section of the guidebook includes a list of questions that assist
the teacher to think about their own cultural traits, attitudes, beliefs, and values. There is a
questionnaire that aids the teacher in determining whether they are from a low-context or
highcontext culture. Mainstream culture in the United States of America tends to be low-context.
Many ESL students come from high-context cultures with substantially different behavioral
patterns and attitudes. The reader can reflect upon their own beliefs and expectations for classroom
behavior with a list of questions provided in the guidebook.
Learning about the teacher’s own cultural beliefs is the first part of Culturally Responsive
Pedagogy. The second crucial part is to learn to know the students well. This second part of the
guidebook shows teachers the way to think of their students as cultural beings. Hollie (2018)
created the concept of rings of culture that helps teachers to learn about their students’
ethnocultural identities. A culturally responsive teacher attempts to connect with each student to
learn to know them better. By finding out about the students’ culture and circumstances, the teacher
can plan an instructional program that motivates the students and meets their needs. The guidebook
provides a list of factors that are important for a culturally responsive teacher to know about their
adult ESL students. The teacher can use specific strategies that are provided in the guidebook to
learn to know their students well.
Part 3: Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice
After learning to know their students, the teacher tailors the instruction incorporating the
students’ culture into the curriculum. Part 3 of the guidebook explains five broad practices for
implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. The first practice is involving all learners in the
construction of knowledge. The guidebook explains how students can construct knowledge and
engage actively in the learning process. The second practice is to build on the students’ personal
and cultural strengths. Culturally responsive teachers aid their students to access frameworks they
already have by scaffolding students’ prior knowledge. Part three explains how teachers can
present topics in a meaningful way to the students. The third essential practice is using students’
lives as a source for curriculum design and instruction. The guidebook explains how teachers can
review teaching materials for possible bias and inaccuracies. By selecting materials and topics
carefully, the teachers facilitate the comprehension of new information. The fourth important
practice of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy is making the culture of the classroom inclusive of all
students. A Culturally Responsive Teacher finds ways to incorporate students’ familiar cultural
ways of learning, so all students feel comfortable participating. The fifth key practice of
Culturally Responsive Teaching in an Adult ESL class is building on students’ linguistic resources.
Bilingualism is valued, and the students are allowed to use materials in their native language if it
facilitates learning.
Part 4: Checklist
Section four of the guidebook provides a culturally responsive teacher checklist. The
checklist summarizes the main concepts of Culturally Responsive Teaching and can be used as a
reference tool.
Development of the Project
This research project was chosen based on my observations in adult English as a Second
Language classes and my experience as a learner of several foreign languages. The TESOL
program at Berkeley Extension requires students to observe and report on several adult ESL
classes. During my practicum, I was fortunate to be a teacher’s helper and a student teacher in an
adult beginning English as a Second Language course at a local community college. As a teacher’s
helper, I learned to know the students well. Most of the students had two jobs, families, long
commutes, and very little time to attend an English class that met four times a week. Many students
began their studies and seemed to do well but then suddenly dropped out. Only if the class was
serving their specific needs did they remain motivated and continued attending the class. It was
not an easy task for the teacher to find meaningful curriculum content for such a diverse group of
students from all over the world. Specific topics appealed to the learners, such as talking about
their families and work-related vocabulary like learning to call in sick or apply for a job. The
students were less engaged in talking about pets. No one in the class had a pet nor was planning
to acquire one. Topics relating to American culture were less engaging such as American football,
TV shows, politics, or cultural events. When I read about Culturally
Responsive Pedagogy, I immediately understood its’ significance in the context of what I had
observed in the adult English classes and as a language learner myself.
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy incorporates the learners’ culture, their cultural
knowledge, and their prior experiences in the learning process, which makes the learning
meaningful. Culturally Responsive Teaching focuses on high expectations for all students. In adult
classes, there are sometimes students who, due to their poor language skills, age, disability, or
unfamiliarity with the English alphabet, struggle to learn as fast as the other students. It is essential
that the teacher has high expectations for all students and believes they all can learn. In my
observation classes, I noticed that such students sometimes felt marginalized and dropped out. I
noticed that it would be helpful for the ESL teacher to have basic knowledge of the cultural traits
of their students’ behavior. It would be helpful to understand how learners view time, their
willingness to participate in class, cultural beliefs regarding what is appropriate behavior, and
expectations for the role of the teacher. The most important factor is to know and validate the
students. It is motivating to the students when the teacher learns to pronounce their names correctly
and when the teacher acknowledges all the students in the class. A quick internet search can
provide the teacher with the basic information about a student’s native country’s surface cultural
elements such as popular sports, political situation, famous citizens, religion, language, and
various cultural groups of the nation. As an adult immigrant myself, I find it motivating and
delightful when someone knows a positive fact about my native country. Students who share a
religion also share a common ethnic identification even though they may belong to varying
cultures and come from different nations. The teacher must be familiar with the taboo topics and
behavioral expectations of students who are openly religious. In analyzing the students' culture,
the teacher familiarizes themselves with the fundamental levels of culture: an observable culture
which includes popular sports, literature, and music. Observing the deeper levels of culture can
help the teacher to understand students’ attitudes and behavior better. In my observation classes,
I found that “the English only” policy is not tenable. In a low-level ESL class, most students used
their phones to translate or consulted their peers who spoke the same language in order to
understand content and instructions better. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy values students’
native languages as a part of the learning process.
The motivational framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching developed by
Wlodkowski and Ginsberg (2017) summarized my experience of human behavior that is
motivating and applicable to most adult students: When a learner experiences emotional wellbeing,
feels respected and acknowledged in the class, they feel motivated to learn. Including students’
native cultures, prior experiences, and knowledge base in the curriculum can improve outcomes
for Adult English Language learners. There are several Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
guidebooks written for K-12 teachers of culturally diverse students. I was not able to find one
written for adult students, which inspired me to compile this guidebook.
The Project
The project in its entirety can be found in the appendix.
