Date
23 March 2024

Include students' languages and cultures in classroom practice and lesson planning

Suggestion for implementing the strategy ‘Valuing what each student brings to the classroom’

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Engage student languages

Engage student languages

Rae Siʻilata, urges educators to create opportunities for students to bring their language into the classroom.

Utilise personal experiences

Utilise personal experiences

Connect learning materials to student experiences. Consider how you will plan to:

  • ask students about interests and personal experiences
  • learn about the cultural background of your students
  • use students’ interests to support the selection of materials and contexts for learning
  • enable learners to see and connect to their culture e.g. signs, choice of texts, poetry, art and music
  • enable learners to use their first language, for example providing texts in the different languages fiction and non-fiction books and magazines
  • work with learners to give agency, voice and choice over content.

Create authentic contexts

Create authentic contexts

Julie McLaughlin recounts how she adjusted lesson contexts to make them relevant. 

Useful resources

Useful resources

Website

Thumbs Up! An introduction to New Zealand Sign Language

An introduction to New Zealand Sign Language that supports teaching and learning NZSL as an additional language in English-medium schools for students in years 7–8.

Publisher:

Visit website

Website

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy (Apple App Store)

This book is available as an interactive QBook. It has video narration in three sign languages; NZSL, AUSLAN, and ASL.

Publisher: Kiwa Digital Limited

Price: One off charge

Visit website

Website

Ministry of Education – Ready to Read (Apple App Store)

Some of the Ready to Read series is available in NZSL as apps for iPhone and iPad

Visit website

Next steps

More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Value what each student brings ”:

Return to the guide “Developing an inclusive classroom culture ”

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