Looking over our growth and achievements in our work to foster oral language production, we have decided to divert our focus this semester to a new topic. With the end goal of modifying our instruction and working to foster intercultural understanding and appreciation not only with students but more importantly among students, we recognize that our first step is essentially to educate ourselves about these cultures.
So far, we have taken the following steps:
1. Kim attended the Karen New Year Celebration on 1/27
2. Kim has viewed and used portions of the documentary Burma VJ in class
3. Kim had students do iMovies with their personal history showing their pictures and life stories
4. Kim & Elizabeth already have lived in Central America
Our short term goals are:
1. Each of us will focus on educating ourselves about one part of the world to learn about
Elizabeth: Nepal
Caminos: Myanmar (Chin, Karen, Karenni, Burmese)
Kathy: Hmong
Areas of focus for a later date: Hmong, diverse African students, Iraq
*For our next meeting we will:
Identify students of that culture, inform them that we are working to learn more about
their culture(s), find out why these students came to the U.S. & to KC
-This is not to be limited to our current students, but any student of this culture at WHS
that is willing to talk to us.
Bring the following information: languages spoken, customs, cultural & historical facts
Elizabeth will have obtained a list of students, by language/country, from the counselors to
help us further guide our journey (and next step)
Our long term goals are:
1. Enhance student cross-cultural cooperation
2. Enhance teacher comprehension of students' cultural norms, expectations, and needs
