Understanding Language and Literacy Talking and Listening

Question: Discuss about theUnderstanding Language and Literacy for Talking and Listening. Answer: Using a Book as a Learning Source to Promote Language and Literacy for Children from Diverse Cultural Background and Home Language Literacy for children in ECDE entails talking, listening, visual literacies like viewing and drawing, and critical thinking among children in their formative ages. Today with the emerging new trends aggravated by the emergent of technology has broadened the literacies for children to include; literacies for technology such as computer games, internet searches, faxes and emails. Other forms of literacies include the literacy of popular culture which includes movies, theatre and arts. Equally important to the development and learning of children is the functional literacy which includes road maps, timetable among other drawings and ecological literacy mostly taught to indigenous groups such as the Aborigines of Australia (Ball, 2007). To support language and literacy for children from diverse cultural backgrounds and home languages, teachers in Australia employ the use of various teaching resources. Key among the teaching sources being cultural connection booklets. The content of the booklets introduce the various materials contained in the varied cultural connections. This helps children learn and engage in some of the major topics that surround essential issues such as respect of diversity and cultural competency in the ECDE sector. As a result, children who attend the ECDE program together with their families are able to feel welcomed, enriched and settled and in the end grow and flourish in the Australian multicultural society (McCarty, etal, 2004). The booklet contains various practical examples, stories, reflective questions, exercises as well as the ideas explaining how the children should use the booklet in a more meaningful way. It contains materials that encourage children to adhere to their cultural traditions and empower them to participate in cultural activities as this serves to enhance their wellbeing making them resilient, have self-confidence and feel protected from prolonged isolation, emotional trauma and a feeling of exclusion. The booklet contains learning materials that acknowledges and incorporates the childrens diverse cultures, diverse languages, varied beliefs and the diverse family and community values. By using the booklet, the children are equipped with the literacy skills to help them recognise their own distinct worldview and to be able to build their self-competencies that enable them to interact within cultures of the larger Australian society. The booklet is designed in a manner to help impart essential values into children (Janus, 2007). For instance, the topics, language, activities, materials and displays are presented in a manner that helps to support language and literacy for children from diverse cultural background and home language. Aims to be achieved by using Booklet as the learning source Guiding Children to Respect Diversity The booklet contains culturally relevant materials that teach children to respect, appreciate, positively interact with people from diverse backgrounds and abhor bias activities and stand up for themselves and for their fellow children facing discrimination in society. This helps children appreciate the reality of social challenges in the society they live in such as discrimination, cultural prejudice and multiculturalism (Ball, etal, 2004). Moreover, the booklet addresses questions that appear discriminatory, it provides honest answers and avoids using complicated language, gives examples of cases of exclusion and how they were addressed and provides examples that the children can easily relate to on issues encouraging them to think through the consequences of discrimination. The booklet should also present pictures and drawings that appreciate varied skin colour and enable the children to embrace and appreciate all skin colours as being beautiful and special in all rights. Helps Children Understand their own Racism and Personal Prejudices The booklet presents cases that deter the various forms of racism and racist attitudes that in many ways manifest in innocent children such as stereotyping and xenophobia. The booklet engages children in conservations that are aimed at ending racism and xenophobia against minority groups (Langer, 1995). Helps Children Learn how to Communicate with Others from Diverse Backgrounds The booklet imparts in children cross-cultural communication skills through its contents which put more emphasis on the children connecting with their fellows on a human level. They are encouraged to share information on family, personal experiences, diverse cultures and in the process learn to accept and appreciate other peoples cultures. The children will also learn to appreciate other forms of communication employed by those from diverse culture such as non-verbal communication cues (Jalongo, 2000). How the Booklet acknowledges the importance of cultural diversity and home language for the childrens literacy learning and teaching and how it will be used to support cultural diversity and the home language; The booklet will have contents that teach children to ignore prejudice and discrimination against members of other cultures. They are taught and encouraged to build relationships across cultures and to use their home languages in learning. Children are encouraged to think critically on issues such as cultural diversity and the varied home language. This is done by highlighting examples from various cultural settings portrayed by various examples that the booklet presents to the children. Through the content of the booklet, they are encouraged to think and feel independently in their own cultures and home language (Lindfors, 1999). Children are taught to see the society in a bigger picture. This is done by making links between their own experiences and between varied types of prejudices and discrimination. This enables them make links between their lives and the lives of the other people around them. The booklet imparts confidence in children and enables them develop conscience and literacy skills to broaden their understanding on social issues such as discrimination and prejudice. They are encouraged to do presentations in their own cultures and using their home languages. Examples of Learning Activities used with the Children In cases where a child feels shy to speak and read the book in the classroom, the teacher can crouch down to make the child feel respected and appreciated. Moreover, the teacher may impart confidence in the shy kids by clapping for them even when they make mistakes, rewarding them and putting the children in groups to enable them get used to speaking before others. The teacher should ask children to bring their own set of experiences and ideas to the lesson, regardless of the subject matter of the lesson. This enhances creativity and cultural diversity as the children are able to learn and appreciate experiences from other cultures. This also promotes the home language as the kids are allowed to share the experiences in their home language. The teacher should assess what the children know through dialogue. This makes children feel welcomed and have a sense of belonging as they are able to dialogue on their own ideas and express their knowledge in the home language and in their own cultures. References Langer, J. A. (1995). Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction. Language and Literacy Series. International Reading Association, 800 Barksdale Road, PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139 (Book No. 159 paperback: ISBN-0-8077-3464-0, $14.95 members, $17.95 nonmembers; cloth: ISBN-0-8077-3465-9).. Lindfors, J. W. (1999). Children's Inquiry: Using Language To Make Sense of the World. Language and Literacy Series. Teachers College Press, PO Box 20, Williston, VT 05495-0020 (paperback: ISBN-0-8077-3836-0, $24.95; clothbound: ISBN-0-8077-3837-9, $53). Jalongo, M. R. (2000). Early childhood language arts: Meeting diverse literacy needs through collaboration with families and professionals. Allyn and Bacon, 160 Gould St., Needham Heights, MA 02494. McCarty, T. L., Watahomigie, L. J., thi Dien, T., Perez, B. (Eds.). (2004). Sociocultural contexts of language and literacy. Taylor Francis. Ball, J. (2007). Aboriginal young childrens language and literacy development: Research evaluating progress, promising practices, and needs. Canadian Language and Literacy Networked Centre of Excellence. Available online at: https://www. ecdip. org/docs/pdf/CLLRNet% 20Feb, 202008. Ball, J., Lewis, M., Peltier, S. (2004). Culturally appropriate practices for facilitating early language development of Indigenous children. In Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, Ottawa. Retrieved July (Vol. 13, p. 2009). Cummins, J. (1994). Knowledge, power, and identity in teaching English as a second language. Educating second language children: The whole child, the whole curriculum, the whole community, 33-58. Janus, M. (2007). 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