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Creating a Global Village: Understanding Culture in an International Immersion School

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Description: This video gives a case study of Global Village Academy’s efforts to address the issue of cultural competency among the parents and staff of this extremely diverse school. This video features candid discussions among the school’s administrators, teachers and parents. The video also features Dr. Michael Byram, professor emeritus at the University of Durham, England, who explains the role that culture plays in language education.

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Global Connections are creating a rapidly growing movement in America that recognizes the need for our children to become proficient in a critical second language that means that they will be able to speak listen read and write in a language in addition to English but learning a new language at these high efficiency requires instruction that is more effective than ever before research has clearly shown that immersion programs are the most promising and comprehensive way to learn a new language young students spend at least half of the school day learning a variety of subjects in the target language during the last 20 years there has been an explosive growth of immersion programs throughout the United States such which immersion programs can provide wonderful opportunities for students to learn a new language in addition they can give students parents and teachers first-hand experiences and building relationships across cultures this is the story of one such program located in Colorado una aldea global Subterranean Global Village Academy creating a global village understanding culture in an international immersion school I thought about name of the school club will Village and I keep coming back and thinking how eloquent that is because there is a Global Perspective the quite frankly the United States has to become more engaged with if we're going to continue to be a world leader we're changing within this country it's all for the better and it's going to make us not only economically viable in the in the world but it's also going to make us automatically viable as well and in our students are going to gain a deep richness when they are bicultural or Multicultural Genji Josie Nguyen changing the vision creating a global language immersion school I got that idea. This is a big world and what do you need to release some access that big world is the fact that we are now a global Society the world as Thomas Friedman says gets flatter and flatter and yet we also need a village right to educate children and to raise them up the thing about a village is that you have to be engaged with each other all the time there's no there's no place to go to get away from that other person who you may be in Conflict within in the beauty of that that you begin to learn how to engage and resolve a conflict and often what you where is the reason the conflict exists at all are because of cultural differences and cultural assumptions tell. But I sure did wrong with you guys Michelle the challenge fitting the world into one school I don't think my parents realize it when they enroll their child and international immersion program that they themselves in a program and what that means is that they have a teacher that may not speak good English that teacher is going to teaching your child language that they may not understand correctly creating a cognitive dissonance where kids live by bringing people from around the world into a global village Workforce where we have no Mandarin teachers Russian teachers French teacher stupid even Spanish teachers from all over the world so I'll send the car happening around my where are you from sometimes communication with the teachers is not as easy as I find that I use a lot of gestures I find it some of the teachers I'm pretty convinced our understanding about half of what I say and maybe I'll understand about a half of what they say conference has it been difficult do you find that in the printer Spanish Villages Nancy I feel like I speak less than half of the French and she speaks English and it's not we're not communicating really well so I just a lot of Google translate remember when one day when does the East Campus and I saw two Chinese teacher who issues right now I know we just talked out at all and when I say if I want to say something to go and say that I wonder if making people people happy as a cultural thing to like we're all talking about how you're supposed to do a job and if parents are not happy sorry funeral place pictures are hired so teachers are always right but teacher I've got a lot of support from the parents from the family if something happened with the kids we just become parents and Paris children's parents will feel feel like in various so you don't take the time to for me to email to 10 to change my way to send that cuz sometimes that the kids will say you say for all Farmland features like and they're sitting in the back of her mind we always think it's George is there any other ways to go about doing it and then said something that we always think about it I'm going to be who I am so I get my keys I hope they know the time and I keeps it and that's why we do in Columbus OH is supernormal to hug you if I want to kiss your forehead and kiss your forehead and that's normal it is part of why I was always taught to the student paper shade art was most boundaries I only remembered is when we think of kindergarten in the United States it's very play oriented still and in China it's not so coming in that first few days and going our kids are sitting in yes and they're all repeating and they're all staying there and they're not playing was one of those cultural pieces that as a parent was a different step for me Chinese village that's where I thought my daughter should and because there's more strict because I'm from Hawaii and when she was there and everything is because Spanish way they understand it cuz that's how it is at home but we heard what Mom saying well if he doesn't behave. Understanding addressing the challenges or started the school and obviously there were a lot of challenges and doing that we thought we knew what we were doing and we learned that we didn't know what we're doing which then forced us to learn what we were doing the folk just for me really initially was language the language is significant right it's the Gateway but it's not sufficient because it simply takes you into the culture and then you have to learn all those subtleties about the culture the three legs no academic Excellence language in and the cultural and like you I hear the culture it was sound like the soft part of what we're doing and I've come to really believe that it in fact everything that we're doing we always say ice teaches I'm just supposed to make is that letting foreign languages isn't just a bunch of learning to communicate but also that it has an influence on people that they become more tolerant they have more understanding of other countries and people my research that fall begun to turn around by we showed that in fact foreign language teaching which focuses only on skills doesn't inevitably lead to an increase in tolerance or increase in understanding at all and therefore I've spent the last 20 years trying to persuade is it where that's at we need to be more systematic foreign language teaching towards what is now become called Intercultural education is a someone said the most complicated one of the two or three most complicated words in English and I think you could probably say that about any language equivalent word in any language is an extremely complex my way of approaching vessels paint to say culture has a matter of people's knowledge beliefs and behaviors what one close is coccia one person one side that culture is a verb there's nothing down it's what people do but behind what they do is what they know and what they believe in and the values that they're touched what they do often said that culture is what other people have that we don't have culture but we have is just what we have the babies as we know little children as We Know I'm very curious that always asking questions they get answers they open they see people that imitate so over time it becomes natural to them we have the phrase it becomes second nature that's an interesting phrase because because of the way which we take all this to be not true and as I said this other people have culture it's only when you meet other people I'll go to another place is that YouTube culture because people start asking you those questions again why do you what we need to do that nothing is learn how to ask those questions again in the way that we learnt two lines about the world to asking questions when we were little it's a Christian love first of all of noticing when was about one notices and something strikes strikes you in a conversation or in an interaction of any kind and you notice something now often people attribute what's going wrong to personality left on that for the next step is this notion of asking questions in an ice nicest politest way of course but to ask about what people are doing or thinking when something is going wrong what do you normally do what about what happens in your country Etc. Kind of approach it is important and then they say the same issue but with respect to himself asking questions as a form of that other person has it but why am I doing what I'm doing what is it that I'm doing which might be misunderstood by the other person which then hopefully it will lead to some better self understanding and not assuming that it's always a question of understanding others but of understanding understanding how other people sea of Thieves Alejandro juntos para danzar limestone working together to achieve the vision that puts a heavy burden on everyone worksheet Global Village subject to learn right to subject to live cross-cultural understanding is not book learning attitude it's a skill set you really have to press is that is that is authentic that not everybody is from the from where I am the way if we can come together with so many differences and make it work because we're willing to work hard at it being an English Village I have to each class remind myself that I have to kind of adjust myself a little bit to fit the culture cuz the students kind of begin to take on that culture I feel like it's well I'm not for the same place I didn't learn I have problems writing and my kids come to me this word and I am at the beginning I was like oh my God learning Spanish not the same language so she just hear this is how you doing and and and it's awesome that I get that reaction from her instead of we can't last year was hard this year was going to be easier this year is just as far as last year but in a wonderful way a lot about the way the system works I have to now deal with this mix of difference parents and you know so I can try to understand the first ones I mean and there are naturally drawn to share a culture and you're working with other people who have that value as well and opportunity that not everybody has been able to share culture in that way I wouldn't think so I think the kids were in here and that it's okay to be different if it's going to be different I mean what are you going to your culture it's good that you can make it if you can make them part of the world they would same way that they're here being part of their world so they feel good about it the other thing that I find is our students can solve problems with each other a lot easier because we've kind of different people are different and so I think that that really helps them A to Z in the New Belgium America Verizon near North American a new generation of Americans eventually on the depends on circumstances how quickly this happened that cultural identity innocence disappears or becomes transparent and you you see in front of you the individual and it becomes a personal interaction rather than the cultural interaction I'm not no doubt is what happens with am I stopped seeing them through that cultural identity and start seeing them as the individual other personal level interacting personally but I thought well she's not children to be getting other cultures until they had some lessons on discrimination that it kind of showed that she has disintegrated different cultures into her mind that this is just what it is everybody's different to think that there was once discrimination or that there was when slavery in America or something that I don't understand cuz we're all we're all just different and it's okay and she struck up a conversation with the lady and I mean it just a minute into it she goes off on like a two-paragraph rant in Chinese in this lady's got the sloth look at her on her my face and I said I don't think she knows Chinese since you looked at me just what you never know you cannot do immersion International Education in authentic Native languages without also creating a school climate and culture that very much is a hot house it's put the plants and seeds in there and everything's intense sometimes but what excites me is that we are learning and every a day every week every year I see education getting stronger I see our understanding of out of cultural competence growing and there were able to impart that two children more and more effectively it means that we're going to grow a whole new generation of Americans who are going to be able to put dissipate in the world in a new way and also that are going to be able to support our country in ways that would be unimaginable without the skills that they bring to this job or that profession because they're going to have deepscale this deep knowledge about how do you communicate and how do you communicate through a different language and also how do you communicate to a different culture I think is a good sign that they are not just letting Batman drainage sexual but then learning to be Intercultural people that will not only help them with speaking with people who are from China that will help him speaking with her neighbors across the street the children graduating from immersion schools are the most likely to be our leaders of the future . End of story

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Creating a Global Village: Understanding Culture in an International Immersion School

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