1. Granville South High school Avdoo Nichkawde and Rachael Grassy
Presented by:
Avdoo Nichkawde and Rachael Grassy

2. Granville South high school
Profile:
Granville South High school is a creative and performing arts school which caters for students from year 7 to 12. There are 505 students who attend of which 75% are from a language background other than English. The school also has 15 students from Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal backgrounds.

3. Teaching staff The school is staffed as follows: • Principal
• 2 deputy principals
• 3 librarians
• Teachers from year 7 to 12 covering all discipline areas
The school provides the following specialised support:
• Special needs support
• Support for Aboriginal students

4. We will be focussing on multi-literate issues in regard to the KLA:
Human Society and its Environment (HSIE)
At stage 4 (year 7 and 8)

5. Issues to address in a multi-literate classroom environment
Varying learning styles
Reading and writing skills on entrance to high school
Cultural differences

6. Cultural differentiation
Students process new information based on their prior knowledge. Multi-literate students come from a different socio-cultural context to the typical Australian setting (Gregory et al., 2004)
Some cultures demonstrate better self-discipline and more motivation to learn than others (Purdie & Hattie, 1996)
There is differentiation amongst student approaches and self-regulatory practices to reading and writing based on culture (Hornberger, 2003)

7. Australia has adopted strategies in teaching literacy skills and functions based on an understanding of the development of monolingual students (Diaz & Harvey, 2007)
Therefore, the cognitive capacities and socio-cultural contexts of multi-literate students are being ignored in their education (Gregory et al., 2004)

8. Strategies
ICT strategies can be used to help the teacher learn of and engage with their students cultural background
Padlet: is an interactive online area that incorporates text, audio and visual elements
It can be used effectively for:
Brainstorming
Summarising student ideas into a limited number of words
Encouraging class participation
Share personal information visually
Collecting feedback

9. Padlet

10. Collecting feedback

11. Success Multicultural Literacy Strategies
1) Incorporate students' cultural knowledge into the literacy curriculum through the use of multicultural literature
2) Cooperative learning techniques which particularly benefit students of diverse cultural backgrounds and motivate second language learners
3) A constructive approach to literacy learning

12. Different Learning Styles
Interaction in class
Different Learning Styles
Time
Pedagogy of teacher

13. Interactions in class
Boutte (1999) and McGowan (2000) state that students enrolled in courses taught by teachers coming from different ethnic or linguistic backgrounds experience discomfort, tension and conflict
Strategies to increase student interaction:
provide direct instruction, scaffold extended student contributions, prompt students to substantiate their statements, ask open-ended questions, respond to students, enable students to self-select turns, and maintain high but non-threatening expectations (Toohey, 2000)
Questioning Styles (Evans, 1991)
Exposure to Different Languages Cultures (Tiedt & Tiedt, 1990)
Cooperative Learning (Slavin, 1983)
Make yourself easily accessible using ICTs e.g. bulletin boards and course mailing lists
Group Discussions (Sternberg, 1987 & Alvermann, 1991): also Wikis, Blogs and Discussion Forums
Questioning Styles
Questioning techniques that personally involve students will allow them to respond in a way that reflects their cultural diversity and that will expose their fellow students to those differences (Evans, 1991).
Exposure to Different Languages Cultures
It is important for students to recognize that English is not the only language spoken in the United States. Students should be exposed to speakers of various and languages. In addition to broadening students' perspectives by introducing them to different languages, such speakers can also share with students ideas and values from other cultures (Tiedt & Tiedt, 1990).
Cooperative Learning
Many years of research and practice support the use of cooperative groups to focus on students' different strengths and styles. In addition, cooperative learning groups have been found to have strong and consistent positive effects on social relationships between culturally different students (Slavin, 1983). Group members become more accepting of classmates who are different.
Group Discussions
Group discussions stimulate thinking. The notion that thinking originates within individuals - and only after that is it ready to be shared socially - has given way to the belief that some of the best thinking results from a group's collective efforts (Sternberg, 1987). In discussions in which students examine more than one point of view, there is ample opportunity to enrich and refine their understanding by helping them to view their own interpretation in the light of the interpretations of others (Alvermann, 1991).
Boutte, G Higher Education. In G. Boutte (ed) Multicultural Education Raising Consciousness. ( ). Menlo Park, CA: Wadsworth
McGowan, J Multicultural teaching African-American faculty classroom teaching experiences in predominantly white colleges and universities. Multicultural Education 8 (2), 19-22

14. Resources Wikis Blogs Discussion Forums http://www.wikispaces.com

15. Other possible online learning communities
Moodle (
Sakai (
Google Groups (
Yahoo Groups (
Ning (
Facebook (
Google Plus (
Edmodo (

16. Time
Diversity of literacy and language abilities mean students work at different rates
Time management Strategies:
Differentiation -Prepare for early and late finishers
Set up online learning communities for students to use as homework. This will give them background knowledge relating to upcoming tasks
Students may feel more comfortable communicating ideas online
Teacher may use ‘desktop recorder’ for homework tasks

17. Timeline Creator (http://xtimeline.com)

18. Edmodo

19. Desktop Recording

20. Pedagogy of teacher
‘Teacher centred’ (Direct Instruction) versus ‘student centred’ (Discovery Learning)
Aboriginal Education: Pearson vs. Nicholls
Direct and indirect: Being blunt and being evasive; and matters of face (Wierzbicka, 1991)
Level of English-language competency
Direct and indirect: Being blunt and being evasive; and matters of face
It is clear that different cultures have different norms in terms of acceptable degrees of indirectness – compared to the Australian “norm”, Israelis are quite direct, and Greeks tend to be very indirect (Wierzbicka, 1991). German and Dutch people are traditionally quite direct in comparison to the Australian average, and being forthright is appreciated on the whole in Germanic conversations
In high context cultures like China where it is important not to lose face, classroom interaction between a lower-context Western lecturer and a high-context Chinese student can pose problems
Level of English-language competency
Generally, the better the student’s (and the lecturer’s) English is, the more there is a shift in focus from grammatical and lexical problems to sociolinguistic or pragmatic problems. However, the sense that the foreign student “isn’t very good at English” almost always has an impact on the lecturer’s perception of the student’s success (or lack of success) at 5 studying.
Teacher should use resources to determine cognitive competency of students rather than assuming ie high/low expectations

21. Suggested strategies Role-playing Active Involvement
Role-playing is a versatile activity that allows students to express their opinions in a realistic situation. Students can "trade places" with a fellow student or a character from a literature selection (Tiedt & Tiedt, 1990).
- Guided readings, Choral readings, Readers theatre
- ICT: film making, audio recording
Active Involvement
Instructional techniques that allow for individual differences. Students should be engaged in listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking activities that provide opportunities for them to make decisions and solve problems (Tiedt & Tiedt, 1990).
- Positive reinforcement: E.g. Designated activities for early finishers such as iPad apps, Google Earth
Role-playing: allows students to interact with teacher in a more relaxed and different situation. Strengthens relationship. Students feel more comfortable with teacher and other students
- Choral readings, readers theatre etc (re-enact historical events, re-create events from a different perspective (e.g. Trojan horse from losers perspective))
Oneword.com: encourages students to express ideas without the shame or embarrassment of getting the answers wrong. Emphasises ideas of students rather than correct pragmatics etc

22. Visual Thesaurus (http://visuwords.com)

23. Video and Audio Recording

24. Differentiation amongst levels of reading and writing skills on entrance to high school
Students have had different life-world experiences contributing to their education (Dooley, 2003)
Some students enter high school with 'gaps' in their literacy knowledge (Diaz et Harvey, 2007)
Granville South High school is focused on developing reading and writing skills across different contexts and content in preparation for the year 9 NAPLAN test

25. Specific issues involved with aboriginal students (Rose, 2008)
“The absence of ‘‘school’’ literacy in the home then comes to be seen as a factor in low schooling outcomes of students from some ethnic minority backgrounds.”
(Cruickshank, 2004, p.460)
Students who have been brought up reading will be at an advantage to other students
The average Western Middle class family spends around 1000 hours reading to their children before school age
In contrast, Aboriginal children come from an oral story telling culture
Students’ may have difficulties understanding new terms and concepts specific to a subject

26. Strategies
Teachers can use ICT strategies to scaffold lessons in helping students prepare for writing tasks
ICT used as a visual aid
Graphic organisers: create mind maps with texts and images
It can be used effectively to:
Organise information
Generate classroom discussion (encourage students in sharing ideas orally before a writing task)
Provide an overview of the topic
Cover many different topics

27. Mind42

28. The development of Brittish columbia

29. Aboriginal People

30. Vietnam history

31. Fodey: Demonstrates the use of language across various contexts such as newspaper articles, advertisements, animations
It can be effectively used for:
Encouraging creativity
Stimulating ideas before writing
Teaching language across different forms and contexts
One word: Helps students practice spontaneous writing tasks
Teaching self-regulatory strategies for writing tasks

32. Fodey

33. One word

34. Quia: online interactive activity work sheets
It can be effectively used for:
Introducing students to new concepts and terms in their context
Teaching critical thinking skills and synthesis of ideas

35. Quia

36. Reference List
Boutte, G Higher Education. In G. Boutte (ed) Multicultural Education Raising Consciousness. ( ). Menlo Park, CA: Wadsworth
Cruickshank, K. (2004). Towards diversity in teacher education: teacher preparation of immigrant teachers. European Journal of Teacher Education, 27(2), DOI: /
Dooley, K. (2003). Multiliteracies and Pedagogies of New learning for students of english as an additional language. In Healey, A. (Ed.) Multiliteracies and diversity in education: New pedagogies for expanding landscapes.
Gregory E., Long. S., & Volk, D. (2004). Many pathways to literacy: young children learning with siblings, grandparents, peers and communities. Routledge Falmer, New York.
Hornberger, N. (ed.). (2003). The continua of biliteracy: an ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings. Clevedon: Multilingual matters Ltd.
Jones-Diaz, C., & H, Harvey. (2007). Other words, other worlds : bilingual identities and literacy. Australia, Elsevier.

37. McGowan, J Multicultural teaching African-American faculty classroom teaching experiences in predominantly white colleges and universities. Multicultural Education 8 (2), 19-22
Purdie, N. & Hattie, J. (1996). Cultural Differences in the Use of Strategies for Self-Regulated Learning. American Education Research Journal 33, 4, doi: /
Rose, D. (2008) Teaching reading and writing to aboriginal children. In Harrison, N. (Ed.) Teaching and learning in indigenous education. South Melbourne, Victoria : Oxford University Press
Slavin, R.E. (1983). When does cooperative learning increase achievement? Psychological Bulletin, 94,
Sternberg, R.J. (1987). Liking versus loving: A comparative evaluation of theories. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 
Tiedt, P. & Tiedt, I.R. (1990). Multicultural teaching. Massachusetts: Simon & Schuster.
Toohey, 2000
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.