The Power of Culturally Relevant Texts: What Teachers Learn about their Emergent Bilingual Students

Abstract

This chapter details a cultural relevance of text project in-service K-12 teachers engage in during their graduate literacy methods class. Through this project, teachers, who work with emergent bilinguals, learn how to select culturally relevant texts using a rubric. They read their selection with a student and reflect on the experience. Four important conclusions came from an analysis of the projects teachers carried out. Teachers found that their students made connections and were more engaged when reading culturally relevant books. Participants found the rubric helpful in identifying what they should look for in a culturally relevant text. In addition, through this project, the teachers discovered that their libraries tended to lack culturally relevant literature. Finally, participant teachers learned more about their emergent bilingual students through the process of finding and reading culturally relevant stories. While this project was carried out by a limited number of teachers in urban environments, it has implications for teachers of emergent bilingual students in other contexts.

Citation

Ebe, A.E. (2015), "The Power of Culturally Relevant Texts: What Teachers Learn about their Emergent Bilingual Students", Research on Preparing Inservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720150000024003