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ool connectionRunning Head: HOME-SCHOOL CONNECTION PAPER

Home-School Connection

Edward Margotti

August 27, 2012

Home-School Connection

Culture plays a significant role in how students learn and acquire new information. Cultural values, perspectives, and other external influences of language minority students often affect their learning abilities in the classroom. Bilingualism and cultural values greatly impact learning and create many challenges for language minority students in schools today. However, there are many ways educators can address these challenges and issues faced by language minority students, while also building strong home-school connections.

The diversity of students today with limited abilities in the English language is great. Language minority students speak a language other than English, and struggle with understanding, reading, writing and comprehending the English language well enough to effectively participate in an English only classroom (Marcias, (2011). Often language minority students are referred to as English language learners (ELL) in the general education classroom. The challenges and issues faced by language minority students in public schools today vary significantly. However, some of the most common challenges faced by language minority students include acquisition and development of English, access to core curriculum, as well as high stakes assessments (Marcias, (2011).

Much research has suggested that students are most often directly and indirectly influenced by uncontrollable factors in their environment. For instance, language differences and culture values tend to have great effects on students’ learning style and academic success (Guild & Garger, (1998). Cultural differences and learning styles develop in a students’ early learning experiences thus, culture often supports a role in a child’s personality traits, individuality, and his or...