Strategies for Learning about the Languages and Cultures of Families, Colleagues, and Communities

Families:

• The Me Museum: Invite families to share information about their child and family to display in the classroom or program space. This can be a permanent gallery area, or you can rotate the display for short periods of time to focus on an individual child or children. Help families prepare by sending home simple directions or questions they can answer about their child and family: What are your family’s favorite memories? Where have you lived? What languages do you speak at home? What languages have been spoken in the places you’ve lived? What are your favorite books, movies, or songs? What do you enjoy eating? Who is a part of your family? Encourage families to send in pictures or objects to display.
• Family Letter: Invite families to write you a letter about their child. Encourage families to write in their preferred home language. Ask them to describe the child’s preferred nicknames, hobbies, interests, and their hopes for their child. As an alternative, invite families to write a letter to their own child at the start of the school year. Read it aloud with the child or save it to share with families and children at the end of the year.
• Family Time Capsule: Invite families to create their own time capsules representing their families. Include photos, special objects, handwritten notes in the family’s home language, etc. Encourage families to use simple materials like an empty 2-liter bottle or a shoe box for their time capsule.
• Language Teachers: Give children and youth opportunities to be language teachers. Multilingual children can be invited to teach a simple activity (game or song) to peers with the help of their parent. Monolingual English-speaking children can be invited to learn a song or game in a heritage language to share with the group.
• Cooking Classes: Invite families to teach their favorite recipes to one another, staff, or school-age children. This can be a fun social event for families to meet one another and share a meal.

Colleagues:

• Staff Room Map: Talk with your manager about posting a map of the world in the staff room or program lobby. Use pushpins or stickers to mark the locations where staff or families have lived. This can become a resource for staff and families.
• Lunch and Learn: Be intentional with your meal or break times. Sit with coworkers and listen to a 5-10 minute podcast in a language you want to learn. You may like News in Slow (iTunes store; available in a variety of languages), Slow Chinese (transcripts available in English and Chinese characters), or Yes Japan (audio and video).
• Name Quilts: Encourage each of your colleagues to create their own name quilt piece on construction paper or fabric. Everyone should include their preferred names, drawings to represent important people and places in their lives, and anything else that helps express who they are. Display the pieces together in a staff space.

Communities:

• Community Mapping: Spend time getting to know the cultural resources available around your home or workplace. Make a map (hand-drawn or on the computer) to represent your area’s cultural and language communities and resources like libraries, community agencies, museums, places of worship, schools, etc.
• Story Telling: Invite members of the community to come share their stories with you, children, and youth. This can be a powerful way to learn about your community’s history. Be intentional about inviting people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, and experiences. Stories can be simple and about any number of experiences: moving to the area, memories of starting middle school, learning English in school, etc. Visit the Story Corps website for samples and ideas: https://storycorps.org.
• International Films: Look for international movies, plays, or events. Small theaters, local colleges, or other venues may show international movies with English subtitles. Go see a show. You may discover a group of native speakers eager to share their language with others.
• Cultural Festivals: Many cultural groups in the U.S. sponsor festivals that are open to the community. Look for a calendar of local community events at your local library or community center. Look online to see whether cultural centers, museums, or places of worship have a calendar of public festivals. This can be a great way to learn about the language and culture of recent and historic immigrants to your area.
• Sister Cities: Investigate whether your current hometown has a “sister city” relationship with any international cities. Some cities have multiple sister cities. Reach out to your city government to learn about opportunities to connect with the sister city. This may be an easy way to find digital pen pals for children and youth at a school overseas.