Giving Voice to Intercultural Teachers:
Finding Common Ground Through Action Research

Bev Adolph, Sue Barrett, Jan Butler, Sharon Champ, Ruth Elliott, Betty Ferster, Betty Field, Lynn Fraser, Brett Jones, Alanna Lyle, Shelley Marciniak, Brenda Merasty, Bonnie Stephenson, Edith Robinson, Ann Tracey, Angela Ward and Linda Wason-Ellam

Two university teachers experienced in naturalistic research worked with a group of teachers at Confederation Park Community School in Saskatoon in an action research project focussed on social-cultural literacy practices. The participants were co-enquirers in an intercultural network that met to explore beliefs and practices. Their conversations during network meetings were recorded, transcribed and shared with the participants so that they could better understand what was happening in their classrooms and begin to refine their teaching strategies.

As the project progressed, the network divided into three interest groups that began to work separately on the topics that interested them most. These topics were reading strategies, multicultural literature, and writing in the middle years.

Primary Reading Group

The teachers recognized that they shared a belief in reading as a meaning-based, constructivist activity based largely on what readers already know. They felt challenged to provide reading strategies that would meet the needs of the wide range of readers in their classrooms. They also struggled with the need to care for their students, juggle multiple roles, and ground their pedagogy in a strong relationship with students.

Each teacher developed an eclectic reading program using a language experience approach. This approach allowed them to embrace the natural language of children, make use of their backgrounds, and affirm their personal and cultural identities. Numerous reading strategies and activities were shared, and key questions were identified. For example, the teachers considered what to do with children who have not internalized reading as meaning-making, and they explored how to create bridges between home and school so that both are valued and incorporated into learning experiences.

Multicultural Books Group

In reading and discussing more than 100 book selections rich with possibilities, the teachers came to understand that using a multicultural approach to teaching is critical pedagogy. Through books children are introduced to multiple experiences and encourages to compare, critique, analyze and use their own experiences to create a new reality. They develop a critical consciousness that can lead to social action. Multicultural literature is a key element of the multicultural approach because it affirms and respects differences. One teacher stated, "[T]here is power when children see places and people [for which] they have an affinity... where they'll recognize themselves, especially when they're not usually seeing themselves in literature. I think it's actually quite important for little children to have those moments."

The teachers developed an annotated bibliography of 123 multicultural books to accompany the report on their research. They evaluated books according to five criteria: 1) cultural accuracy, 2) richness of cultural details, 3) authentic dialogue and relationships, 4) in-depth treatment of cultural issues, and 5) the inclusion of members of a minority group for a purpose.

Writing in the Middle Years Group

The teachers were aware of tensions between the process approach to writing envisioned in the Saskatchewan language arts curriculum and their own students' experiences and the constraints of school. Not all had implemented the writing workshop approach because of practical difficulties students experienced in group work, developing story lines, understanding text information, and revising their work, and because of various social and behavioural problems among students. As the group discussed these problems, they found no final solutions but began to shift their focus from frustration to consideration of the socio-cognitive issues involved in writing and how teachers might make these more explicit for students.

As well as numerous specific strategies for teaching writing in the middle years, the group identified three over-arching strategies that seemed particularly powerful with students in this multicultural schools:

1. modelling to support students in learning to use the writing process;
2. writing about real-world experiences; and
3. talk, particularly in partner work, to support the writing process as it is implemented in all classrooms and in all genres.

Above: Linda Wason-Ellam discusses research partnerships at the 1996 Learning from Practice seminar.