In this section of the site, you will find specific information about some of the prevalent cultural groups in American society. For each link along the right side of the page, a community member has written a welcome message. You can also find for each culture, background information, resource books, and websites that can help you effectively work with these students.

Understanding the students’ cultural and linguistic background, in addition to getting to know their personality traits, is key in planning instruction and choosing appropriate strategies for helping them learn English and succeed academically.

The greatest challenge in developing a resource such as this website, is disseminating knowledge while avoiding building stereotypes about different cultures and individual people. Equally challenging is to provide suggestions for instructional strategies that may be interpreted as formulas to use with all second language learners.

I encourage you to view your student as an individual first with unique strengths and learning preferences. It is critical to always consider our students’ diverse experiences in life and the factors related to their native language, family situation, previous education, conditions for immigration, and economic conditions among other. Remember that the extra time you spend on providing the learners with individualized instruction is one the most effective and necessary ways to help them catch up with years of language and academics! Finally, for many of us the experience of teaching culturally and linguistically diverse people may be summarized in the words of a tutor who reflected once: "Teaching a second language kid may be one of the most enriching experiences of our lives…I am not sure who learned more, my student or me…"

Viviana Alexandrowicz, Ph.D.

If you are interested in becoming more knowledgable about multicultural issues, we have compiled an extensive list of resources.