Effective communication between teachers and parents

Effective communication between teachers and parents

Effective communication between teachers and parents is a positive critical aspect as it influences a student’s performance as well as their quality of life that a student lives while studying. Teachers and parents need to ensure that they actively listen to one another and remain respectful to each other for the greater good of the student. Although this is the case, when it comes to teachers dealing with parents from a culturally diverse community, there are different challenges that these teachers may face. In the end, the teachers have to ensure that they use effective techniques to learn about the family that students come from as a way of learning how to communicate with their parents properly.

Cultural differences are one of the primary challenges that teachers experience when communicating with parents. Students come from different cultures and ethnicity, and as a result, this could make it hard for teachers to communicate with parents effectively. For example, while some students come from high context cultures which value close relationships and ensuring every individual in the family is well taken care of a good example will be many Asian families for this case, other students come from low context cultures which value individualism and may not focus more on a personal relationship. As a result, this may make it hard for the teacher to effectively communicate students’ performance or needs at school because some parents may not put a lot of emphasis on their child’s school life or performance. Also, some cultures value things like sufficient punishment to a student while others do not. As a result, a teacher may find themselves in conflict with a parent who does not want any form of punishment to be communicated, and this can cause a serious problem between the relationship between the teacher and the parent.

Family vulnerabilities are the second challenge that many teachers face when communicating their students’ needs to the parents. For this case, family vulnerability is any experience that can make a family or child vulnerable. For example, strained parental relationships, divorce, or single parenting could be a significant huddle to effective communication of students’ needs for their parents or parents. An example will be if a student comes from a family where parents are separated, this may be hard for the teacher to communicate effectively with both parents as each parent may have a conflicting opinion from the other when it comes to solving a problem that pertains to the student. In the end, the teacher will be faced with a difficult situation on which parent to contact to communicate with or whose input they can use to help the student at school. In the end, this could potentially affect the child’s performance because when both parents are not on good terms and in agreement on matters concerning the child, in the end, the child suffers the consequences.

The language barrier is another challenge that a teacher may experience. In many cases, when students are an LLS or ESOL, they come from a family where English is not their first language and also from a multilingual family. For this reason, the language barrier may result in misunderstandings between the teacher and the parent. For example, a parent whose English is not their first language may misunderstand some grammar words in a written email or letter, and this can cause misunderstandings. Secondly, some parents may not even know how to speak in English while the teacher may not know the dialect of the parent. In the end, the two may lack a proper language of communication that the two understand. For example, if a student is from a Chinese with parents who do not understand English at all, this could be hard for the teacher to communicate their students’ needs to parents.

To effectively communicate with parents who come from different races and ethnicity, the best approach for the teachers to use is using the family-centered approach. The family-centered approach is the strategy where the teachers get to personally know about each student’s family background, any vulnerabilities, and their primary language. By doing so, the teacher will be treating every family as unique on its own hence will be able to know how to approach communication with the parents. This is also the best approach to handling parents with diversities in language and culture because it will give the teacher the opportunity to form a good bond and partnership with the parents and help the student well.

The second means is through integrating parents and family members into the curriculum. Teachers could easily invite parents to school for different activities in and out of a class where teachers, parents, and students teach each other about their culture, language, and communication means.  In doing so, the teacher will get a chance to learn so much more by observing how parents express themselves and can learn how to communicate with them better.

In conclusion, communication with parents from culturally diverse communities about the needs of their children is a hard task where teachers are faced with many challenges such as language barriers, cultural differences, and issues associated with family vulnerabilities. As a result of proper communication techniques, teachers can easily influence effective communication between them and their parents.