World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) provides those who teach English Learners (ELs) with a comprehensive resource that offers support for the implementation of the WIDA standards through both assessment and instructional resources in their publication Developing a Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Approach to Response to Instruction & Intervention (RtI2) for English Language Learners (WIDA Consortium, 2013). In this publication they cite the work of Geneva Gay who defines the role of culturally responsive teaching as an educator who practices “the use of cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to, and effective for” ELs and “... it filters curriculum content and teaching strategies through their cultural frames of reference to make the content more personally meaningful and easier to master” for ELs (Gay, 2010)). The idiom “the tip of the iceberg” establishes an understanding that beneath what is obviously evident or visible are more complex issues ((“tip of the iceberg,” n.d., “Website,” n.d.) The culture iceberg encourages the educator of ELs to look not solely focus what is above the surface of culture in the form of cultural artifacts, but to instead focus on what is below the surface in the form of cultural assumptions (“Photobucket,” …show more content…
Educators of ELs must go beyond the surface level of culture and dive into the assumptions of culture to provide English language acquisition instruction and content area instruction that the student can connect to for