Not Speaking the Language

The article called "How do I support a student's first language when I don't speak the language?" answers a lot of my questions on a diverse non-dual language classroom which I have been concentrating on in my bilingual education courses.  One thing that I really liked was the teachers involvement with the parents in order to educate them on how important it is to actually teach their kids how to read and write in their native language or language that is spoken at home.  This is often a misconception that immigrant families have when they want their children to have English speaking skills.  The article also talks about the political activity that has happened with Proposition 227 which promoted English only education, and required waivers for non-English speakers.  This makes these challenges for teachers with very diverse classrooms very hard.  I am not sure if the Spanish speakers would be better in a dual language classroom, or if they would get more out of learning with speakers of different languages. 
The teacher must learn much more about each culture so that the students can be properly represented in the classroom.  However, it forces speakers to speak in the target language which would be English in this case.  The negotiation of meaning must happen in the target language, with some aid from the volunteers.  I like Kuma's example, episode 5.3, where the teacher carefully selects the questions so that the students collectively come up with a definition.  I try to do this in my ELI courses, asking what a definition is usually results in some students knowing, and some not knowing.  Instead of me giving the answer, the students should be forced to try to figure out the meaning without me so that vocabulary term is memorable.  I try to have my students provide multiple definitions and examples so that one of the examples is comprehensible input.  This is a skill that I do not think comes naturally to teachers of mainstream classrooms.