How do I support a student's first language when I don't speak the language?

     As I was reading this article, I was thinking about what a great approach this teacher has in her classroom, especially in younger grades.  As a secondary education major, I felt lost as to how I would teach English to students as young as kindergarten and 1st grade.  However, this teacher incorporated things like having them take turns in teaching the class how to say something in their first language that really highlighted their culture instead of ignoring it.  I think that we as English teachers to students of other languages tend to focus on our content, English.  By doing so, we unintentionally take away value from not only students' first language but their culture, identity, etc.  By implementing presentations such as these by the students, we are giving that back to them but also showing that we as their teachers and their peers care to learn about their language, background, culture, etc. 
     As I read onto how the joke for the school newspaper done every two weeks, I thought, why not have a student assigned a date where they come up with a joke in their language?  Instead of choosing which is the most humorous.  By choosing which had the best reaction delves into difference in humor among cultures.  There is much more in this topic than what she did with it.  For a teacher whose approach is "loosey-goosey," I think that a unit could have been done on humor among different cultures.  Also, by assigning each student a different date to have a joke that would be published in the school newspaper, each student would be able to share what is funny to them or in their culture, not what is funny in our American culture. 
     This "loosey-goosey" term is simply another teacher's way of describing this practice.  I think that creating a unit on plumbing and water was creative.  The best part about this approach is that these units are created based on the students' interests.  Also, not only are they learning English, but they are learning about the American culture and things that might be different in the United States.  These are very important things that I don't think are focused on teaching ESL students and need more of.