Explore challenges and advantages and discuss proposals for:
I Intercultural adaptation and challenges and teaching strategies in a multi-lingual language classroom of adolescent students.
Research questions for the study:
- How does/can a language teacher perceive cultural differences and challenges in a multilingual language classroom? (Reflect on personal experience and literature.)
- How can a language teacher adapt to cross cultural differences and apply their cultural knowledge to their teaching methods and classroom management? (Reflect on personal experience and literature.)
- What strategies can language teachers use to mitigate cultural challenges when teaching and managing a multicultural language classroom? (Reflect on personal experience and literature.)
Review and discuss different research methods and key arguments about adapting to cultural challenges and cultural diversity, cognitive and behavioural differences in a multilingual foreign language classroom.
Review and discuss teaching strategies for a multicultural classroom, defined as
multicultural strategies that accept and integrate diversity in the classroom to
accomplish the best academic performance for each student considering cross cultural
psychology.
How can EFL teachers help students develop and integrate their speaking and listening language skills in English for communicative purposes.
Literature Review draft ideas:
Culture definitions and cross-cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology is a field focused on studying human behaviour across diverse cultural settings. Researchers in this discipline explore the psychological impact of varying linguistic, societal, and political contexts, ranging from technologically simple to highly industrialized societies. The core aim is to identify and analyse aspects of culture in relation to psychological theories, leading to an understanding of how cultural influences shape behaviour and how this understanding would affect language learning and also classroom management. This process, in turn, refines and strengthens psychological theories of cross cultural-psychology and awareness and adaptation.
Well recognised contributors to this field include Harry C. Triandis and Richard W. Brislin, who emphasize the systematic examination of cultural factors in psychology: “Cross-cultural psychology refers to the collective efforts of researchers who work among people who speak various languages, live in societies ranging from technologically unsophisticated to highly complex and industrialized, and who live under different forms of political organization. Ideally, various aspects of people’s culture are carefully identified and related to important theoretical issues in psychological theory, resulting in conclusions about the culture’s influence on behaviour. These in turn improve the theory.” (Triandis, H. C, and Brislin R.W; 39.9 (1984:1006).
Melville Herskovits (1948) proposed the important generalization that “culture is the man-made part of the human environment” (Herskovits M. ,1948:17), Triandis (1972) benefited from Herskovits’s contribution and made a distinction between physical and subjective culture. And it is important to understand various cultures when working with such a wide mix of nationalities.
Psychologists and educators have examined how individuals acquire knowledge about their world, the mechanisms through which this knowledge is transmitted to future generations, and the challenges arising when diverse cultural groups within a single nation hold differing perspectives on events.
Clifford Geertz’s (1973) definition also captures this research area: “Culture denotes a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (Geertz C,1973: 89). This communication and knowledge development that students inherit in the environment that they grow up and spend their critical development stages plays an important role in how EFL students interpret different meanings and symbolic forms.
There are a number of benefits to the study of human behaviour that can be accrued by carrying out research of various cultures.
Adolescent student group
This study will also focus on adolescent or teenage student age group in a context of a multi-cultural EFL classroom.
A good example is Piaget’s work on cognitive development (Dasen & Heron, 1981; Piaget, 1973). A basic aspect of this theory is that children approach problems that challenge their thought processes in ways different from adults. The approaches are summarized by a set of four identifiable stages through which children pass as they grow out of infancy, through childhood, and into early adolescence. If the stage sequence varies widely among children in different cultures, then biological factors must play a much smaller role. Piaget (1973) wrote: “This is the first fundamental problem, the solution of which requires extensive cross-cultural studies” (Piaget ,1973: 300).
Context study
Context and environment also need to be discussed and included in the study when researching cultural background impact on multi lingual student behaviours and learning process and teaching methods.
As observed by Dasen& Heron (1981): “Piaget’s research on cognitive development provides a foundational example of how universal processes of learning and reasoning are influenced by the interplay of environmental and cultural factors.”
Dasen & Heron, 1981; Piaget, 1973
Study of the context in which behaviour occurs indicates a basic theoretical point in social psychology that behaviour is a function of the person and the environment. Researchers can often see aspects of the social context that may be influencing people’s behaviours. Cross- cultural studies could lead to more insights into how general principles are affected by contextual factors. As observed by Cronbach(1975): ”The designation of such contextual factors, and the interaction of general principles with these factors, has been identified as one of the great challenges for modern psychology (Cronbach, 1975:116 ).
In the observation made by Newton& Siregar (2020): “In fact, the foreign language classroom is likely to offer the most valuable site for learners in these contexts to encounter, through another language, different ways of being in and understanding the world. Such encounters can take learners beyond their taken-for-granted, culturally constructed worlds and, when skilfully managed by interculturally competent language teachers, offer important steps toward intercultural competence.” (Newton J, Siregar F, Tran 2020:40).
There are different strategies, methodologies, and approaches for multicultural classrooms seeking to incorporate diversity. One of the most used strategies for this type of classroom stems from the outstanding scholarly work of Geneva Gay: culturally responsive teaching (CRT), which according to Vavrus (2008) is “a response to traditional curricular and instructional methods that have often been ineffective for students of colour, immigrant children and students from lower socioeconomic families” (Vavrus,2008:49). Moreover, Vavrus (2008) explains that CRT means teachers learning about students’ previous experiences and cultural background and then using this knowledge in the building of a caring and diverse classroom that also challenges students to success.
Another useful point of cultural competence and awareness can be found in research by Donoso, Allyson, Katherin Ortega, and Patricio A. Pino Castillo. One of the more significant observations that can be applied by EFL teachers in such environment is that we are more alike than we are different. As noted in this paper:” Considering the similarities rather than differences among students seems to be a key aspect of an effective multicultural learning environment (Donoso, Allyson, Katherin Ortega, and Patricio A. Pino, 2020: 11).
When teaching in a multicultural environment it is important for EFL teachers to consider the similarities instead of the differences and to take advantage of them.
Sources:
Triandis, H. C, and Richard W Brislin. Cross-Cultural Psychology. The American psychologist 39.9 (1984).
Byram, Michael, and Manuela Wagner. Making a Difference: Language Teaching for Intercultural and International Dialogue. Foreign language annals 51.1 (2018).
Richards, Jack C, and Anne Burns. The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Richards, Jack C, and Anne Burns. The Cambridge Guide to Pedagogy and Practice in Second Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012
Donoso, Allyson, Katherin Ortega, and Patricio A. Pino Castillo. Understanding the Meaning of Multicultural Collaboration in a Public-School EFL Class.” International journal of multicultural education 22.1 ,2020.
Alfredo Ardila & Monica Rosselli (2018) Cognitive world: Neuropsychology of individual differences, Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, 25:1, 29-37, DOI: 10.1080/23279095.2016.1232264
Newton J, Siregar F, Tran TPT. Intercultural Awareness and Good Language Teachers. In: Griffiths C, Tajeddin Z, eds. Lessons from Good Language Teachers. Cambridge University Press; 2020.
Dornyei, Zoltan, and Stephen Ryan. The Psychology of the Language Learner Revisited. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2015
Dörnyei, Zoltán. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics : Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Mehodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Harry C. Triandis, Cross Cultural Psychology, University of Illinois Richard W. Brislin
East- West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1982.
Berry J., A critique of critical acculturation, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Volume 33, Issue 5, 2009
Berry J., Poortinga, and Pandey, eds. 1997b. Handbook of cross-cultural psychology. Vol.1, Theory and method. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Kramsch, Claire. Language and Culture. AILA review 27, 2014.
McKinley, Jim, and Heath Rose. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Routledge, 2020.
Denzin, Norman K, and Yvonna S Lincoln. Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: SAGE Publications, 2013.
Xu, Hao, Xia Li, and Zhibin Shan. Competence in Multiple Foreign Languages as Cultural Capital in Family Language Policy: Parents’ Perceptions. International journal of applied linguistics 34.1, 2024.
Findings and Reccomendations