An investigation into Multiculturalism in a multilingual classroom curriculum

This article examines the ways students think and deal with cultures in a multilingual class setting. And it investigates the ways teachers get their students to think locally but work globally. In multiculturalism classes setting from childhood people are exposed to more than one language.However, this exposure brought loads of questions related to the notion of identity.Douglas Brown and Vygotsky believed that new language learning in some respect involves the acquisition of a new identity. In this respect, one wonders about the situation of learners who are exposed to more than two languages.Learning languages is a doubleheaded arrow. On the one hand, it enables students to function in different societies and cross the boundary of language. On the other hand, it helps them get exposed to other cultures and thus challenge some of their limited mono-cultural views and be citizens of the world.In addition, learners may have serious issues related to their own identity. Researchers in most parts of the worldfeel the need to challenge traditional educational approaches and come up with new ones that promote cultural awareness. It is commonly known that language and culture are interrelated; yet they often lack explicit understanding of this interrelationship. The lack of a clear concept of this interrelationship explains why there is a general dearth of appropriate techniques to teach language-culture, except through often old-fashioned activities.

کلیدواژه ها:

cultural awareness ، EFL ، multiculturalism ، multilinguals