10.27.21 Week 7: Cross Cultural Students in the Classroom

 

Cross Cultural Students in the Classroom

    In any classroom, you will find students from all different shapes, sizes, and backgrounds. In an ESL classroom especially, you will find students from many different ethnicities. This is an exciting and exhilarating experience! Every day is an opportunity to learn something brand new from each other. 

    As these differences bring excitement and joy into your classroom, they may also cause misunderstanding, confusion, prejudice, or annoyance. As a teacher, it is your job to take this experiences and situations and use them to combat any negative feelings. It is important to always keep an open mind and heart towards our students and their behaviors and characteristics. 

    Here is a list of common occurrences with our students from different cultural backgrounds that  may present themselves in the classrooms. 

• Eye contact 
• Social Distance
• Volume in speaking
• Quantity of speaking
• The amount of questions answered 
• The amount of comments made 
• Chatter among themselves
• Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, etc.
• Silence
• Competitiveness
• Pacifism

    At a glance, there be some of the things on the list that you would prefer your students to do, or I would prefer for my students to be like. Of course, I would like my students to sit quietly and listen to my lessons, participate when it is appropriate, have perfect grammar and punctuation, and make comments when asked, etc. But this is not going to be the case in the classroom, no matter what kind of teacher you are or where you are. It is so very important that we don't let our own personal views of what we imagine the perfect student to be affect the way we see our students. This should in no way affect the way we treat them or our patience with them. 

    There are some cultures that believe it is best to sit quietly and to wait until you have something valuable to add before making any comments in class. These students may come off as incompetent for never answering any questions or participating. Some cultures are very outspoken and tend to talk over each other. This may come off as rude to the teacher because they are constantly needing to quiet those students down or rear them back into the discussion. 

    Whatever the case may be in your classroom, I invite you to learn about each of your students individually. Find out where they come from, what their family lives are like, and what their personalities are like. Get to know their parents and families if possible. Be patient with your students and their differences. Love them for what makes them different.

References: Cultural Differences in the Classroom: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-lifespandevelopment/chapter/cultural-differences-in-the-classroom/
Cross-cultural students in the classroom https://content.byui.edu/file/5ea5aa3a-0806-4dd5-8106-1ba4f85b3656/2/Cross-Cultural%20Students%20in%20the%20Classroom.html