| Title: | Specificity of pair/group work in teaching English to the multicultural classroom |
| Author: | Yolanda Mirela Catelly |
| Publication: | The Proceedings of the International Conference Literature, Discourse and Multicultural Dialogue. Section: Language and Discourse, 4, p. 20-27 |
| ISBN: | 978-606-93590-3-7 |
| Editors: | Iulian Boldea |
| Publisher: | Arhipelag XXI Press |
| Place: | Tîrgu-Mureş |
| Year: | 2016 |
| Abstract: | In the academic landscape of our current period there are quite numerous cases of multicultural learner groups. This has been caused by a variety of reasons, from an increased access of students to mobility internationally, through a general tendency towards globalization of the workforce, with the family/parents relocating abroad, and up to the migration waves of recent times. Consequently, university teachers have to adjust teaching approaches to the multicultural structure of their classrooms, as the case goes with the educational context described in this paper, viz. a tertiary education technical university in Romania, which has a faculty of engineering in foreign languages with English, French or German as the languages of tuition in the three streams. As the foreign language teachers to the multicultural groups of students specific to this faculty have to address this issue in the most efficient manner while fostering the quality of the learners’ instructional process in a positive climate, it is necessary that best practices in this respect should be identified and developed. Therefore, the paper aim is to discuss the specific features of organizing classroom management at the level of pair/group work in such multicultural groups, in order to ensure the best training conditions for the participants. The main principles underlying the proposed approach to organizing pair/group work are presented, as well as the data obtained by means of a Student Questionnaire and classroom observation on the topic of students’ views connected to working in pairs/groups in the multicultural classroom. Such surveys are useful not only as they provide the teachers with valuable feedback necessary to adjust their approach to the class management issue of organizing pair/group work, but it is at the same time an activity which can implicitly raise the students’ awareness about the positive aspects, as well as about the possible drawbacks of working in pairs/groups with colleagues from other countries/cultures. |
| Key words: | multicultural classroom, pair/group work, class management, awareness raising task, English as a foreign language |
| Language: | English |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
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