A multicultural classroom and varieties of English

By: Ann Karoline Jessen

 

In this assignment, I am going to talk about how teachers can help create a multicultural classroom and then I am going to talk about different varieties of English in Norway.

Creating a multicultural classroom

“Multiculturalism advocates policies which seek to accommodate the different identities, values, and practices of both dominant and non-dominant cultural groups in culturally diverse society” (Murphy, 2012:6).

Communication is a key word when creating positive attitudes. Teaching about multiculturalism is not enough, the pupils have to talk about it, share their experience and knowledge while discussing the subject. From practice experience the use of different cultures that occur in a classroom is non-existent in everyday school life, it is not something that is brought up every day and it is not something that is continuously talked about in schools.

Another important aspect of creating a multicultural classroom is that the teacher has to be open-minded. The teacher has to be open for multiple cultures, have knowledge about different cultures, help create a classroom where expressing different cultures and teach pupils to be curious about culture and language. The teacher is the anchor in the classroom and sets the standards on behavior and openness.

However, in creating a multicultural or multilingual classroom you can meet a few challenges. For instance, we as teachers do not know what parents teach their children at home and what they talk about around the kitchen table. Because of this we do not know what attitudes the pupils brings from home. We do not know everything about the pupils or their parents. Sometimes parents have strong opinions on what their children learn in school; this can affect the pupils and their learning. Some parents do not want their children to learn about different cultures or languages around the world and this creates a difficult learning environment for the teacher. I think it is important for teachers to reach the parents as well as the pupils in situations like this, by either talking to the parents or involving the parents in the cultural education.

I have a few concrete examples of tasks that can be used in creating a multicultural class room. The first one is one that we used to do in my primary and secondary school. Every year we had an international day where all the different nations represented in our school had to show off their culture, which included food culture, clothing, and national songs and traditions. We had pupils from different parts of the world like Brazil, Peru, Italiy, Philippines, and more. Every nation was represented on different stands where they presented their food, clothes and culture to everyone walking around. This was a very educational experience for us where we learned about all the different cultures represented in our school.

My second example is similar to the first one; it’s about using the pupils and parents as resources. Use an hour every month or a half an hour every week to talk about different cultures, build a classroom and a classroom environment that is open for cultural expressions. The pupils can use the information they get to do different tasks like writing a letter to a foreign country, create a roll play where they portray characters in different cultures, make wallpapers, or create a collective fictional story where they use the information and facts they have about a culture or a country as inspiration.

My third example is creating a character. This will work better if there are more than one teacher in the classroom. The teachers can create a fictional character from a different culture or country and build a story about the character. This task will help the pupils relate to the character and will hopefully create enthusiasm around learning about different cultures around the world.

Varieties of English

Jenkins (2009) writes about four different categories of English, a native language (ENL), a second language (ESL), a foreign language (EFL), and lingua franca (ELF). A native language is the main language in a country, the language those who are born and raised in the country are learned. A second language is a language that a large number of speakers speak in a country i.e. in Nigeria that was colonized by Britain English is a second language. A foreign language is the language that is not needed in a country and doesn’t serve a purpose in the country i.e. in Norway English is categorized as a foreign language because it does not serve a purpose to the Norwegian citizens. The last category is lingua franca, it is described as a bridge language. It is a language that two people with different native languages share, i.e. a Norwegian student and a French student that does not speak each other’s native languages could use English as their lingua franca, their shared language (Jenkins, 2009:15-16).

In Norway, English is categorized a foreign language in Norway. It is a language that we are taught in school, a language we are taught to communicate with native speakers. In theory Norwegian learners of English belongs to the foreign language category, but in my opinion Norwegian learners does not belong there.

I would consider English as a lingua franca in Norway. Jenkins (2009) writes that Scandinavian countries use English more and more for a country internal purpose rather than a foreign or international language purpose (Jenkins, 2009:16). As time passes, more immigrants and refugees arrive in Norway and English must be used as a bridge language. We use English to build bridges country internal and international. We also use English to communicate with fellow citizens in everyday situations, i.e. in stores we can meet cashiers that does not speak Norwegian, so we have to use English to understand each other. We also use English in the Norwegian academic world by using both online international sources and international research. In Norway, we do not dub our television series or movies, which makes English an important language in Norway. We have a wide choice in books and music from around the world and most of the online services and social media is based on their users knowing English. All of these small things are reasons why English is so important for 

Norway and Norwegians to stay connected to the world.

As I stated previously, English is categorized a foreign language in Norway. I would say that considering how English is categorized in Norway that it has a lower status. However, with the way  English is taught in school I don’t think it has a very low status because it classifies as its own subject. I do not think that the status should affect the way English is taught in schools because it is a subject that is taught continuously throughout primary school, secondary school and high school. With the way, the world is evolving and the Norwegian country is expanding by taking in more and more refugees, the English language is used more and more in everyday life as a lingua franca. For this reason, I think that unless the changes in English language teaching increases the learning of English in Norwegian schools, there is nothing to change.

However, I do want to see is that pupils get a better understanding for why they have to learn English, why it is important that they learn English in school, and that they see the purpose of English in their everyday life.

Sources:

Jenkins, J. (2009): World Englishes: A resource book for students. 2^nd edition. London: Routledge.

Murphy, M. (2012) In defense of multiculturalism. In Multiculturalism A critical Introduction. Canada: Routledge Tylor and Francis Group.