Why is Multicultural Education Vital to Our Future

Teaching in the UAE can be an exciting, culturally-enlightening, and at times challenging experience, as the demographics of our classrooms tend to be considerably more diverse than that of our home countries. As an educator in the GCC region, the idea of multicultural education is no longer solely centered around “teaching” culture to our students. Instead, the reality of multicultural education has shifted dramatically from the act of teaching culture to the know-how required to teach students of different cultures; something that is undoubtedly one of the greatest responsibilities and challenges of any UAE educator.

Both newly qualified teachers and veteran educators alike are now faced with the reality of an increasing number of non-native English speaking students that are enrolling in their classes every year. Despite this consistent influx of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds, many teachers are left unequipped with the resources and know-how to adjust their practices to meet the requirements of their new student population.

There is a real need within our local pedagogical environment to empower educators with a series of strategies that appeal to the non-native English speaking learners in their classrooms. These strategies range from (but are not limited to) the establishment of a “risk-free” classroom climate with sufficient extra-linguistic support (i.e. appropriate visuals, correct usage of tone of voice and pausing as a way of signaling importance of content) to gaining a clear understanding of appropriate methods of error correction and when to prioritize content knowledge over linguistic interference. In addition to this, we must always ensure we provide our non-native English speakers with adequate support prior to each lesson, thus allowing them to familiarize themselves with the relevant content before attending class.

This is something that can easily be achieved through traditional techniques of a “flipped classroom” and frontloading vocabulary instruction. Such inclusive methods enhance the performance of English language learners within all subject areas, promote rapid mastery of content-knowledge, and help to consistently improve overall language proficiency levels. Fortunately, by following the above-mentioned techniques, all of this is accomplished without ever compromising the subject rigor nor neglecting the educational requirements of the native speaking English students within the same classroom.

Although this is only a brief introduction to a topic that is beyond the scope of this communication, it is necessary to highlight that these small steps can act as a clear and manageable starting point for all of us. Educating a multicultural student population may present its challenges, however, we must not allow that to overshadow the remarkable attributes that these students bring to the classroom: new perspectives and new experiences that will positively alter the learning experience into one that is reciprocal for students and teacher alike.