Χαλκίδα, 8 Νοεμβρίου 2017

1. «Raising (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL
classroom»
Χαλκίδα, 8 Νοεμβρίου 2017
Δρ. Βασιλική Παπαϊωάννου, Αγγλικής Φιλολογίας
Σχολική Σύμβουλος ΠΕ 06 ΔΕ Μαγνησίας, Αγγλικής φιλολογίας
vpapaioannou06@gmail.com

2. OBJECTIVES for this presentation
❖ Define/Offer theoretical knowledge about multicultural education ,
cultural & (inter)cultural awareness in the EFL classroom
❖ Develop ideas/give tips on how to become interculturally aware EFL
teachers and successfully integrate migrant students
❖ Highlight the importance of certain values (e.g volunteering) and
teaching practices in ELT (e.g. Energizers, team building activities etc. )
❖ Encompass innovation in the description or conceptualization of key
issues faced by teachers.

3. •
«English Language Teaching, A Project for Greece»,
IVLP program, March 27 - April 4, 2017»
Resources on multicultural education and teaching
culturally diverse classrooms
My experience from teaching multicultural EFL classes
My doctoral thesis and classroom observations in an
international school

4. IVLP Program Sponsor: United States Department
of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Office of International Visitors

5. Obstacles for the teacher in the culturally diverse EFL
classroom
• Limited use of L1
• Fatigue
• Different cultural backgrounds
• Non-exam oriented curricula (or very exam oriented curricula)
• Very different experience in education (no formal schooling)
• Economic insecurity – living conditions
• Lack of bilingual staff/translators
• Lack of appropriate training/knowledge
• Fear
• Lack of resources (e.g. dual language books) or equipment, or libraries
• Lack of volunteering

6. Objectives of ELTeachers in multicultural education
● To aid SS in accessing the mainstream schools curriculum
● To help SS gain skills for life
● To free migrants and refugees of the recent prescription and centralization inherent in
national educational policy
● To encompass innovation in practice (teaching methodologies, course design,
materials)
● To centre the learning on the experience, knowledge and needs of the individual
● To draw on learners’ own experiences and lives outside the classroom to develop
teaching and learning resources and strategies («bringing the outside in» Cooke &
Roberts 2007)
● To enhance SS skills to produce texts and oral speech
● To value SS home languages and literacies
● To use multiple models of support to meet the needs and learning styles of ALL

7. Poor access to education can
undermine people’s potential to
improve their lives.
https://www.rescue.org/outcome/education
The International Rescue Committee provides children, youth and adults with educational
opportunities that help keep them safe and learning the skills they need to survive and
thrive.

8. Ιδιαίτερη πτυχή των δικαιωμάτων του παιδιού αποτελεί το
δικαίωμα στην εκπαίδευση, όπως κατοχυρώνεται από δύο
βασικά νομικά κείμενα:
Το άρθρο 16 του Συντάγματος και το άρθρο 28 της Διεθνούς
Σύμβασης για τα Δικαιώματα του Παιδιού.

9. What is multicultural education?

10. It refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates
the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people
from different cultural backgrounds.
At the classroom level, for example, teachers may modify or
incorporate lessons to reflect the cultural diversity of the
students in a particular class.
It is a field of study based on the idea that students from
diverse backgrounds should have equal opportunities to
education.

11. What is CULTURE?

12. Culture is the set of values and assumptions that people
learn as they grow up. These come from parents,
relatives, their teachers, their books, newspapers and
television programs.
Values include ideas about what is right and wrong,
desirable and undesirable, normal and abnormal, proper
and improper. Assumptions include unquestioned givens
about people, life and the “way things are.”
By Gary Althen

13. What is Cultural Awareness?

14. Cultural Awareness is consciousness of one's personal cultural
background.
Cultural Awareness involves the ability of standing back from
ourselves and becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and
perceptions. People see, interpret and evaluate things in different
ways.
Why do we do things in that way?
How do we see the world?
Why do we react in that particular way?
Cultural awareness becomes central when we have to interact
with people from other cultures.

15. What is Intercultural Awareness?

16. Intercultural Awareness is the
consciousness of relating one’s culture with
another culture or other cultures.

18. Cultural diversity may include one’s:
● cultural identity
● life style
● background
● communication styles
● morals
● values,
● ethics
● race
● gender
● status
● individuality

19. Professor Alvino Fantini proposes four principles to develop
Intercultural Awareness:
● (Critical, cultural) Awareness (reflection and introspection)
● Attitude (developing attitudes of curiosity and openness about
other cultures or people)
● Skills (ability to interpret from another culture, explain and
relate it to one’s own culture – ability to acquire new
knowledge of a culture and apply this knowledge)
● Knowledge (Whereas knowledge can be forgotten, awareness
is irreversible.)

20. What should the
teachers' role be?
Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher

21. Today’s educators should demonstrate:
● Respect
● Collaboration
● Tolerance
● Understanding
● Equity
● Awareness

22. HOW?

24. - USE a variety of instructional strategies and activities
- Use coursebooks which are not culture - specific
- Consider SS cultures and language skills when developing learning objectives,
instructional activities and projects
- Incorporate objectives for affective and personal development
- Build relationships - Build rapport with students
(Ss don't care how much you know until they know how much you care)
- Foster a community spirit – know the SS you teach
- Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among students’
cultures
- Use your communication style, humour, charisma, be courteous, be
approachable...
- Design a safe, friendly & well managed classroom environment

25. Ask yourself reflective questions:
● What does valuing diversity look like in the classroom?
● Do I provide opportunities for a variety of achievements?
● Do I possess any cultural biases that influence my teaching
practices?
● How can I build rapport with my students?

26. Is the cultural competence of the
adult (teacher) intimately connected
to student achievement?
How can I use this diversity to my
advantage?

27. 1. Engage your students! Stimulate their fantasy!
● Think about what you can learn from students and what you
can teach them
● Invite students to share their culture with you
● Try to understand students’ attitudes and expectations
● Try to understand how language barriers may lead to future
miscommunication

28. Objective Listening, expression of fantasy
Directions: Group stands in a circle. First person starts a story
and acts outs story in place. Everyone copies the movements
of the speaker. For example: I woke up this morning (stretch
arms), put on my jeans (step into imaginary clothes) and went
for a run (run in place), then I …..
Speaker passes the story to the next person who makes up a
continuation.

29. 2. Help SS develop their own rules of engagement
● what works best in group work?
● How do I want to decorate the walls?
● What do I need/want from the teacher?
Include Ss in creating rules, nouns, routines and consequences

30. 3. Use:
● Simplified language
● Slow and clear speaking
● Stressing on important words
● Repetition

31. 4. Use authentic material
Authentic material brings immediacy and relevance to the
proposed tasks.
At the same time, meaningful learning tasks engage students
in developing their own learning styles.
Projects are ideal scenarios for the class to promote the
Intercultural competence.

32. Why projects?
● Ss can combine skills in their home lngs + English which gives value and status to L1
that traditional classroom pedagogies do not
● They boost ss self confidence
● They provide ss with opportunities to become independent learners
● They build on ss prior knowledge
● They set high expectations
● They uncover personal strengths
● They value children as individuals

33. Any task should:
• focus on interactional spoken communication
• involve practical language knowledge, including commonly
used phrases and expressions
• allow for personal expression on the part of the learners be
easily assessed
• be completed over one or two class sessions (not including
preparatory work)
• expand learners’ intercultural knowledge

34. 4. Be aware of non verbal communication
5. Use a great range of topics, material, ideas, realia and also excessive use of
the technology
6. Offer learners plenty of opportunities to hear and engage in spoken
language is a must while at the same time provide them with plentiful
interactive oral language experience.
7. Engage Ss in written /listening language in a variety of contexts - Involve ss
in interesting group activities for public speaking
8. Use energizers/icebreakers
9. Reinforce appropriate behaviour (Think 4 positives to any corrective
feedback)
10. Address conflict quickly and wisely
11. Use communicative activities in the classroom

35. To ensure that students understand the activities, it is important to:
● Give one instruction at a time.
● Make sure that the instructions are very clear. Note that the sample
communicative activities listed below have been broken down into simple
steps that students can follow.
● Teach students how to work in pairs before having them work in small
groups.
● Make sure that there are predetermined signals for quieting students in
case they get too noisy.
● For example, you may want to hold up your right hand as a signal for
everyone else to hold up their right hands as well and to stop talking. This
way you will be able to tell students to be quiet or to give the next
instruction without trying to yell over the noise.

36. 12. Partner with parents and guardians
13. Help Ss participate in weekly character education concepts
(i.e. Self- esteem, self – worth, acceptance of others, empathy)
This helps :
● Gives Ss the vocabulary to express themselves
● Gives Ss a safe place to be themselves
● Boosts self-esteem & helps them feel connected to peers

37. 14. Involve SS in literacy games
(e.g. Relay races, musical chairs, memory games, jump
rope spelling challenge, role play etc. )
15. Integrate language and culture teaching

38. Lack of ICC (Inter-cultural competence)
● Misunderstandings
● Conflict
● Culture shock due to cultural differences
● ...........................
● ......................................................................

39. Foster High School
Foster High School, the only high school in the Tukwila School
District, is home to the poetry workshop known as the “Stories
of Arrival: Youth Voices Poetry Project”.
Done in partnership with the Jack Straw Cultural Center, this
workshops allows refugee and immigrant students to create
poetry under individual supervision as a means to support
their English language writing skills.

41. Innovative lessons/ideas for teaching creative
writing, as well as samples of student writing
resulting from the lesson.
https://teachersandwritersmagazine.org/category/le
sson-plans
Example: RAIN CAN BE ANYTHING:
KINDERGARTEN POETRY LESSON
(BY Linda Morel)

42. Do you want to start writing poetry in your classrooms?
Haiku poems:
A traditional form of Japanese poetry - It consists of 3 lines:
•Line 1 has 5 syllables
•Line 2 has 7 syllables
•Line 3 has 5 syllables
•The subject is usually about nature or the seasons
•This poetry does not need to rhyme
•Takes place in the present (use phrases like 'this tree', 'these blossoms')
•Are intensely personal (seldom use names, but instead use I / you / he / she /
our)
•Take on a remarkable literary device despite their brevity - juxtaposition!

44. Haiku poems
Further reading
Creative Poetry Writing by Jane Spiro
E.g. White, sandy beaches
Ocean waves from far away
Warm sun shining down
Fallen, bloody gifts
Plunged in me, this dagger sticks
Tears on red blossoms
(Intended meaning: Someone cries
over flowers rejected by their
lover.)

45. Acrostic poems: GROUPS

46. Decorations on school wall
IVLP 2017

81. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!!!
Βασιλική Παπαϊωάννου, EFL school advisor (Magnesia 2014-17)
vpapaioannou06@gmail.com
http://vpapaioannou.bl ogspot.gr/