Olga Zinina,

Minsk State Linguistic University,

Republic of Belarus

Cultural Diversity and Second Language Acquisition

Current demographic trends regarding the cultural and linguistic diversity of the contemporary Belarusian society which I represent, indicate the growing importance of ethno-cultural differences. It refers to all spheres of life and teaching in particular. Nowadays our student body is very diverse. These are young people who come from different parts of Russia (which is very diverse), from the EU countries such as Poland and Lithuania, from the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan), from Central Asia, China, Arab countries and South America. We have well-established communities within which native languages are spoken but the community-members are supposed to be able to speak Russian or Belarusian as there are two state languages in the country.

The recent trend in second language teaching is that there should not be a pressure to abandon the students’ native languages but accept them which helps constitute a caring environment where they can feel they belong. A sense of belonging is a powerful factor in student engagement and academic performance. The teacher is supposed to create a classroom environment in which all languages and dialects are valued.

The cultural communication styles of students within a classroom are diverse. Instead of regarding these differences as deviant, teachers need to recognize the sources of these styles and should not deem a single style of communication as the only acceptable one in the classroom. The writing or oral discourse of students from different backgrounds can take very different forms but still be effective depending on the purpose and audience.

The dominating principle in second language teaching is that it should be taught through its active use in different situations created in classrooms. But not all cultural groups accept this approach. Some may emphasize listening over speaking, others may believe that questioning is a sign of poor knowledge or lack of respect. These differences can have a profound effect on how comfortable a student feels within his or her classroom. Teachers will be in a much better position to encourage student participation in classroom talk if teachers understand how talk takes place in the students’ homes.

Another activity practiced in classrooms is story-telling which may also vary as students use the dominating in their culture style of story-telling, i.e. topic-centered or topic-associating. The former establishes a primary topic and structures the story around it while in the latter a string of personal experiences makes up the discourse and the theme of a string may not be immediately clear to the listener. Most European teachers feel more comfortable working with students who use a topic-centered style. But for many students from Central Asian countries a topic-associating style is more common as it is rooted in the national tradition of story-telling.

Many aspects of stories differ cross-culturally. For example, a Belarusian/Russian student describing a child of school-age will say that he/she is in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3d etc. form while a Polish or Lithuanian one will definitely say “He/she is 7,8,9 etc. years old”.

The type of oral stories that students are expected to produce in the classroom are usually true accounts of some experience outside the classroom and fictional elements are mostly not introduced. But many students from Central Asia and the Caucasus tent to emphasize characters and their internal states and focus less on the plot. In such cases students and teachers find themselves focusing on different elements of the text.

These differences may have a profound effect on students’ progress and teachers’ feeling of fulfillment. But they also provide an opportunity for student-teacher discussion about differences in narrative styles and expectations for students in an academic setting.

To be able to connect home and school discourse a teacher should be “equipped” with sociolinguistic knowledge and activities which can be used in classrooms to integrate students’ learning styles and linguistic understandings. An activity widely practiced in our classrooms is as follows. To help student move from a familiar discourse style to a more academic style expected in the classroom a teacher invites his/her students to tell their stories related to some definite topic and while they talk constructs a chart on the board with key words from their stories on the left. Then the whole class is encouraged to extend the narration with the help of synonyms, periphrasis, more academic definitions.

Another cross-cultural difference that can cause misunderstanding is the degree of directness in interpersonal communication. Some cultures value indirectness while others emphasize directness and confrontation. So it is obvious why misunderstanding arise among students or between teachers and students who follow such different communication norms.

To solve the above-mentioned problems an upgrading course for teachers is being developed now at the Linguistic University I’m working at with the aim to work out basic principles and methodology of teaching EFL with regard to ethno-cultural diversity of university student body. The goal of it is:

§ to bring about necessary changes in teachers’ beliefs, ideas and instructional strategies regarding education of culturally and linguistically diverse students;

§ to advance work towards understanding that cultural and linguistic diversity is a resource to be used in foreign language teaching instead of being viewed as barriers to education;

§ to stimulate personal and professional development of teachers, and to give them an opportunity to enhance their knowledge about and skill in teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students;

§ to stimulate educators to engage in ongoing inquiry, problem solving, and innovations with their colleagues.

Another very important objective is:

§ to give all students equal chances for achievement;

§ to make learning less stressful;

§ to create more friendly classroom environment.

A teacher should not be viewed as the one who delivers instruction and a student is expected to adapt to it. The course will encourage the necessary change of instruction to meet the needs of all students who deserve an education that helps them learn to high standards.

Educators should encourage their students’ achievements. One cannot but agree that the successful managers of the twenty-first century are to be culturally sensitive ones.