I.
Concept of Building a Culturally Friendly Classroom Environment
Introduction
Malaysia is a multiethnic country, with Malays making up the majority, close to 52% of the population. About 24.6% of the population is Malaysians of Chinese descent. Malaysians of Indian descent comprise about 7% of the population. Eurasians and indigenous tribes make up the remaining 10% of population. These three dominant ethnic groups have their own beliefs, culture, values and norms that will affect their behaviors and actions. Therefore, accepting a multicultural environment should be inculcated during early age of children through classroom environment. This is because it is the most important place to teach about different cultures, as that is where children from diverse cultures growing up and learning together. If they are exposed to a multicultural environment right from their academic years, it will be really easy for them to get along with children from other cultures as it will cultivate in them the value of respecting other cultures and religions and appreciate each others ‟ differences. Thus, the responsibility of creating a culturally conducive environment in a classroom lies mainly in the hands of the teachers. It is important that the teachers themselves believe in a healthy multicultural environment which treats everyone as equals in order to accomplish this role. This is vital because it is a goal of Malaysian education to enhance social integration among these various ethnic groups beyond physical integration, and intend to eliminate social prejudices and discrimination. In Malaysia, the objective of nation building and forging national unity amongst the various ethnic groups ranks very high in the educational agendas. This is because national unity and integration is the basis of the education policy as it is stated in
the national education policy as
following: „To inculcate and nurture national n ational consciousness through fostering common ideals, values, aspiration and loyalties in order to mould national unity and national identity in a multi-ethnic multi- ethnic society‟.
Components in building culture friendly classroom environment
There are some components that are useful in building a culturally friends classroom environment such as physical component and socio emotional. These components will be further discussed in in the subsequent paragraphs. Physical component is one the components that needs to be taken into consideration by teachers in creating culture friendly classroom environment. It involves infrastructure and physical facilities in classroom such as seating arrangement where the arrangement of tables and chairs can enables students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to interact with each other.
This is one of the samples of seating arrangement that can be done to promote culture friendly environment. This picture was taken in real classroom situation where students who from different culture backgrounds are seating next to each other‟s.
Other than that, teacher should dress up the walls with interesting and attractive visual aids such as bulletins boards and posters as those are key components for an effective classroom. Wall decorations should be colorful, appealing and relevant to current class work as it will attract students‟ attention . However, teacher should consider about the cultural backgrounds of students when dressing the walls. He or she can try to represent the students' diversity on posters or bulletin boards such celebrations, attire of each ethnic.
This kind of poster is useful in exposing students with other culture‟s language for greeting.
Besides that, reading materials in reading corner of the classroom also can help to promote culture friendly environment where teacher can selects a variety of books, magazines, and newspapers from different cultures. This is good way of exposing others culture to the students as they will gain information as they are reading it. These are the important aspects as Derman and Sparks, 1998 mention that “an environment that is rich in possibilities for exploring gender, ethnicity, and cultures sets the scene for practicing multicultural education ” . It is
supported by Culp, 2006 where she believed that physical settings give effects on social interaction, symbolic identification, growth, security, shelter and pleasure. Thus, teacher should be aware of the fact that the design of physical aspect of classroom leaves a great impact on teaching and learning environment. Apart from that, socio- emotional also is another important component in creating culture friendly environment in classroom. Socio emotion involves the development of students‟ personality, emotions which help them to have better social skills in interacting with others. “Socio emotion as a process that consists of variations that occur in a individual‟s personality, emotions, and relationships with others during lifetime.”
(Santrock, 2007) This shows that it is crucial for
teacher to develop students‟ socio emotion in implementing culture friendly
environment in classroom. This is because it helps them to interact with individuals or groups in a manner that contributes positively to members of society which leads them to have a strong social relationship with others in the classroom as well as anywhere out of the classroom. It also helps students to identify and understand basic feelings for themselves and others. However, teachers need to have insight understanding of the students as there are many students come from various ethnic groups with different cultural background. It is essential for teacher to have better understanding of students‟ development as it
is an effective role in fostering socio emotional development of students in the classroom. This is because based on Bandura theory, when teacher understand students well, it can build rapport between teacher and students as it create sense of safety and security among students that supports their learning to trust, regulate emotions, resolve interpersonal conflicts, develop empathy and learn how to relate to others in appropriate manners. There are several ways a teacher can do in developing socio emotional among the students through learning activities. One of the learning activities that can be conducted by teachers is play activity . Play is vital to students‟ socio emotion development because it enables them to expressing feelings and also learns to cope with their feelings as they act out being angry, sad or worries in a situation they control. “Pretend play allows children to think loud about experiences charged with both pleasant and unpleasant feelings ”. (Erikson,
1963) Teacher also should create a conducive learning environment which is a friendly and non-threatening environment where the students feel that they are supported by peers and teachers. In such environment can help students to feel more confidents, comfortable, appreciated and valued. For instance, teacher can have a discussion about differences within classroom about varying cultural backgrounds, talents, strengths and weaknesses. This discussion gives opportunities to students to build trust and acceptance in the classroom. Other than that, teachers also are encouraged to give praise and positive reinforcement often to the students and provide students with time to share happenings, events or items with teacher as according to Krashen, the more students feel good
about themselves, the better they will be toward themselves and others whom from different cultural background.
II.
Aspects of culturally friendly classroom environment
Cultural and Indigenous Relevant Pedagogy
Excellent teachers in 21 st century are those who can inspire the intellectual, social, and personal development of all their students to their highest potential. Teachers‟ knowledge and understanding of culture as well as culture relevant
pedagogy can help all students reach their potential. Cultural-relevant pedagogy can be defined as a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally and politically by using referents to impart knowledge, skills and attitudes. (Gloria Ladson-Billings, 1994) In Malaysian context with cultural
diversity in the classroom demands teachers to adapt their knowledge, skills and attitudes to the challenges that emerge in these diverse contexts, so that the learning of all students in their classes is stimulated. Teachers in culturally diverse classrooms must have awareness of the special needs of students from different cultures and know how to apply specific teaching strategies and interpersonal cues to create a positive classroom atmosphere and to cater to the needs of diverse students. This is related with culturally responsive teaching where it is about using cultural knowledge, prior experiences and performance styles of diverse students to make learning more appropriate and effective to them. (Gay, 2000) Thus, some methods and techniques will be highlighted in subsequent paragraphs implementing culture friendly classroom environment through culture and indigenous relevant pedagogy. One of the ways is that teachers can apply collaborative and cooperative learning methods in teaching and learning. It is good to be carried out in classroom because it is helping to create culturally sensitive and understanding among students. This means that, when students are grouped with different
cultural backgrounds, for instance Ali, Rajan and Lee Hi are in one group where this is actually helping them to equalize the differences within among them as there will be different perceptions or views of certain things. However, by sharing common learning goals, the group gradually develops a sense of identity and purpose, which contributes positively to the group‟s interaction and to reducing the stereotypical visions about other group members. This is because according to Coelho (1998), conflicts among students may rise due to lack of understanding of each other‟s cul ture as students tend to form working groups with those with
whom they share similar backgrounds and interests. Therefore by doing this, it will develop mutual understanding toward other‟s differences.
Discovery method is another way that can apply during teaching and learning. This means that students need to explore and develop knowledge of task given. For example, students will be given a topic about Celebration in Malaysia. The teacher assigns students with different topic from different cultural group. Maisarah and Kassim are assigned the topic on Chinese New Year, whereas Hong Ki and Yoona Lee are asked to find about Depavali celebration and Yushan and Raju are doing on Hari Raya. It is good because this helps them to gain information and experience other‟s culture as this strategy requires students to make some reading or asking people about that topic. Thus, it enables students to have a better understanding of their friends‟ different cultural
backgrounds. Apart from that, integration of information technology into teaching and learning is another way to be taken into consideration in implementing culturally relevant pedagogy.
Technology-based teaching and learning is particularly
makes the teaching becomes more effective as it can vary the lesson. Furthermore, it can attract students‟ attention to learning rather than traditional way, chalk and talk as learning becomes more interactive. In addition, it is also suitable for students from different cultural background as teacher can display videos, movie related with culture friendly environment to the students. Students also should be given opportunities to explore the internet for getting relevant information about other‟s culture as it will be meaningful because the students
are constructing knowledge of something on their own. Thus, teaching using computer based learning is really helpful for teaching effectiveness as well as inculcate culture friendly environment. In conclusion, teacher needs to know how to apply specific teaching strategies and inter-personal cues to create a positive classroom atmosphere and to cater to the needs of diverse students where that is the requirement in building culture friendly environment.
Socio-linguistic
In multicultural classes, there is a possibility that language difficulties limit the effectiveness of interaction between different cultural backgrounds as Malaysia has a wide variety of ethnics‟ languages where each has its own cultural identity. “Malaysia contains speakers of 137 living languages, 41 of which are found in Peninsula Malaysia.” (Gay, 1994) Since Malays are dominant ethnic in Malaysia,
it is decided that Bahasa is the official language spoken by people. Although Bahasa is the official language which serves as medium of communication among various races, the other ethnic groups are allowed to speak their own language without any restriction. Even though there is no restriction of using mother tongue of all ethnic groups, it is important to use common language for the whole nation. This is because it can avoid misunderstanding which leads to a breakdown in communication between people from diverse cultural background as different cultures have different ways of conveying information. In other words, what is appropriate to say in one culture may be completely inappropriate in another culture, even though the situation in which it is said is the same. The speaker is often unaware of these differences, and uses the rules of speaking of his or her native culture when communicating with people from other culture background. Therefore, we can prevent such problems by increasing their level of sociolinguistic competence as it is about “the ability to adjust one‟s speech to fit the any situation and without it, even the most perfect grammatical utterance
can convey different entirely different from that which the speaker intended.”
(Claire, 1997) In classroom context, teacher plays a very important role in developing sociolinguistic competence among the students as according to Cheseman report, there are various languages spoken by students. The teacher will certainly face difficulties in teaching and guiding students in acquisition knowledge if the students do not master same language as the use of one language can enhance sociolinguistic competence among students. Thus, teacher„s role is to organize various activities of language and cultures among
the students. Teacher can carry out quiz activity which is about Malaysian cultures in the classroom in enhancing sociolinguistic competence among students. It is important to expose students to others‟ culture because according to Wolfson (1989), “each community has its own unique set of conventions, rules, and patterns for the conduct of communication and these must be understood in the context of a general system which reflects the values and the structure of society ”. In other words, knowing other‟s cultures can be used as an underlying
framework for making sense of all the regularities in a community's use of language. Students may have better understanding the language used in a society if they are being exposed that society's culture. For example, teacher can ask about Chinese cuisine, „pork/ babi‟ which is non -halal for Muslims and the teacher should tell students that that word itself is considered as vulgar and rude for Muslims when calling other as „babi.‟ From there, students form other culture
background get to know that they cannot simply use that words in their conversation with Muslims. Apart from that, teacher also can conduct ethnic traditional games in the classroom. Teacher can introduce traditional dancing games of Dayak ethnic, „mangunatip‟ and carry it out in the classroom. Teacher should insert some
information about this dance.
Dayak people are dancing between a pair of moving bamboo poles to a fast-paced, rhythmic tempo.
It is worthy to be introduced in the classroom because it is not only foster understanding among students of multi-ethnic, but it will encourage them to learn and master the vocabulary. In addition, this activity is good because it is conducted in fun manner as it can create non-threatening environment which it can lower students affective filter. This is because it is effective key for success in learning as it can raise students‟ motivation and self -confidence where they will
understand and remember things quickly. Besides that, teacher must help students who speak vernacular varieties of language to master the standard language by modeling in the classroom but at the same time, the dialects that students use in their families and primary communities much be respected. This is effective way in developing sociolinguis tic among the students because Bandura‟s Social Learning Theory (1987) believed that people learn better from one other via observation, imitation and modeling. Moreover, elementary students have high respect toward their teachers and this will be easier to instill the usage of common language among the students. For example, the teacher can set the rule that only standard
Bahasa can be used as medium of communication in the classroom. If some students make some mistakes such as mispronunciation, wrong selected words, the teacher needs to correct them.
Thus, in order to apply this method, the
teacher needs to have knowledge about language variability in order to be a language model in the classroom. Therefore, teacher needs to play an effective role in organizing activities which appears to be a possible way for students to increase their sociolinguistic awareness.
Cultural- Based Assessment
Assessment is an integral part of teaching, as it determines whether or not the goals of education are being met. Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs and curriculum. Whereas “culture-based assessment means that the assessment that allows teacher to gather information in decision making which should take into account student‟ cultural diversity so that decision made are valid and reliable‟. (Erikson, 1997,
cited in Modul PGSR 2010) This shows that assessment is very crucial because apart from giving information for teacher about students ‟ progress and abilities but as well as student‟s cultur e background also is considered during assessment designing which it is helping in building culture friendly environment. However, there are some important characteristics of culture-based assessment such as it must cater students ‟ differences as they should be able to demonstrate their ability in a variety of ways including knowledge and skill related with cultures. This is because students are required to understand and aware of cultural issues in teaching and learning process. Teacher also should not touch on cultural sensitivity in designing assessment as it should be fair everyone. There are some types of culture based assessment that can be done in classroom in order to create culture friendly environment. Writing journal is one of the tools in assessing students where it provides opportunity for teacher to know
students personal insight about others culture. For example, teacher can give a reading material which related to multicultural in Malaysia to the students where they are required to write about it. From this task, teacher can assess students‟
perspectives toward something. Teacher-designed test based on teaching is another tool where students are tested based on their knowledge and academic skill. For example, teacher can formulate appropriate questions about cultures of all students. Other than that, students can respond to checklist about a multicultural education in school.
Criteria Questions
Rating Yes
1. Does the learning styles favour by the teacher reflect the learning style of the students? 2. Are instructional materials examined for ethnic and cultural? 3. Do the teaching styles and motivational system reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity of students? 4. Are the attitude, perceptions, beliefs and behavior of teachers ethnically and racially sensitive? 5. Is the school atmosphere positively response to
racial,
ethnic,
cultural
and
language
differences? 6. Do the bulletin boards, physical education program and other learning activities reflect ethnic and cultural diversity? Sample of checklist
No
These tools are good in assessing students because it helps teachers to improve their teaching in order to cater students‟ learning style, students‟
performance and progress without not be biased to certain groups of students as basic cultural and linguistic factor should be considered in designing assessment.
Conclusion
As our country continues to exhibit great diversity, the need for understanding and accepting the differences among all people has never been more important. Thus, this responsibility lies on teachers where they are demanded to teach an effective multicultural education for all students, so that they can learn to accept others where they will feel friendly and respectful toward people from other ethnic and cultural groups. This includes classroom setting, socio emotional as well as restructuring teaching strategies and activities and classroom assessment. Schools in Malaysia are making vast improvements in this area but more still needs to be done. Our world is multicultural, and students need to experience the diversity outside their environment so that they will appreciate unity among all Malaysian which is it the core of 1Malaysia campaign, mutual acceptance, understanding and appreciating the diversity among races and people of Malaysia.
