The Journey of Teaching English in CIS

Crossing borders to teach english is more than just career advancement for overseas teachers: it’s a journey into an arena of cultural exchange and self-discovery. Each journey is characterised by a developmental progression in our teaching in which we progress through a series of stages, increasing our abilities and skills along the way – but also creating unique challenges to be negotiated.

In any multicultural community, there can be some difficulty with communication. The learning mediator role thus requires of us as educators to understand the diverse needs of learners, and to accommodate learner differences to adapt his/her teaching strategies to the differences and shortcomings of the learner. Our role as teachers is to bridge the gap between cultures, use the medium of instruction effectively, and thus create a warm learner-friendly environment. In my classroom, for instance, the majority of students are Russian , yet there are children from Korea, Spain, Azerbaijan and England. I usually group them according to their learning needs and styles , make any tasks’ instructions and expectations clear then let them work. Since they have been put in a multicultural school at an early age, they generally show mutual understanding and respect to each others, high productivity (with varying degrees of results) and a perfect interaction between themselves. They also play with each others during daily breaks without any conflict related to their difference of origins or culture.

Making the Classroom Friendly and Hospitable

Allow students to work in small groups to preview their homework Assignments, discussing possible strategies for problems and ensuring that all understand the Assignment (this also helps students whose parents may not be able to read the assignment in English).

Use choral reading, as well as individual reading.

Have more than one “Star of the week,” so that the attention is share.

Create more of a family or group feeling in our classrooms: we hold group celebrations of children’s accomplishments, when individual accomplishments can be admired in light of the contribution they are making to the well-being of the group. Changing the mindset of children, a teacher says to their students “You know how you feel when someone accomplishes something in your family. It’s just like that here.”.

On the other hand, we also engage parents and see them as sources of knowledge about different perspectives. Thus, we recognise how their own views about child development and schooling are influenced by particular cultural perspective. This has proved to be an important component of successful communication with parents and is creating a partnership approach, speaking in terms of “how we can meet the needs of students” instead of “what you need to do with your child.”.

To conclude, bridging cultures is a fundamental aspect of education. By embracing diversity, promoting cultural awareness, and creating inclusive spaces, we can empower students to become compassionate and culturally competent global citizens. Through these efforts, we can build a more equitable and harmonious society where everyone's contributions are valued and respected, regardless of their cultural background.