INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP: COMMUNICATING IN A

MULTICULTURAL/MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOM

EDUC650 Communication and Culture in Context

Sandra Rommerskirchen

05/02/2016

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 3

2 Literature review ....................................................................................................................... 3

3 Lesson plan ................................................................................................................................ 8

4 References .............................................................................................................................. 13

5 Appendices .............................................................................................................................. 14

5.1 Part I – Processing: Scenarios for small group discussions ............................................. 14

5.2 Part II – Experiencing: Game cards ................................................................................. 15

5.3 Part II & III – Processing: PowerPoint slides .................................................................... 15

5.4 Part III – Generalizing: Handout ...................................................................................... 16

5.5 Statement of academic integrity .................................................................................... 17

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INTRODUCTION1

As someone who grew up in Germany, I have been following the current refugee crisis in Europe

and Germany with much interest. While such a high number of people immigrating into a country

of course has huge political implications, it also has a strong impact on the educational system in

Germany. Refugees who make it to Germany are assigned to specific refugee housing projects in

all different parts of the country which leads to the situation that they do not just stay in the big

metropolitan areas, but move to small rural villages and towns where immigrants from outside

of Germany are a whole new experience for the people who live there. Schools and teachers are

now confronted with the very challenging situation that thousands of children and teenagers

need to be integrated into German classrooms. The level of German that these new students

have can vary from knowing not a single word to being able to communicate fairly well. Many

teachers who are confronted with this situation have never before taught students whose first

language is not German. I am very interested in the question how the German educational system

can deal with this rather sudden change and the challenges it entails. I therefore created a

workshop for teachers in Germany who suddenly find themselves in the situation of being told

to teach students from very different cultural backgrounds and with very different levels of

communication skills in German. For my purpose it is especially important to put high emphasis

on aspects of language-in-use in order to raise the participants’ metalinguistic awareness. I think

it is extremely important to help the teachers become aware of the fact that for effective

communication students’ diverse cultural backgrounds and language skills do not need to be an

obstacle, but can also be an advantage in every day communication. I would like them to see

their own classrooms from new perspectives and not just from a monolingual viewpoint. I think

that this awareness would especially help teachers in Germany and all over the world today, who

need to teach in classrooms with student populations that can change from day to day. Ideally,

this workshop will not just help my participants to better guide their students’ communication,

but also help them becoming better language users themselves in the classroom community. I

am confident that this workshop can help teachers and schools in Germany to deal with the

current refugee crisis and its impact on German classroom communication. I designed the

following 3.5 hours lesson plan for twelve participants, all currently teaching in German High

Schools. Many of them already having refugee and immigrant students in their classes, but not

necessarily all of them. The participants I created this training for all signed up out of personal

interest for the topic.

LITERATURE REVIEW As the lesson plan below will show in more detail, the workshop I created consists of three parts. The first

part seeks to raise the awareness of all participants that a student’s personal history and individuality

1 Main parts of this introduction are taken from the final project proposal, submitted on February 29, 2016.

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needs to be valued in the classroom and that this valuation can help the whole group work together in a

better way. I build this first part of the training on Larsen-Freeman and Cameron’s work on complexity

theory in applied linguistics (2008) and Kramsch’s ecological perspective on language learning (2008). In

the second part of my workshop I then further develop the results from the first part by looking at how

individual communicative repertoires (Rymes, 2014) can be used in a multilingual and multicultural

classroom. For this second part I used Rymes’ ideas about communicative repertoire and comembership

(2014) as a framework, bringing in perspectives on students’ silence (Morita, 2004) and ethnolinguistic

repertoires (Benor, 2010). In order to give my participants a clearer impression on how diverse repertoire

with regard to language can be used in the classroom, I give the example of using a translingual approach

(Canagarajah, 2013; Pennycook, 2012). The third part of my workshop seeks to bring all concepts covered

together and apply them to my participants’ individual situations and classrooms. The whole workshop

tries to establish norms and values of inclusive education how Taylor and Sidhu describe them (2011), and

the idea of interdiscourse communication Piller elaborates in her work (2007). Taylor and Sidhu seek to

raise “broader understanding of how schooling may contribute to social inclusion for refugee students, in

the school and the broader community” (2011, p. 1). This is exactly the situation the participants of my

workshop, German teachers who are thrown into the unfamiliar situation of educating newly arrived

refugee children and teenagers, are confronted with. Therefore I would like to take the three discourses

Taylor and Sidhu (2011) emphasize in their study, referring to Rutter (2006), as most important in an

environment where refugee and local students learn together: a positive and welcoming atmosphere, the

willingness to meet students’ psycho-social needs, and an eagerness to meet linguistic needs. They

furthermore lay emphasis on the fact that refugee students should be treated as individuals and not just

as a homogenous group, which I would say should not just apply to refugee students but to all members

of the class community. Taylor and Sidhu give the example of students arriving in Australia from several

African countries who were treated as one group rather than individuals from very different cultural and

linguistic backgrounds (2011, p. 5). In order to offer an inclusive environment for all members of the class

community, educators not just have to be informed about their students’ origins and histories, they also

need to inform their local students about the newcomers’ backgrounds in order to create a welcoming

atmosphere in the classroom that values all new students (Taylor & Sidhu, 2011). While educators should

lay emphasis on the individuality of their refugee students, cultural and national stereotypes need to be

avoided. Piller (2007) offers a good framework for diverse classroom situations with her description of

interdiscourse communication, which she defines as: “Rather than taking culture and identity as given,

social constructionism insists that it is linguistic and social practices that bring culture and identity into

being” (p. 209). Transforming this into the German classroom, I would like to emphasize in my workshop

that teachers should not assume things about their students but let the students and their interactions in

the classroom speak for themselves and create a new classroom culture. Larsen-Freeman and Cameron

(2008), who mainly inform the first part of my workshop, also cover this topic by stating that by treating

a group of students as homogeneous, individual learning styles and values can get lost. Such an approach

to classroom community can also help in avoiding to see refugee students as merely traumatized but see

them as valued and equal members of the class community and allow a deeper analysis of the students’

previous experiences (Taylor & Sidhu, 2011). Building on Taylor and Sidhu (2011) and Piller (2007) all parts

of my workshop will promote the idea of interdiscourse communication where students and teacher

develop their own classroom cultures free of assumptions and cultural or national stereotypes. Thereby

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teachers can focus on working with each individual student’s abilities and resources without spending

energy on generalized labels like “traumatized” or “refugee.”

The theoretical framework I mainly use for part one of my workshop is Larsen-Freeman and Cameron’s

description of complexity theory in applied linguistics (2008) and its adaption by Kramsch (2008). This

whole first part of the training follows the assumption that each student’s individual history needs to be

valued equally, which would transform the classroom into a complex system of individual experiences,

values, and resources. More generally said: “Complexity theory aims to account for how the interacting

parts of a complex system give rise to the system’s collective behavior and how such a system

simultaneously interacts with its environment” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 1). In the specific

case of a multicultural/multilingual classroom in Germany this would mean that all its members create a

classroom culture that can then interact with the broader school or social context in Germany. Such an

approach also includes teachers and students interacting with one another and thereby adapting to each

other’s communicative and social practices. Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) emphasize in their work

that paying attention to individual needs in the classroom can only benefit the learning environment. They

furthermore encourage teachers to give up established patterns of interaction and be open to new

classroom dynamic and changes in the interactional patterns between all participants of the community.

They base this on the statement that “teachers do not control their students’ learning. Teaching does not

cause learning; learners make their own paths” (p. 199). According to Larsen-Freeman and Cameron

(2008), in order to support their students’ individual learning paths, teachers need to question their own

teaching patterns they developed over the years and ask themselves how they can increase mutual

understanding in the classroom. For instance, in a diverse classroom where many learners are new to the

linguistic and cultural environment, just giving students more “thinking time” between asking a question

and requesting answers can already help (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 215) to increase the

communication in the classroom. Kramsch (2008) further writes about the meaning of complexity theory

in the classroom and its consequences which include that the idea of a syllabus that directs what is right

and wrong does no longer work since each individual learner makes her own meaning by drawing on

personal history and experiences. This idea also entails that a single topic can have different meaning for

students with diverse backgrounds, a fact that needs to be valued in a highly diverse classroom

environment. Kramsch calls her view on this idea an “ecological perspective” on education and

emphasizes that meaning is multidimensional and that different interpretations and approaches of

meaning making need to be open topics for open and fair discussions in the classroom. This furthermore

emphasizes for Kramsch that nothing covered in the classroom can be objective. Teachers should draw

on students’ individual perspectives in order to develop a broader picture of topics and issues. One single

word like “home” for instance, can have completely different implications for students who were born

and raised in Germany and students who grew up in the Middle East and had to leave the places they

were born in in order to flee war and violence. According to Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) and

Kramsch (2008), such differences need to be valued in a classroom and should not be overseen by seeing

“the class” or “the students” as an entity. Larsen-Freeman and Cameron’s main points, that co-adaption

between teacher and students and participants’ individual experiences form the development of a

classroom, in addition to the idea that a teacher is more the manager of a complex classroom system but

a teacher of one specific subject and Kramsch’s ecological perspective on education that emphasizes how

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each student makes her own meaning through individual experiences, inform the first part of my

workshop.

While the first part of my workshop lays more emphasis on the cultural aspects of a diverse classroom,

the second part deals more with the notion of communication within a multicultural and multilingual

community. The main theoretical framework I introduce in this part is Rymes’ description of

communicative repertoires (2014). She argues that

“One’s repertoire can include multiple languages, dialects, and registers, in the

institutionally defined sense, but also gesture, dress, posture, and even knowledge of

communicative routines, familiarity with types of food or drink, and mass media

references including phrases, dance moves, and recognizable intonation patterns that

circulate via actors, musicians, and other superstars.” (Rymes, 2014, p. 10)

This definition of what Rymes understands as communicative repertoire makes clear that the mere use of

language(s) is just one of many possibilities. People communicate on very different levels that extend the

notion of uttering words by using nonverbal cues in very diverse forms. For instance, people who do not

speak the same language but love the same kind of music might still be able to communicate with each

other and a student who wears only green shirts to school sends a very clear message of what colors she

likes. But Rymes (2014) does not stop at the point where she describes different communicative

repertoires, she asks further questions: “What sustains interaction and encourages people to share

themselves? What gives us the sense we will be understood?” (p. 3). For her the answer lies within the

notion of comembership. According to Rymes (2014), comembership describes common ground that

people find when interaction with one another. This can of course be speaking the same language, but

also liking the same style of music or having traveled to the same places in the world. In short, finding

comembership helps people communicating more successfully and that is something a multicultural and

multilingual classroom can make great use of. It can help both teachers to align with their students and

students align with their classmates, a notion that, as already mentioned above, is also regarded as highly

important by other researchers like Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) and Kramsch (2008). These

authors have emphasized that getting to know the individual histories and specific experiences of students

is important in order to be a successful teacher in a diverse classroom setting. Rymes (2014) takes this

idea and puts it one step further: all members of a community need to get to know each other and then

find things they have in common, in order to communicate successfully. This makes people aware of all

the different repertoires that exist in the group and furthermore offers members a chance to expand their

own communicative repertoires by learning from fellow members of the class community. Looking at a

classroom from such a different perspective, changes the focal point from a group of people who are very

different to a group of people who have things in common. Focusing on the common ground people can

find helps to create a class community where differences are not of importance and experiences of

community are created.

Another repertoire approach that focuses more on ethnicity was developed by Benor (2010) and can help

teachers who are more concerned about their students’ ethnic and cultural origin. As Rymes (2014), Benor

(2010) writes about individual repertoires, but focuses on how these repertoires move in a dynamic and

flexible way between different ethnic groups. She defines the notion of “ethnolinguistic repertoire […] as

a fluid set of linguistic resources that members of an ethnic group may use variably as they index their

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ethnic identities” (Benor, 2010, p. 159). While Rymes (2014) only writes about each individual’s

communicative repertoire, Benor (2010) draws a closer connection to the social and ethnic groups these

individuals belong to. She emphasizes that persons are not bond to one community, but that their feeling

of belonging to a certain group or community is fluid and can change over time. According to Benor (2010),

individuals use language and communicative means in order to align with others or distinguish themselves

from a certain group. Teachers of multicultural and multilingual classrooms can use this idea in order to

understand why certain people come together in small groups within the classroom community. It can

also help the teachers to use all different ethnolinguistic repertoires in the classroom in order to establish

an understanding of all identities, histories, and experiences that are present in the classroom. Benor

(2010) specifically emphasizes that no one is bound to a specific ethnolinguistic repertoire and can always

move away from or extend this repertoire. Teachers should use this idea in order to avoid stereotyping in

the classroom community. Such an approach emphasizes the fact that all groups and communities are

socially constructed and therefore not fixed, but established through social discourse, which directly

connects to the notion of interdiscourse communication (Piller, 2007), summarized above.

One last very important notion when working with a very diverse student population is silence, which

origin Morita (2004) investigated more deeply in her study of international college students in Canada.

While Morita’s study is set in a very different environment than multicultural and multilingual classrooms

in Germany, her implications can help teachers all around the world pay more attention to students who

decide to stay silent during classroom conversations. Morita (2004) found that “students faced major

challenge in negotiating competence, identities, and power relations, which was necessary for them to

participate and be recognized as legitimate and competent members of their classroom communities”

(Morita, 2004, p. 573). While a lack of linguistic competence can always be a reason for silence, teachers

should not assume that their students do not speak because they do not understand. Other reasons

Morita (2004) found “included limited content knowledge, personal tendency and preference, learning

goals, identity as a less competent member, outsider or marginal status, role as a relative newcomer, role

as someone with limited English imposed by others, and instructor’s pedagogical style” (Morita, 2004, p.

586f). This means for teachers that they should always try to understand where their students come from

and what influences their identities in the classroom, which directly connects to the ideas of complexity

theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Kramsch, 2008) mentioned above.

With regard to linguistic differences within a class community, Rymes (2014) emphasizes that it is

important to move away from the idea of languages being monolithic entities to the idea of languages

being dynamic and flexible. This way it would not be important any more to master a language, labeled

as for instance German or English, but to use languages as movable components of one’s communicative

repertoire. Putting this in connection with the ideas of inclusive education (Taylor & Sidhu, 2011) and

complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Kramsch, 2008), a classroom community should

not just value each participant’s individual history and experiences, but also each person’s individual

composition of communicative repertoires, including the language(s) they speak. This helps each member

of the class developing and expanding their own repertoires by learning from each other and thereby

improving the communication within the community and “to communicate across difference” (Rymes,

2014, p. 19). In addition to the communicative repertoire approach Rymes developed in her work, the

notion of translingualism can help the participants of my workshop understand how diverse languages

can be included in classroom discourse. For this workshop I use the works of Canagarajah (2013) and

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Pennycook (2012) to frame the idea of translingualism. Canagarajah’s work focuses on the notion of

translingualism with regard to literacy. He promotes the idea of students using a broader repertoire than

just one labeled language in the classroom context. As for Rymes (2014) these repertoires can include

other communicative means than just language - Canagarajah gives the example of “color, images, and

symbols” (Canagarajah, 2013, p. 41). For him, as for other authors mentioned before (Taylor & Sidhu,

2011; Piller 2007; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Kramsch, 2008; Rymes, 2014; Benor, 2010),

“meaning does not reside in the grammars they [the students] bring to the encounter, but in the

negotiated practice of aligning with each other in the context of diverse affordances for communication”

(Canagarajah, 2013, p. 43). Pennycook (2012) also asks the question “What might translingual education

look like?” As Rymes (2014), he works with the idea that languages should not be seen as static entities

but fluid accumulations of linguistic means that can become even more effective when used together

instead of separately. As Pennycook (2012) puts it:

“We need to move, I think, away from the idea of languages and multilingualism as they

have been defined under coloniality and modernity, and to move towards ideas such as

practices, styles, repertoires, discourses, genres, and so on, rather than languages”

(Pennycook, 2012, p. 9).

As many other authors I have talked about before (Taylor & Sidhu, 2011; Piller 2007; Larsen-Freeman &

Cameron, 2008; Kramsch, 2008; Rymes, 2014; Benor, 2010), Pennycook (2012) emphasizes the

importance of alignment. For him it is not important to come together as a homogenous group with

matching communicative repertoires, but all members of the group should work on learning from one

another and bringing together all identities, resources, and repertoires that exist in the community. This

summarizes the focus for my workshop in a very good way. I would like to raise my participants’ awareness

that they cannot change the way their classroom community is composed, but they can use this diversity

and make it into an advantage for the class, where all members can learn from one another and thereby

expand their communicative repertoires and minds.

LESSON PLAN Purpose:

Support teachers who face the challenge of teaching a multicultural and multilingual classroom.

Goals:

Participants will …

Part I: become aware of complexity theory and its implications in the classroom.

Part II: become aware of the repertoire approach and its implications in the classroom.

Part III: develop strategies how to bring both notions together in their own classroom.

Objectives:

Participants will …

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o identify current problems they have in their own classrooms with regard to cultural and

linguistic diversity.

o recognize issues that other teachers worry about.

o discuss the diversity within their own group of teachers.

o learn about complexity theory in a classroom context and connect it to their own teaching

situation.

o learn about the repertoire approach and connect it to their own teaching situation.

o list the components of their own communicative repertoires and extrapolate those that

can be used in classroom interactions.

o develop classroom activities with regard to inclusive education and the framework of

complexity theory and repertoire approach.

o produce a list of three goals for their own teaching.

TIME F=Facilitator; Ps=Participants MATERIALS

0:00 – 0:05

0:05 – 0:20

Introduction

Introduce myself and the topic

Establish the workshop as a space for fair

discussion where all participants’ opinions and

concerns are valued and taken seriously

Icebreaker: “Snowball fight”

Ps write down the main concerns they have

about communicating in a multicultural/

multilingual classroom and form their paper into

a “snowball”

Everyone stands in a circle

Throwing the ball twice

Every P takes one ball and reads out loud what

the problems / concerns are

F writes down all the keywords on whiteboard /

flipchart / into PPT slide organizing them into

three columns: Part I, Part II, other

F gives a short explanation of the three parts and

states that she will refer to the brainstormed

issues at a time appropriate, trying to cover

everything that came up

Pens

Paper

Whiteboard / Flipchart

Markers

Part I: Value students’ individuality

Experiencing (the activity phase)

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0:20 – 0:25 Moving: “Same & Different”

F says: “Everyone is this room who is a teacher,

please get up and stand on the line you can see

on the floor.” (= every P should get up and stand

on the line)

F reading different statements, if a statement

applies for a P (s)he move one step to the front, if

not, one step back

o I was born in Germany.

o I have blond hair.

o I remember watching the movie “Dirty

Dancing” in a movie theater

o I have a dog.

o I teach French. (Should be adjusted to Ps

– What subject do the teachers in the

room teach?)

o I speak more than two languages.

o I had a crush on a movie star when I was

a teenager.

o I don’t wake up without my coffee in the

morning.

o I have an older brother.

o I like soccer.

(ideally Ps will end up in very different spots in the room

F comments on Ps having moved from the same spot

to very different spots)

Line of tape prepared on

the floor

0:25 – 0:35

Publishing (sharing reactions and observations)

Group discussion

Guiding questions for discussion:

How was that activity for you? Any immediate

comments?

Was there anything that surprised you?

Did you discover new things about your colleges?

0:35 – 0:45

0:45 – 0:55

Processing (discussing patterns and dynamics)

Lecturette about complexity theory

F gives Ps a short overview what complexity theory in

the context of a classroom means and implies

F connects Ps concerns from icebreaker activity to

lecturette content

Small group discussion / scenarios

F divides group in 3 groups, 4 members each

F hands each group a paper slip with a situation

described.

PPT

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0:55 – 1:00

Question for all groups: Please connect your situation to

the idea of complexity theory in the classroom

Each group shares their results

Part II: Work with your students’ communicative

repertoires

1:00 – 1:15

Experiencing (the activity phase)

“Charades”

F divides Ps into two groups (6 members each)

F explains special rules for this game of

“charades” Ps are allowed to do anything but

speak or write in order to explain their word to

the group (e.g. sing a song, point, paint, dance,

use gestures, use sounds, etc.)

Each group decides about 3 volunteers who will

“act out” the words

3 rounds, time 1 minute, each team who can

guess the word gets a point

The winning team gets a small price

Game cards with words

to guess

Timer

1:15 – 1:25

Publishing (sharing reactions and observations)

Group discussion

Guiding questions for discussion:

How was that activity for you? Any immediate

comments?

Was there anything that surprised you?

How was it for you to communicate without

speaking or writing?

1:25– 1:45

1:45 – 1:55

Processing (discussing patterns and dynamics)

Lecturette about repertoire & translingual approach

F gives short overview of repertoire approach

and translingual perspective

F connects Ps concerns from icebreaker activity to

lecturette content

Work alone or in pairs

Come up with a list of everything you can think of

in your own repertoire (2 minutes)

Think about your students, what do you think

they have in their repertoires? (2 minutes)

Circle all the communicative means you could

use in the classroom (1 minute)

Paper

Pens

Whiteboard / Flipchart

Markers

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Ps share the communicative means they have

circled, F makes a list on whiteboard/flipchart

1:55 – 2:15 ***20 Minutes Break***

2:15 – 2:20

2:20 – 2:25

Energizer and Review

Clap circle

Ps and F stand in a circle and F starts a clap to

circle around encouraging Ps to give the clap

around as fast as possible. Depending on group

dynamics, F can add another clap circling the

other direction

Review

F reviews main points from Parts I and II on PPT

F gives out handout with most important points

Ps can use during the following activity

PPT

Handout

Part III: Synthesizing – Bringing everything together in

the classroom

2:25 – 2:45

2:45 – 2:55

Generalizing (developing real world principles)

Develop classroom activities

F divides Ps in groups with regard to the subjects

they teach (if there are not enough people for

one subject to form a group, put together Ps with

similar subjects like maths and physics or English

and French)

Each group gets a flipchart to write down their

ideas

Ps should decide about a classroom context

(what grade, topic, etc.) and then develop a

classroom activity using the ideas covered during

the workshop

Examples: Video, Portfolio, translingual

storytelling, etc.

Ps share their results

Flipchart

2:55 – 3:00

Applying (planning effective use of learning)

Three goals

Write down three goals for yourself and your

own classroom

If you have international students in your

class please make specific goals for each

student – What would you like to pay more

attention to? How do you want to approach

that student differently?

Pens

Paper

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This workshop would be followed by an email a couple of days later in which I summarize the content of

the workshop and remind every participant of the three goals they set themselves at the end of the

workshop by attaching a photo of their goals. In this email I will also ask some simple follow up questions

in form of an anonymous questionnaire:

Did this workshop offer new perspectives for you? If yes, how? If no, why not?

Do you think you will apply ideas and strategies covered in the workshop in your own

teaching? If yes, how are you planning to do it? If no, why not?

Is there anything you did not like about the workshop or you would do differently?

REFERENCES Brooks-Harris, J. E., & Stock-Ward, S. R. (1999). Workshops: Designing and facilitating experiential

learning. Sage Publications.

Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Negotiating translingual literacy: An enactment. Research in the Teaching of

English, 48(1), 40.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood

Cliffs.

Kramsch, C. (2008). Ecological perspectives on foreign language education. Language teaching, 41(03),

389-408.

Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford University

Press.

3:00 – 3:05

If you don’t teach international students right

now, make more general goals for yourself –

What things do you want to pay attention to

in your future as a teacher?

Please make sure you write your name on

the paper

We will have some time to share your goals

at the end. I will also take pictures and email

your goals to you later in my summary email.

F takes a picture of each list for follow up

email

Phone / Photo camera

3:05 – 3:15 Thank you very much

time for questions and comments

reminder that there will be a follow up email

F gives around sign-up sheet for email addresses

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Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic

communities. Tesol Quarterly, 38(4), 573-603.

Pennycook, A. (2012). What might translingual education look like? Babel, 47(1), 4.

Piller, I. (2007). Linguistics and intercultural communication. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(3),

208-226.

Rutter, J. (2006). Refugee Children in the UK. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open

University Press.

Rymes, B. (2014). Communicating beyond language: Everyday encounters with diversity. Routledge.

Taylor, S., & Sidhu, R. K. (2012). Supporting refugee students in schools: what constitutes inclusive

education? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 16(1), 39-56.

APPENDICES

PART I – PROCESSING: SCENARIOS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS A. You teach German in a regular German High School and the next topic on the syllabus is

“Exilliteratur”2 and “Bertolt Brecht.” All of your students were born and raised in Germany

but they have different religious backgrounds which include Christian, Muslim, and Jewish

family backgrounds. You do not need to find a final solution about how to approach this

situation. In your group, just brainstorm about everything that can be of importance or

advantage when teaching.

B. Your class consists of 50% local and 50% immigrant students who moved to Germany

within the last ten years. They originally come from very diverse parts of the world, but

all speak German fluently. The next topic for your music lessons will be “Orchestra music.”

You do not need to find a final solution about how to approach this situation. In your

group, just brainstorm about everything that can be of importance or advantage when

teaching.

C. You teach math in a very diverse multicultural classroom. The next exam will include

several word problems you still need to create. You know that most of your students are

not very interested in mathematics but you are very motivated to show them how much

fun it can be. You do not need to find a final solution about how to approach this situation.

In your group, just brainstorm about everything that can be of importance or advantage

when teaching.

2 Exilliteratur – “a term for literature written by German authors while living in exile in countries in which they had sought political asylum during the National Socialist regime. Its use is usually extended to 1949, the year of the foundation of the two new German states. The category covers both imaginative and autobiographical writings” (Garland, H. B., Garland, M., & Garland, H. (1986). The Oxford companion to German literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.)

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PART II – EXPERIENCING: GAME CARDS

CHRISTMAS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

OKTOBERFEST

MAUNDY THURSDAY3

BICYCLE

ANGELA MERKEL

PART II & III – PROCESSING: POWERPOINT SLIDES

3 German translation: Gründonnerstag (literally green Thursday), would allow participants to point at something green etc.

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PART III – GENERALIZING: HANDOUT

Communicating in a multicultural / multilingual classroom

Some general thoughts about working with refugee and immigrant students

o Three important things to keep in mind: positive and welcoming atmosphere, be aware

of students’ psycho-social needs, and be aware of you students’ linguistic needs

o Try to avoid labels like “traumatized” or “refugee”

o Instead of assuming fixed cultures, try to think about your classroom as its own culture

that is formed through discourse

Complexity theory in the classroom --- Value your students individuality

o Try to see your classroom as a complex system of individual histories, experiences,

memories and values.

o Teachers and students interact with one another and thereby adapt to each other’s

communicative and social practices

o See yourself as an equal part of the classroom culture, always questioning your own

assumptions and just “managing” the resources available

Repertoire approach --- There is more to communication than just language

o “One’s repertoire can include multiple languages, dialects, and registers, in the

institutionally defined sense, but also gesture, dress, posture, and even knowledge of

communicative routines, familiarity with types of food or drink, and mass media

references including phrases, dance moves, and recognizable intonation patterns that

circulate via actors, musicians, and other superstars.” (Rymes, 2014, p. 10)

o Individuals use language and communicative means in order to align with others or

distinguish themselves from a certain group

o Silence can mean more than just a lack of linguistic understanding

o Move away from the idea of languages being monolithic entities to the idea of languages

being dynamic and flexible try to use a translingual approach in your classroom

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STATEMENT OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY