 What makes me a credible authority on this topic? Well, like many English language teachers, I've spent some time abroad. I've had English in Japan. I've worked in Kuwait in the Middle East. And for the last two years, I've been back home here in Ireland, and I've been interacting with students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. And now I imagine that's the case for many of you here. So as you're aware, that often demands some tact and some intercultural know-how. My personal background, in so far as it relates to this topic, is that my parents originally immigrated to Ireland from Iraq. I myself was born in Kavan, the most exotic of cultures. But I grew up in Dublin, and I grew up in a very traditional Middle Eastern household. So negotiating intercultural harmony, integrating cultures, that's something of a necessary life skill for me, and something that I feel colors the way that I interact with my students and the approaches and strategies that I tend to adopt. Okay, so I'll start by telling you a bit about my time in Japan. Only because that was my first real immersion in a culture that was completely alien to anything that I'd ever known or anything that I'd ever been exposed to. And that demanded real adaptation in my part. And while ultimately that was a very enriching experience, it had its share of awkward moments. So any of you who have worked in Japan or traveled there will know that it's a stunning country. Japan is a very unique culture, and it also has a very robust sense of formality in ceremony. So on my arrival there, I was placed in a very middle of nowhere town called Otsunomiya, where I was a very conspicuous minority. On my arrival, I was informed that there would be a ceremony to mark the occasion. And the whole school would be assembled and I would be expected to deliver a speech in Japanese. Okay, now I can speak Japanese, I still don't. So this was the source of much anxiety. I genuinely contemplated just taking a flight home, cutting my lashes and just knocking the whole thing on there. But after a lot of hyperventilation, I took to the podium, there was a sea of faces and I had my phonetically transcribed speech in Japanese that one of the teachers had written out for me. And I just read it out. Now, any of you who do happen to speak Japanese will know that it's a very intonation-based language. So it's all about the inflection, it's all about the cadence. And here I was just reeling it off in a monotone. So I should or to imagine what I must have sounded like. And I'm not certain they really knew what I was talking about, but they laughed it off. They loved it. And now you could say they were just trying to be encouraging to this foreigner to stand up over here. But what that experience established for me is that if you make an effort to embrace someone's culture, in this case your student's culture, and you show a genuine willingness to understand their beliefs, their customs, their traditions, that goes miles towards facilitating your relationship with them and in turn adds significant value to your classroom environment and your learning culture. Now, I know that's not exactly a profound revelation. In fact, that's plain common sense. However, I would argue that it's something that appears to be overlooked in terms of our administrative policies and our teacher training. So I know that in my initial teacher training I received very generic strategies towards integrating students. So for example, we all know that we don't pair students from the same country, because we want to maximize their speaking practice. Or if we're introducing a new topic, we tend to personalize it. So maybe students will talk about their customs, their traditions, festivals in their country. But as far as I can see, it doesn't appear to go much deeper than that. So for the purposes of this talk, I did conduct a Google scholar search, and I discovered an abundance of articles that talk about the intercultural approach, which is a teaching approach you may know that emphasizes the importance of equipping students with the competencies to communicate effectively within their host culture. But very little that addresses the cultural relationship between teacher and student or students between themselves in a diverse classroom. So if anyone does know of any articles that investigate this issue, I'd be very interested in hearing from you. But I think we can all agree that that is something of a risky oversight. Okay, so that was my lengthy preamble. What I'm going to do now is describe five strategies that I use in the classroom to boost cultural harmony. I have no elaborate tricks. They're all very straightforward things that you can do. And my measure of their effectiveness is very much based on my perception of class dynamics and of explicit students we have received. Okay, so strategy number one, their L1. Okay, so what I do here is I learn to say something in their mother tongue, and I ensure that I use it over the course of the semester. So as we've established, language is the main carrier of culture and identity. So this is a very simple and effective way of acknowledging their background. And I don't do anything too fancy. Just stick to phrases like hello, goodbye, thank you. As far as my experience goes, students love to hear you say something in their language. Now, I know that the classroom is strictly an English-owned zone, well, we do discourage the use of the L1. So if you are a straight ace to back this, there are ways to do this. So for example, if you're teaching students idioms, which tend to have a cultural context to them, you can ask them if they have any such phrases in their own language, and you can attempt to say those if you're feeling a bit adventurous. I do have a 30-second audience challenge. Listed here are kind of the dominant L1s that correspond to the common student profiles that we have here. How many of you can produce a phrase in these languages? Some, if not all. Are my slides big enough to have Jap Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian? 30-second challenge? No, we will. Ready, guys? Okay, I can say Masalama, Kefalik. Excellent. Okay, any other languages, please? Ni hao, mo jao, abiana, mo si, bao si, ren. Okay, one more. Ready? I'll take one more. Yes. I'm Russian. I think it's how we pronounce it. Okay. I can say Masalama, Kefalik. Excellent. Okay, any other languages, please? Ni hao, mo jao, abiana, mo si, bao si ren. I think it's how we pronounce it. Okay. I can't verify that, but great. Okay, let's do a strategy number two, the quiz. Okay, this one is a universal hit. I'm going to recommend that you try one thing today. It's the quiz. So, what I tend to use quizzes for is to kind of consolidate lesson material or for lesson review. And I just kind of organize students into teams and I just do a quickfire of questions. So, I include a cultural element to kind of up the fun factor. And so, what I'll do is I'll ask, say, the Japanese students, what's the capital of Saudi Arabia? Or I'll ask the Nigerian students, can they say something in Japanese? Or I'll ask the Saudi students, name two tribes in Nigeria. And what this effectively does is it prompts them to kind of ask each other. And it's very hard for you to kind of see their responses and their engagement. And with classes that I tend to really hit it off with, I'll actually extend this activity throughout the term. And you really see them get fired up. And this is my absolute favorite strategy. Okay. Strategy number three. Okay. Now, this strategy almost didn't make the cut because it's very much rooted in my own personal opinion. And having investigated it a little more thoroughly, I did discover that it's not as black and white as I imagined. But maybe you're familiar with this trend with our Chinese students. On the register, his name is Zangian. We're going to call him Gary. Okay. This is something that I've always been quite uncomfortable with. And I've had heated discussions in the staff room about it. But I did kind of research it a bit more deeply. And I did discover that it is actually a common practice in China to kind of have a Western name and a Chinese name. I, as a rule, always say their Chinese name. And for the most part, students do tend to appreciate that, even when I butcher the pronunciation. There is a significant number of students who do like the brand identity that comes with their English name. And in that case, I do respect it. But as a policy, I do advocate using their real name. That's just my opinion. Okay. Strategy number four. We address the elephant. Okay. So we all have our biases, our preconceived notions, our kind of snap judgments. That's just how we operate. Okay. So for example, if you have a female student in your class wearing a face covering and you're uncomfortable with that, I think that's understandable. However, what's not acceptable is to carry that into the classroom. Okay. Because as you're aware, we are the primary model of behavior for those students. So the best way to deal with that is to address the elephant. So for example, a couple of semesters ago, I had a group of students, Japanese students, Saudi students, Kuwaiti students. Dynamic was just really awkward. Just really stiff. I had the Saudi girls clustered over here. I had the Japanese students huddled over there in fear. And there was all the gender politics going on. I couldn't kind of pair up some male students with some female students. So it was really just quite an uncomfortable class to teach. However, one week, one of the Saudi girls gave her weekly presentation about women in Saudi Arabia. And she discussed, okay, why does she wear a headscarf? Her beliefs, her customs. And they were all sitting there in a wrapped attention. And these are like the weekly presentations. We're all just counting them in until the stitch water. But they were all asking questions. They were all really engaged. And it really kind of opened up the dialogue. Honestly, after that, the dynamic completely changed. There was a shift in the energy. And the class was just a much pleasant place to be. Much more pleasant, basically. Okay, so address the elephant, especially if the elephant is your own biases or your own uncertainties. It's vital to address that. Okay, so strategy number five is not really a strategy. It's more of what would you do? Here I have three scenarios that I've encountered in my classrooms and that I've dealt with in my own way. What I'd like you to do is just spend a few minutes discussing with your partner. How would you deal with these situations? And maybe we can discuss together. Should I read out loud or should I? Who on the backing team? Okay, so strategy number one, you have a Chinese student who wants to conduct a survey on honor killings in the Middle East, okay? It's a mixed class of Chinese and Middle Eastern students. How would you handle that situation? Tell me how they would deal with situation number one. He'd let them do it. Anyone disagree? I'd ask the Chinese student to talk about Friday eat dogs. Ooh. Okay, fine. Ask the Chinese students, do you think that's appropriate? Is it gonna be okay? So ask them, what do you know, consider who's in the class? Do you think that's appropriate? Exactly, it depends on the student and their motivation to find your perception of why they're doing this. I think I would suggest it as an essay topic that's more private but I wouldn't suggest it as a presentation topic in front of the class. Okay. I'm not killing your motivation but I'm redirecting, redirecting if they're really passionate about doing that research. Okay, I want to make a complaint about this free movement spread. Do you think that you could explicitly say that? So if you did that. Oh, he's a bright student. That's a good approach. Okay, so do I know how I dealt with it? Okay, so it depended on, was the student himself was quite belligerent. I think his motivation for doing this was to kind of incite a bit of controversy. So I just kind of subtly steered him away from the topic without making it seem as if I was kind of impeding his freedom of speech because I don't know how I dealt with it. I don't know how I dealt with it. I don't know how I dealt with it. I'm not impeding his freedom of speech because I didn't think it was a constructive topic for that particular class. But obviously it depends on the individual. And then do I have time to go to strategy number two? One minute. Do you want to do? Okay, strategy number two, we'll leave it at that. The student is unfocused in class and has missed the submission deadline. He is observing Ramadan and offers this as an excuse. How would you handle it? Yes? I think, again, it depends on the student if it's the first such time something has happened and it is indeed Ramadan. That's what I'm saying. Then fair enough, if he said it five times already and it just happens to be Ramadan then hopefully there's something else going on. Precisely. And yes? Personally, because I do observe Ramadan and I think the best thing is just to really look into it, what's Ramadan about? Is it really about being lazy? Okay. Question is moral. Yeah, just really to say, okay, what's behind Ramadan? I mean, I understand I'm not observing it or whatever it is and then just say, it's an excuse. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So could you have any questions? Thank you.