Culturing learning approaches in multicultural classrooms

Abstract

Globalisation and internationalisation of education had seen significant development in Malaysia but has unfortunately lifted our focus away from our own internal education issues. The teachers with effective multicultural behaviours and attitudes display appropriate understanding and acceptance of different cultures by responding to its subtle differences and complexities. The teachers set the ground for efficient and effective multicultural training in their respective classrooms considering the diverse cultural perspectives of their students. There is a need to understand the cultural dimensions of Malaysian students mainly from the three predominant races: Malays, Chinese and Indians who co-exist and come together in a class from various cultural backgrounds. This study is based on the assumption that the three predominant races of Malaysian students may display different learning approaches based on their cultural characteristics.