STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES FOR MULTICULTURAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
RESPECT EXERCISE
Respect and love is the essence of a good relationship. The aim of Multicultural Environment can be achieved when learners will develop respect towards others cultures. Teacher may exercise about enhancing respect through discussion. The focus of discussion should remain respect i.e. How learners perceive respect, Which are verbal and non-verbal indicators of respect; How community of respect can be build etc.
ETHENIC EXERCISE
Ethenic group is a social group that share common and disincentive culture, religion, language or the like. In this exercise learners share their religion, culture, traditional background. While sharing these teacher may focus similarities and differences between different group. Further learners may think about causes of differences and similarities.
NAME STORIES
Works toward bringing the stories of individuals to the fore in the multicultural experience. Participants write and share stories about their names and nicknames, what they mean, why they were given them, and how they relate to them.
SHARING OURSELVES
“Who I Am” Poems: Begins active introspective process while continuing to provide opportunities for individuals to make connections with each other. Participants write short poems, starting each line with “I am…,” encouraging them to describe in their own words who they are and what’s important to their identity.
THE DEPTH AND BREADTH OF “MULTICULTURAL”
Explores the definition of “multicultural,” the dimensions of culture, and the consistency with which we define our culture and the cultures of others. Participants go through a series of steps to gain a better understanding of the complexity of multiculturalness, and are then challenged to apply this both to themselves and to how they understand each other.
REFLECTING PREJUDICE
Prejudice is unreasonable favourable or an unfavourable feeling for some groups. Prejudice in action is known as discrimination. Teacher need to organise thinking exercise about
- What is prejudice.
- What is discrimination.
- Sharing stories regarding experiences with prejudice or discrimination.
- Interaction with victim of discrimination.
- Thinking on self-prejudice.
- Thinking of family prejudice.
MULTICULTURAL SELF
This activity engage learners in a identity process. Learners are ask to identify what they think to be most important dimensions/aspects of their own identity, religious identify, gender identify etc. In this process they will understand stereotypes(wrong assumptions about others group). Learners will share stories about when they feel proud to be part of his culture or group. Same way when learner feel down or hurtful to be associated with a specific group.
INCLUSION-EXCLUSION
It is activity again in which learners shares their experiences. They have to think and find different ways that how others can made to feel inclusive or exclusive for learning process. In simple words learners learn to include others who learning process.
STUDENT FISHBOWL
This is a activity between student and teacher. First teacher encourages student to dialogue or discuss on multicultural education. Teacher listens the experience, ideas critical evaluation of learners.
QUIZ
Teachers can organise quiz on multiculture. Critical thinking about all media and information is an essential aspect of multicultural learning. Teacher should test his and his students’ understanding of culture, gender, and socioeconomic class with quiz, this may help to analysis on stereotypes, misinformation, and prejudices and how they inform teaching and learning.
ROLE PLAYS
Teachers are often hesitant to introduce topics like regionalism, linguism, racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism in the classroom. It is because their training or education has not prepared them to handle the issues. This activity provides learners an opportunity to share their stories about difficult and unprepared situations. They learn how to address these circumstances in the future.
COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
It means solving problem with cooperation of group members. The purpose of this activity is to engage teachers in a process of collaborative problem-solving around multicultural issues through the use of case studies. Learners will develop an understanding successfully to address their issues that arise around race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, or any other identity dimension. They will also understand the collaborative learning process and how they tend to participate in it.
WEB ACTIVITIES
There are a number of web-based activities which a teacher can use for multicultural learning. These include awareness activities, cultural sensitivity activities, multicultural calendar, teaching tolerance, teaching about stereotype. Some websites contains lesson plans, discussion on topics and classroom activities. Some provide multicultural history, multiculturalpedia, multicultural kids.
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| Dimensions of multicultural education | Benefits of multiculturalism education | Challenges for multicultural learning environment |