Cultural Awareness in the Classroom | TESOL
Teachers are told often that they need to be aware of and be sensitive to their students’ cultures. Before we go on with the article, what does cultural awareness look like in action?
Cultural awareness means to understand or acknowledge the cultures, values, norms, beliefs, and languages of an individual that is different from one’s own. To make it easy for you to understand, cultural awareness in a diverse setting involves the ability to stand back from us and become aware of our cultural values, perceptions, and beliefs.
How to Develop Cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness is a common term not just in education, politics, or media but is used nowadays. It may sound simple but it has a great impact on people, especially students.
Now we are off to a solid start. You realize that there is much more involved in cultural awareness. Not just language, norms, traditions, and symbols but also both tangible and intangible. Cultural differences like these are less widely known, but very important when it comes to understanding your students from all backgrounds. That is it is vital to read up on the home cultures of your students and not just flit through their holidays and call it a day.
The Pertinence of Awareness in Education
Cultural sensitivity training is often thought to be the most relevant in the business world. Companies with a large number of employees from around the globe or expanding into new markets must understand their colleagues and customers.
It is very important to know cultural awareness to avoid discrimination and understand each of our students’ diversity. Keep in mind that no student shall be left behind no matter what his or her culture is and this is where the saying respect individual’s differences enter.
