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Problems facing students of different nationalitiesThe recent murder of the Indian post graduate student Anuj Bidve in Salford, Greater Manchester (Salford Advertiser 2012), is an extreme example of problems facing students of different nationalities in the UK. In reality, great numbers of students of many nationalities have studied in the UK without harm and returned home after a positive experience. In fact, many continue to live in Britain. There are however, still problems, less critical ones which don?t hit the headlines - problems in the classroom. To look at one aspect of the ITTT tefl course, multilingual classes are, by definition, students of different nationalities ? as distinct from monolingual classes where the students all speak the same native language (Unit 19). Multilingual classes are usually found in English-speaking countries. I would like to speak of just the UK here, as that is my experience. Britain tends to attract students from countries which have close ties through membership of the Commonwealth. There are no less than 53 independent Commonwealth countries, mainly non-English speaking. To those add migrants from the former Communist countries of Europe, and it is evident that a teacher can be faced with a host of different nationalities. A drawback for the teacher is that there is a lack of common cultural references to use as starting points, so other approaches are necessary, such as using objects, visual aids, or DVDs to engage the interest of the students. Another difficulty raised in this course is that while the teacher of a monolingual class will find the same types of problem arising among his students, a multilingual class raises problems of many different kinds (Unit 19). So more varied materials and group work will be needed in a class of different nationalities. One researcher has contrasted the different learning styles of different nationalities, contrasting ?reflective? japanese students with the more ?impulsive? Brazilians (Rosemary Richey 2004). This can raise challenges of varying approach for the teacher in the classroom. Another writer has pointed out that some students in multilingual classes may have an advantage over other students in the class, causing divisions. Some languages, though very different to English, may have a similar structure (Luc Osstyn 2007). A Polish student will already be familiar with the Roman alphabet and so find it easier to understand the layout of a dictionary for example. In contrast a chinese student will usually not have that advantage and will require extra attention. Consequently, there is a further difficulty that other students become bored while the teacher gives extra attention to the chinese student. So it may be necessary to group students by the type of problem that they have, and provide materials to meet their particular need. Thus while one group receives the attention of the teacher, the others have useful work to do. However such groups should be used for that purpose and then broken up to return to whole-class teaching or other groups with different membership formed e.g. for different levels. Grouping by nationality should not become the norm because students will talk in their native language and secondly, divisions and jealousy could develop among the students. Although all this can seem daunting for an ELF teacher, the picture of different nationalities is not all negative. students in a multilingual class are less likely to converse in their mother tongue, compared to those in a monolingual class, simply because they are different. Pairing of students with different nationalities further encourages talking in English. students in the UK and other English-speaking countries can have their learning reinforced by society around them. As one writer points out (Daniel Krieger 1991), such students have opportunities for English speaking encounters to improve their fluency, which students in other places do not have. In conclusion, although there are advantages and disadvantages in multilingual classes, in comparison particularly with monolingual classes, most writers agree that the main influence on outcomes is the teacher.
