Are We Really Ready to Accommodate Cultural Diversity in Our Language Classes?

Abstract

After the civil war and the terrorist threat experienced in Syria and Iraq recently, school-age children of the families who were forced to migrate to Turkey have gradually begun to be incorporated into Turkish education system. Although the engagement is few in number now, it will increase within the next years in line with the planning, and culturally diverse classrooms will be added to the agenda of Turkish education system. This study examines the approaches of the native pre-service teachers in Turkey to culturally diverse classrooms, to what extent they consider themselves adequate in providing literacy instruction in these classrooms, and briefly whether or not they are ready for such classrooms. In this survey study, 141 pre-service teachers from four universities were interviewed. As a result of the research, it was found that more than half of the pre-service teachers interviewed disapprove of instructing in culturally diverse classrooms and three out of every four pre-service teachers consider their education program inadequate in preparing themselves for these classrooms.

Keywords: literacy instruction, cultural diversity, preservice teachers