The Multilingual and Multicultural Classroom - Take One

The internationalization of Higher Education has increased in recent years and has resulted in a new situation for many colleges and universities: faculty as well as students have different first languages, they come from different cultural backgrounds and more often than not, they have grown up in different pedagogical / didactic traditions. While we celebrate diversity, there is no denying that this situation also creates challenges in the Multilingual and Multicultural Classroom. In a certain sense, we see a Bermuda Triangle, the three angles of which represent language, culture and pedagogical tradition, and within which we as educators need to navigate successfully. On the basis of current research from several European universities, this presentation maps out these challenges and discusses what can be done in order to overcome them and enable students as well as faculty to reap the benefits of the Multilingual and Multicultural Classroom