Cultural Diversity: When Teachers are at a Loss

Teaching is a rewarding activity, but it can be really frustrating when teachers fail to make their students learn. Teachers in the Department of English of our University stumble on a group of students from a particular region in Indonesia. Our observations on these students in our own classes, feedbacks from teachers in other classes, remarks from the chair of the students’ association, and the results of an interview with them reveal problems in entry behaviour, academic achievement, initative, motivation, class responses, and self-discipline. The teachers find it hard to deal with these students and think that these problems are rooted in the so-called cultural differences, but are they really cultural? This article describes these problems, addresses their reasons from the perspectives of culture and pedagogy, and explores possibilities to overcome them. Keywords: cultural diversity, teachers, students, problem