ESL Teacher

Whether they want to or not, I always figure it’s part of my job to teach students about other cultures – or perhaps teach is the wrong word, I want to say that I help them learn about other cultures. In my multicultural classroom here in Perth, where I might have students from eight or nine different nationalities and three continents sitting together, they’re all keen to learn about other ways of life and I’m more than happy to facilitate it.

One activity that’s always a lot of fun is to divide the students into groups according to the continent they come from. Usually I’m trying to separate them all so the element of surprise when I ask the Asians to sit at one table, the South Americans at another and the Europeans at yet another already gets them intrigued.

Next, I give each group a blank piece of paper (or two) and ask them to draw each other’s continents. So the South American team have to draw a map of Asia and a map of Europe, trying to fill in some country details and get the basic shape right. It’s important to give them a time limit because some students who have a good geographical knowledge could otherwise spend hours getting things accurate.

One usual result is that the maps each group draw are utterly different. It’s fun to compare them. Then you can break up the class into mixed continent groups and get them to explain the geography of their continent to each other, or segue into many other kinds of activities – for example, reviewing spelling and pronunciation of nationality adjectives. Whatever you do, keep it light and fun so nobody feels bad about not having the knowledge – focus on acquiring it now because the local experts are all there.

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